Early this morning I got up early to order my wife an iPhone 13. Product Red and 256 GB for the record with AppleCare+. By 8:08 AM EST, I posted this Tweet:
I had no issues. But the same can’t be said for my fellow Canadians who tried to finance their iPhones. Now I can understand why they would want to do that. The options ranged from just six months to 24 months with 0 percent APR. That’s a great deal to get into a new iPhone. Except that Apple’s finance partner which is Paybright by Affirm have had issues processing the financing requests due to the load that typically happens when pre-orders open for new iPhones. Some people saw ‘502 bad gateway’ errors. Then later this morning Paybright’s website has an error message that read “There is a bit of a traffic jam. Please go back and try again.”
Here’s what I saw on Twitter:
What also doesn’t help is this. Paybright has a Twitter account that is no longer monitored:
Top tip for companies out there. If you have a Twitter account that you no longer monitor and use, delete it. Because having a bunch of people Tweet your unused account is a bad look for you.
Clearly Apple got wind of this and did something about the situation:
What that sounds like to me is that if you are trying to finance an iPhone in Canada, you should just keep trying as it sounds like the issues are being addressed. Or at least mitigated. Though it is unclear when Apple and Paybright will fix this issue outright. Watch this space more updates as I will be watching this situation as the day goes on.
Now this isn’t the first time a new iPhone has been released on planet Earth. Thus Paybright had to have known that whatever server infrastructure they had needed to be seriously beefed up and load balanced to the extreme so that it didn’t melt under the strain of people eager to get the iPhone 13. The fact that they either didn’t beef it up at all or didn’t beef it up enough is a bad reflection on Paybright. And by extension this is a bad reflection on Apple as well who chose Paybright to manage their financing program. My guess is that a bunch of Apple execs are having a conversation with a bunch of Paybright execs to ask “WTF?” and said Paybright execs are about to make a bunch of IT people’s lives a living hell as a result. Because you know what tends to flow downhill.
UPDATE: It’s currently 3PM EST and from my look at Twitter, some people have had success starting again and doing another order. Though I will note that people who have had success had to refresh a ton of times to get an opening for pickup or delivery. Others continue to have no success no matter what they do. Thus if you really want an iPhone 13, you may have to rethink how you pay for it. The bottom line that this is a colossal #EpicFail for both Paybright and Apple, and both have some explaining to do.
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This entry was posted on September 17, 2021 at 12:37 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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On iPhone 13 Launch Day In Canada, Apple’s Financing Provider Can’t Handle The Volume
Early this morning I got up early to order my wife an iPhone 13. Product Red and 256 GB for the record with AppleCare+. By 8:08 AM EST, I posted this Tweet:
I had no issues. But the same can’t be said for my fellow Canadians who tried to finance their iPhones. Now I can understand why they would want to do that. The options ranged from just six months to 24 months with 0 percent APR. That’s a great deal to get into a new iPhone. Except that Apple’s finance partner which is Paybright by Affirm have had issues processing the financing requests due to the load that typically happens when pre-orders open for new iPhones. Some people saw ‘502 bad gateway’ errors. Then later this morning Paybright’s website has an error message that read “There is a bit of a traffic jam. Please go back and try again.”
Here’s what I saw on Twitter:
What also doesn’t help is this. Paybright has a Twitter account that is no longer monitored:
Top tip for companies out there. If you have a Twitter account that you no longer monitor and use, delete it. Because having a bunch of people Tweet your unused account is a bad look for you.
Clearly Apple got wind of this and did something about the situation:
What that sounds like to me is that if you are trying to finance an iPhone in Canada, you should just keep trying as it sounds like the issues are being addressed. Or at least mitigated. Though it is unclear when Apple and Paybright will fix this issue outright. Watch this space more updates as I will be watching this situation as the day goes on.
Now this isn’t the first time a new iPhone has been released on planet Earth. Thus Paybright had to have known that whatever server infrastructure they had needed to be seriously beefed up and load balanced to the extreme so that it didn’t melt under the strain of people eager to get the iPhone 13. The fact that they either didn’t beef it up at all or didn’t beef it up enough is a bad reflection on Paybright. And by extension this is a bad reflection on Apple as well who chose Paybright to manage their financing program. My guess is that a bunch of Apple execs are having a conversation with a bunch of Paybright execs to ask “WTF?” and said Paybright execs are about to make a bunch of IT people’s lives a living hell as a result. Because you know what tends to flow downhill.
UPDATE: It’s currently 3PM EST and from my look at Twitter, some people have had success starting again and doing another order. Though I will note that people who have had success had to refresh a ton of times to get an opening for pickup or delivery. Others continue to have no success no matter what they do. Thus if you really want an iPhone 13, you may have to rethink how you pay for it. The bottom line that this is a colossal #EpicFail for both Paybright and Apple, and both have some explaining to do.
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This entry was posted on September 17, 2021 at 12:37 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.