Forum Discussion
Ridiculous Down Payment
I am completely appalled at what happened today.
I had finally decided to ditch ATT due to slow LTE speeds in my area and jump over to T-Mobile and went to do so today. I'm going from an LG G4 to a Note7.
My information was taken for a credit check, which I wasn't at all worried about. My credit isn't excellent, but with all three fico scores in the upper 600s I assumed there wasn't going to be much of an issue, even if a small deposit/down paymentt was needed. Add to that my perfect history with ATT and Verizon and I figured the switch was a done deal.
So then, imagine my surprise when I was told they could finance the phone for $700 down. Seven-hundred.
First of all, I can't imagine why I'd bother because at that point it would make more sense to buy it outright.
Relatively speaking, I paid less down and had a significantly easier time purchasing a new car recently.
I contacted customer service to see if I could figure out why it was so high, and if a mistake might have been made. The representative (who, to his credit, was very nice) informed me that this was indeed correct and unfortunately had no real explanation as to why.
Just as an experiment, I had a Verizon sales clerk see if they could get me approved, and there was no problem at all. No money down, Note7 on their equivalent monthly financing option.
Similarly, I could use my current Next plan with ATT and pay nothing up front.
Why then, does it seem T-Mobile is making it substantially more difficult to switch to them than Verizon?
I'm actually extremely disappointed. I was fully prepared to join "Team Magenta" for the benefits and better coverage in my area. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with the same old Big Two it would seem, as I'm certainly not paying $700+ up-front to go to T-Mobile. Especially not for seemingly no reason.
I'm so upset and disgusted with tmobile right now! They are asking for $350 down! What type of down payment is that, and I'm on the original jump where I do not have to pay half of an old phone off before I purchase a new one, and I can jump twice a year! I really wanted this phone badly now I'm so hurt. Does anyone else have this high down payment. I been a loyal customer for over a decade, and I jump every year I never had a down payment this high!!
It's is really $279 down plus tax, but as mentioned above the most T-Mobile will finance on EIP is $720 (= $30 x 24 mo) so when the phone is $999. It was the same with the Note 8 and the S9+ if you look at the retail price - $720 = down payment (plus tax).
tidbits wrote:
How is T-Mobile going to know your history with other carriers? The reason why you may have a "better" deal is because you do have history with them like you said.
That’s not at all true I’ve been with T-Mobile for going on 22 years and my parents as well and both of us have outrageous down down payments I need to upgrade my XR and I was looking at the 12 pro max 512gb it’s a 1400$ phone they want a down payment of 1057$ before tax why bother doing installments then
Joseph L wrote:
tidbits wrote:
How is T-Mobile going to know your history with other carriers? The reason why you may have a "better" deal is because you do have history with them like you said.
That’s not at all true I’ve been with T-Mobile for going on 22 years and my parents as well and both of us have outrageous down down payments I need to upgrade my XR and I was looking at the 12 pro max 512gb it’s a 1400$ phone they want a down payment of 1057$ before tax why bother doing installments then
And to further add to this point I was never a Verizon wireless customer and they want 400$ still high but a hell of a lot better then 1057$. And that's with tax
in the same boat. came here to leave ATT (4 lines, 4 phones). my husband has a 750+ credit rating, we own a $300k house, we own several vehicles, have good very credit, credit cards, etc. all paid on time.NO ISSUES WITH OUR CREDIT!
JUST WANT TO LEAVE ATT! we pay almost $300 a month on our plan with ATT and have 3 phones on contract with them. they just raised our rates AGAIN and i can’t stand it anymore.
TMobile wants to charge us almost $700 a month for a freaking deposit!?! plus i have about $1,000 i have to pay to ATT to pay off the phones (since TMobile doesn't REALLY pay off the phones - they only credit your account with them). I have 3 phones, less than a year old trading in, all in excellent condition - just want to leave ATT.
NO WAY IN HELL will i pay almost $2k just to switch to a company who i don’t even know how reliable their service is and even if they correctly honor the phone trade ins (seen alot of negative comments on that)
guess i will just stick with ATT. I will pay off our phones and just upgrade there. it will end up costing me less money in the long run since i will only be saving about $30 a month with TMobile anyway.
a shame. i have been a customer with ATT for almost 30 years and looking to be with a company who might better treat and respect their customers - but oh well.
hey - at least TMobile showed me UP FRONT before even bothering that “the grass is not always greener”...
