Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Financing a MacBook Pro! Help!

ThirtyThr33

ThirtyThr33

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 13, 2011
278
1
Boulder, Colorado
I need to call upon the wizardly knowledge of those who know about this stuff more than I do.:confused: I'm a student who wants to finance a MBP for 12 months with no interest if paid in full. I know Apple and Barclay have banded together to offer this however I have read horror stories about them screwing people over. I heard amazon also does it but they are out of stock on almost all apple laptops. What should I do? What banks or companies are most honest and legitimate?

I appreciate you all :)
 
If you have some good credit best buy offers a best buy card and you get 0 percent interest for 18months
 
I am using the Barclay card without issue. I set up automatic payments, they money comes out of my account, credited to the card account, all is good. The thing is, you MUST pay on time, that doesn't mean a day late, that means PAY EARLY so you allow for delays and you MUST pay before the interest free date expires, which to mean means, if they give you 12 months, pay it off in 11 or even 10 to allow for a margin of error. Otherwise it is a great way to use someone else's money.
 
You are much, much better off getting a good credit card with an intro APR. The gimmick cards from stores (BB) etc, are a rip-off. Get an Amex Blue Cash card, get 12 months 0% interest, and still get the purchase protection and extended warranty as a benefit. Such benefits are not offered financing through Apple or a store.

edit: Soapbox: financing a computer is stupid. Save up and pay for it outright.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

wct097 said:
You are much, much better off getting a good credit card with an intro APR. The gimmick cards from stores (BB) etc, are a rip-off. Get an Amex Blue Cash card, get 12 months 0% interest, and still get the purchase protection and extended warranty as a benefit. Such benefits are not offered financing through Apple or a store.

edit: Soapbox: financing a computer is stupid. Save up and pay for it outright.
Click to expand...

100% agree. Save the cash and buy when you have the money.
 
wct097 said:
You are much, much better off getting a good credit card with an intro APR. The gimmick cards from stores (BB) etc, are a rip-off. Get an Amex Blue Cash card, get 12 months 0% interest, and still get the purchase protection and extended warranty as a benefit. Such benefits are not offered financing through Apple or a store.

edit: Soapbox: financing a computer is stupid. Save up and pay for it outright.
Click to expand...

There is a bunch of bad advice in this post. "Gimmick cards" aren't a rip off. I use them frequently. Know the terms and follow the system. You'll benefit from it.

Financing a computer with 0% interest is stupid? Let's see. The company gives me a computer for $2000, which I promise to pay off in 12 months or incur a penalty. I put $2000 in my MM account, earning me money. Every month I send them $170 dollars, keeping the remainder in the bank, still earning me money. In 12 months they have their $2000, I have the money I earned.

It's only stupid if you're irresponsible and can't pay your bills on time.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Martlets, I am glad you are responsible enough to pay it off, unfortunately in this overleveraged country, you are not the norm.
 
ThirtyThr33 said:
I know Apple and Barclay have banded together to offer this however I have read horror stories about them screwing people over.
Click to expand...
With google, you can read horror stories of literally any credit card brand screwing people over. IMO, the biggest issue with Barclay was that to avoid being hit with interest, the final payment was due on (or before) the year anniversary of the PURCHASE DATE, not necessarily the regular "Bill Due" date for that month. With all of the recent credit card laws Congress has passed, I doubt that's an issue anymore.

I like the Best Buy card because their "no interest for 18 months" financing plan isn't an introductory offer .. it's always been an an-going option on purchases over a certain dollar amount (vs. a one-time intro offer like many other cards). As a homeowner, I've made use of "no interest for 18 months" several times over the last few years when buying appliances and electronics.
 
Martlets93 said:
Financing a computer with 0% interest is stupid? Let's see. The company gives me a computer for $2000, which I promise to pay off in 12 months or incur a penalty. I put $2000 in my MM account, earning me money. Every month I send them $170 dollars, keeping the remainder in the bank, still earning me money. In 12 months they have their $2000, I have the money I earned.

It's only stupid if you're irresponsible and can't pay your bills on time.
Click to expand...

THIS ^^^ is exactly how I bought my macbook pro. If you are a disciplined person, go this route.
 
