Massive down payment means t-mobile wants to pay me!

Alaub1990 wrote:

I don't usually post on forums bet I felt it necessary in this situation. I am a long term sprint customer (now tmobile obviously) I had leased a galaxy s20 ultra through sprint. The lease term was 18 months. In January of 2022 the lease ended. It is now March so naturally I would like to upgrade so I'm not paying $60 a month towards a phone that is already paid off but needs to be returned. So I tried today to upgrade to the galaxy s22 ultra. Online it told me it was going to be a $500 down payment. I never had to put money down for a phone in the past. My credit is good and I understand tmobile is getting rid of the leasing program (good riddons) but the $500 down payment caught me off guard so I called... after talking to 4 different sales reps, they all told me that my down payment was actually going to be $920!  However, there is a promotion for the s22 ultra right now for $1000 dollars off! Oh wow that's perfect I thought. Well I thought wrong because even after the promotion which brought the phone down from $1300 to $300, they still want $920 down... so basically, I will be paying $920 for a $300 phone in which case tmobile will pay me monthly to a total of $620. What. The. Eff. Can someone please explain this to me. 

OMG I had the exact same thing happened to us. We have been with T mobile for 5 years and wanted to upgrade to the IPhone. NOT lease but purchase. It would add $100 a month to our bill until paid off (for 2 phones). Got all the paperwork done and rung up and then was told we needed to pay about $900 as a deposit, I was floored! I might understand if it were a lease and return thing but a purchase is something else. Really frustrating! I think the reason people choose to have it included in their bill is because such a large amount of money is hard to come up with at 1 time.