Cricket Debuts Phone Financing
April 10, 2015/
On Wednesday, Cricket Wireless announced that it has partnered with a credit financing company to offer its customers the option of financing their expensive phones through a third party. There are three different options for financing, two of which involve a credit check. The financing must be done at a brick and mortar Cricket Wireless store and is not available online.
While personally I think that leasing and especially renting phones is a bad idea, I’ll still go ahead and list out the options:
- 0% Interest – This Tier I option requires a credit check and an initial loan payment of $20. After that, you finance the phone and will have no interest accrue for the first 24 months. This option is only going to be available for those with good credit.
- Six month deferred interest – This Tier II option is an 18 month financing, at nearly 30% interest. The way this works is that if you pay off the full term within the first six months, then you won’t pay any interest. If you take longer than that, then you’ll pay interest for the full amount of time. This option requires a credit check and an initial loan payment of $20 as well. I doubt that perfect credit is required, but decent credit is likely a must.
- Rent to own – This Tier III option is a rent-to-own agreement and requires a $50 down payment. It does have a 90 days same as cash (really the only way I’d even recommend this option) but beyond that, customers should expect to pay rent to own rates on their cell phones, which means paying at least twice the amount. There is no credit check, but you must fill out a form with financial information.
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