Martlets93 said:
There is a bunch of bad advice in this post. "Gimmick cards" aren't a rip off. I use them frequently. Know the terms and follow the system. You'll benefit from it.

Financing a computer with 0% interest is stupid?
Click to expand...

To each their own. Some people can benefit from good advice, some people are destined to think that they're always right and don't need advice.

I made the mistake of using a Best Buy card for 0% APR even when I had the cash to pay for a new TV. When that TV broke inside of 6 months, I had to pay to fix it because Best Buy wouldn't take it back and the BB credit card offered no benefits outside of the APR. Had I used the advice I offered above, I'd have had 0% APR on the purchase on my Amex and Amex would have replaced the TV without me having to come out of pocket $250 to ship it back to the manufacturer.

Best Buy CC, Apple Financing, etc do not offer any benefit beyond a 0% APR. You are MUCH better off getting an Amex Blue Cash (or Discover Novus, or Chase Ink, or any other quality credit card) with a 0% intro rate as all good credit cards offer purchase protection and extended warranties in addition to a good APR.

Let's see. The company gives me a computer for $2000, which I promise to pay off in 12 months or incur a penalty.
Click to expand...

When I was in college, I worked at a retail computer store and was tasked with approving store credit cards for people buying computers. It's stupid, it's a gimmick, and it's easy to get burned.

I put $2000 in my MM account, earning me money. Every month I send them $170 dollars, keeping the remainder in the bank, still earning me money. In 12 months they have their $2000, I have the money I earned.
Click to expand...

And when your computer dies and you don't have a good credit card company offering you purchase protection and extended warranties, you're screwed. Miss a payment by accident and you get stuck with the full interest for the full term. In-house financing via store credit cards is STUPID.

It's only stupid if you're irresponsible and can't pay your bills on time.
Click to expand...

I'm a big fan of using credit responsibly. You're a big fan of arguing for the sake of arguing. I never said that you shouldn't take advantage of 0% APR. I said that financing something you can't afford is bad. Save up and pay outright (or in payments from your MM account). I also said that using gimmick cards rather than cards that offer benefits is bad. I stand by those two assertions.

edit: furthermore, the topic of conversation is a college kid buying a computer, and I quite blatantly posed my opinion on financing in general as my soapbox opinion. The rest, regarding benefits and risks of in-house financing vs. quality credit cards is as good as fact.
 
Martlets93 said:
Financing a computer with 0% interest is stupid? Let's see. The company gives me a computer for $2000, which I promise to pay off in 12 months or incur a penalty. I put $2000 in my MM account, earning me money. Every month I send them $170 dollars, keeping the remainder in the bank, still earning me money. In 12 months they have their $2000, I have the money I earned.

It's only stupid if you're irresponsible and can't pay your bills on time.
Click to expand...

It's not always that simple - their terms can be very deceiving.
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/11403476/
 
This stuff is a good deal if you have enough money and just prefer to get some interest. If the give you a 0% interest loan they basically pay you the inflation rate, which is not much at the moment but not to much.
The problem only arises with how they make money of this stuff. Most people that take those offers do have money problems and if you cannot pay on time they charge you a lot and then it is a ripoff. They exploit stupid people who buy things they cannot afford. I don't think that is ethically correct but there is definitely nothing wrong with using it to your own benefit.
Just keep in mind that you get ripped off if you cannot pay for whatever reasons. You need to at least be able to borrow the money from parents or stuff. If you already have so bad credit that they wouldn't help you out in the short term in case you lost your monthly income along the way than you should just save up and pay. Or if you keep forgetting to pay bills stay away.

If you got a full bank account and just prefer to do something else with the money instead of handing it over right away it is a good deal.
 
wct097 said:
I made the mistake of using a Best Buy card for 0% APR even when I had the cash to pay for a new TV. When that TV broke inside of 6 months, I had to pay to fix it because Best Buy wouldn't take it back and the BB credit card offered no benefits outside of the APR. Had I used the advice I offered above, I'd have had 0% APR on the purchase on my Amex and Amex would have replaced the TV without me having to come out of pocket $250 to ship it back to the manufacturer.
Click to expand...
Are you sure that's correct? AMEX's purchase protection only offers 90 days of coverage against damage and theft, not product malfunction, and not six months after purchase. They do also tack another year of warranty on, but you weren't outside of the original warranty of the TV. :confused:

Miss a payment by accident and you get stuck with the full interest for the full term.
Click to expand...
Miss a payment on an AMEX or Visa and see what happens to your APR. lol
 
aristobrat said:
Are you sure that's correct? AMEX's purchase protection only offers 90 days of coverage against damage and theft, not product malfunction, and not six months after purchase. They do also tack another year of warranty on, but you weren't outside of the original warranty of the TV. :confused:
Click to expand...

