Not just for the iPhones, and definitely not this year only. It happened during iPhone 14 preorder and perhaps even for the iPhone 13. During iPhone 12 time they didn't have this.

You can try buy device now like iPhone 14 or Samsung S23 ultra, they ask for advance payment also.

This post has been edited by Orpheus1120: Sep 22 2023, 12:34 AM

They scared you take their phone and run away. Hahaha. Interest free cashflow for them. These farkers.

Exactly. Talk kok they. Mine is auto debit as well. I asked them before they said not everyone has to pay the advance fee. I told them I'm with maxis for over 15 years, never miss a payment. If my standing is not good who else is good? The thing is they don't tell you how they evaluate your credit standing.

I'm not sure what is the logic behind for this maneuver and how it could have worked (not doubting it worked for you)? I imagine the site would retrieve one's credit rating from an internal server, so I'm not sure how your process would circumvent that?

For those who were in the queueing during the opening night it was impossible to log out and log back in again without losing one's seat in the queue.

But certainly I'll put this to a test in the future.