Apple sends email to some iPhone Upgrade Program members who lost their place in line for iPhone X

Last week, Apple kept insinuating that members of its iPhone Upgrade Program had a head start on others when it came to the process of pre-ordering an Apple iPhone X. That's because those subscribed to the program were able to fill out certain paperwork and have it ready to submit to Apple before pre-orders started getting accepted yesterday morning. Now, Apple has been forced to send out an email to iPhone Upgrade Program members who encountered problems with their pre-order on Friday.

The email starts by saying that the program subscriber might have had an issue getting a loan. The iPhone Upgrade Program allows an iPhone buyer to finance the purchase of his/her phone by making monthly payments. Once 12 payments are made, the handset can be traded in for the latest iPhone model. Apparently, customers who received the email did not have their information vetted by Citizens One, the financial institution that provides the financing to the program.

This could be due to the large number of pre-orders that came flowing into Apple starting yesterday at 3am EDT. As we mentioned yesterday, an Apple rep told us that orders far exceeded the company's expectations. As a result, information that normally would have been used by Citizens One to approve a loan, was apparently not received in time and several pre-orders did not go through. When these people eventually did get approval from the bank, they had lost their place in line. Instead of getting their new iPhone X next month, some iPhone Upgrade Program subscribers will have to wait an additional month to receive their order. As a result, Apple is trying to fix the problem by expediting some of these orders.

While Apple appears willing to help some of the members of its iPhone Upgrade Program who ended up losing their place on line because of the large rush of pre-orders, it doesn't appear to have a similar plan in place to expedite pre-orders that had to be placed a second time because of issues Apple had in verifying the carrier accounts of certain customers.


source: MacRumors