It has been my experience that the extended warranty will kick in if the retailer doesn't take back the item under manufacturer warranty. I had an issue with a purchase 8 months into ownership. I went back to Office Max and was told to call the manufacturer. I called Amex, and they simply credited me back my purchase price.
 
aristobrat said:
Miss a payment on an AMEX or Visa and see what happens to your APR. lol
Click to expand...

Not even in the same ballpark. You miss a payment on the Amex 9 months into your 12 months of 0% APR, and you may get stuck with a 29% APR.... but with some in-house financing offers, you'll be stuck with interest all the way back to the purchase date.

The difference is monumental.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Get an Amex blue cashcard - 0% interest, cash back, and use ebates.com. You'll get 1% back from Amex (I think) and 1% from ebates the last I checked, you'll get an extended warranty and better service than most other credit companies.

Just make sure you don't miss payments and that you have it paid off by the 12th statement. I've seen a lot of my friends get sucked in by the 0% interest card to buy their computers and they screwed themselves over by not cutting up the card after they bought the computer, they always had the "0% interest for another 6 (or however many) months, I can afford a little more" mentality, every other day.
 
wct097 said:
It has been my experience that the extended warranty will kick in if the retailer doesn't take back the item under manufacturer warranty. I had an issue with a purchase 8 months into ownership. I went back to Office Max and was told to call the manufacturer. I called Amex, and they simply credited me back my purchase price.
Click to expand...

This doesn't make sense to me, but I'm glad it worked out for you. I'm surprised AMEX didn't tell you to try and use the manufacturer's warranty first, as that's what I had to do when still inside my original warranty. If the charge itself is rather small, I have seen AMEX just refund the amount simply as a matter of courtesy.
 
jenzjen said:
This doesn't make sense to me, but I'm glad it worked out for you. I'm surprised AMEX didn't tell you to try and use the manufacturer's warranty first, as that's what I had to do when still inside my original warranty. If the charge itself is rather small, I have seen AMEX just refund the amount simply as a matter of courtesy.
Click to expand...

I'm sure they would suggest that you deal with the manufacturer's warranty first, but having found it to be unsatisfactory (having to pay to receive warranty service), Amex has stepped up for me multiple times. I can't praise them enough.
 
jenzjen said:
This doesn't make sense to me, but I'm glad it worked out for you. I'm surprised AMEX didn't tell you to try and use the manufacturer's warranty first, as that's what I had to do when still inside my original warranty. If the charge itself is rather small, I have seen AMEX just refund the amount simply as a matter of courtesy.
Click to expand...

Ive been an AMEX customer for 8 years and I also worked for them. This doesnt surprise me.

I bought a $1100 Canon Lens only to drop and break it, I used my AMEX to buy it so I called AMEX and they refunded me $1100 to buy a new one. This was in 2008. Since then I know they revised their policy and its now $1000 per incident and $10,000/year I think or maybe $5000 cant recall.

I only had to send in statement stating it couldn't be repaired.
 
I agree with those above, it's better to make sure you have the money to buy in full. But if you know you're going to have the money, then finance. I got a AMEX blue cash card and decided why not buy my MBP with it. I only got a 6 month 0% APR though.
 
Yea, always pay cash if you can. Not everyone has this luxury however. Even if you could do 50% cash, 50% CC or finance thats way better.
 
Well to the folks who said I should save up to buy a computer, I forgot to mention my parents won't even let me shop for one until I at least have $1000 saved up. So I guess I was going to get a card, drop a $1000 payment on the first day, and then make payments on it as I go. I do like the appeal of extra coverage on my MBP from a BB card though :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back