I'm in the middle of having a home loan approved, so as soon as the sales rep told me she was going to perform a credit pull, I cancelled the transaction and headed for the door. I usually have no issue with someone doing an occasional credit pull, but this is absolutely a no go.
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iPhone Upgrade Program Experience Thread
- Thread starter Carlos22Dayday
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Do you mean out of date in comparison to your cell phone address or billing address?
My DL is several apartments behind my current but I never update it as long as I stay in the same county/state.
My DL is several apartments behind my current but I never update it as long as I stay in the same county/state.
I just went ahead and purchased full price. Maybe I'll try again next year since Wisconsin just updated their driver's license design and I should probably get a new one anyway.
I'm right there with you. I have a very good credit score, but taking a hard pull inquiry for a program like this is an absolute deal breaker for me. I would much prefer to just pay outright.
You have to have a credit card (they will not take debit). I have a charge on my credit card for what looks like the initial payment and taxes (iPhone 6s+ 128GB)
They said your DL address has to match the address on the credit card account you're using and the address on your Apple ID.
I have a 10GB Family Share plan with three lines. The line I bought the phone on is NOT yet eligible for an upgrade, which we theorized wouldn't matter since this is an outright purchase, and it seems that is the case indeed. Good news.
Has this been confirmed? I spoke to two Apple Online Store reps a week ago and they both said you can apply the credit to the payments. One even said the store would issue a credit to the card you've set to make payments.
It's hard for me to imagine they wouldn't account for people who would want to trade their current phones and join the Upgrade Program.
My appointment is in like a half hour, so I guess I'll find out soon.
Basically a Hard Inquiry is where a creditor pulls your credit, and codes the inquiry in such a way that it shows on your credit report that an inquiry was done by a creditor, for the purpose of extending credit. A hard inquiry is generally not favorable, because depending on the persons credit profile it will hurt the score for about a year, but remain visible for two years. The more hard inquiries a person has, no bueno. A Soft Inquiry is also where a creditor pulls your credit, but they code it in such a way that it only shows on the report as visible to you and has no impact on credit score at all. Creditors that pull your credit in the future do not see these.
Usually when new credit is extended, it is typically a hard inquiry. Soft inquiries are very typical by your current creditors to make sure there are no issues. As an example, it is not uncommon for credit card companies to do soft inquires on people quite often to see how much debt someone has and payment history on other accounts.
Yeah, you can apply the credit to it, through away your money, and still make the same payment per month as everyone else.
Correct we don't even pull your credit at that point, use your payment history as a determining factor.
The upgrade program went smooth for me. Only issue was the activation part at the end. Not sure who's end always at fault but it got resolved.
Hopefully the credit check is just a soft pull. =\
Hopefully the credit check is just a soft pull. =\
I used the iPhone Upgrade Program this morning. All went very smoothly except I was not able to use my business AMEX card for the purchase / installment plan. When we first tried it, the Apple Store employee told me it was an issue with my card, not with my credit check. So I called AMEX and they told me I was the 5th person to call in the last few minutes with the same problem.
I can't say for sure if the hangup was an AMEX thing or if it's on Apple's end by not allowing business cards of any kind. AMEX told me there was nothing they could do on their end because of the way the transaction was being processed by Apple. They said on their end, it looks like Apple is trying to process it as a cash withdrawal and they said that's a no-go. It was very strange. I ended up just running the transactions on my personal credit card.
I am a small business owner, and the AMEX has my name on it and is tied to my credit and my SSN, but it was still a no-go. It's almost as if the process of the credit check is tied to the verification of using a personal credit card as well. I hope to be able to login and switch the monthly payments to my business card, but we'll see. My personal credit card now has two charges, one each for the two phones' first installments plus tax.
The bottom of the receipt states "LOAN IS WITH CITIZENS ONE. For information on your loan, see www.citizensoneloan.com." So this is a very unique transaction. You're basically getting a loan, then paying off that loan with your credit card.
FWIW, I have very good credit and purchased a 6S+ 128 and a 6S 128 on Verizon, while in the middle of our two-year contract. No problems on any of those fronts, and no upgrade charges.
I can't say for sure if the hangup was an AMEX thing or if it's on Apple's end by not allowing business cards of any kind. AMEX told me there was nothing they could do on their end because of the way the transaction was being processed by Apple. They said on their end, it looks like Apple is trying to process it as a cash withdrawal and they said that's a no-go. It was very strange. I ended up just running the transactions on my personal credit card.
I am a small business owner, and the AMEX has my name on it and is tied to my credit and my SSN, but it was still a no-go. It's almost as if the process of the credit check is tied to the verification of using a personal credit card as well. I hope to be able to login and switch the monthly payments to my business card, but we'll see. My personal credit card now has two charges, one each for the two phones' first installments plus tax.
The bottom of the receipt states "LOAN IS WITH CITIZENS ONE. For information on your loan, see www.citizensoneloan.com." So this is a very unique transaction. You're basically getting a loan, then paying off that loan with your credit card.
FWIW, I have very good credit and purchased a 6S+ 128 and a 6S 128 on Verizon, while in the middle of our two-year contract. No problems on any of those fronts, and no upgrade charges.
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This does make me wonder if in the future people who are re-enrolling in the program will get a soft pull. This may be a hard pull for all first-timers because none of us are in the system for this bank through Apple's program yet, but maybe if we're already in the system next year it will be a soft pull. Just conjecture on my part.
Very good point. I would sure hope that it is a soft pull when re-new'ing. It would be horrible to ding people with a new HP every year, in my opinion.
Had to finally de-lurk to reply! This was my literal exact experience and I'm really sad to hear the process hasn't been great for some others. Makes sense that it's a system error for those of you with great/amazing credit.
I was approved right away. By no means do I have stellar credit either, in fact it's pretty low. I think it honestly depends on the card used for purchase and any info tied to that card. I used my Apple Rewards Barclaycard Visa and everything went off without a hitch.
Got my iPhone 6S Plus 128GB Space Grey in my possession now and man is it a beauty!
**ETA: I am also an AT&T customer with a grandfathered unlimited data plan. No issues switching over and no hidden fees.
I tried to do the upgrade program through T-Mobile and as usual, their systems were all screwy and my Apple Rep spent an hour trying to get it to process. He was on the phone with them and kept getting disconnected. I finally gave up and just put it on a credit card. Typical T-Mobile. I have to ask myself why I continue with them.
My experience was seamless. My appt. was for 11:30AM CST and got in at 11:35-11:40 and was out in about 10 mins. I wasn't worried about the credit part, but did check Credit Karma (showed 609). I'm happy. Just thought I would share.