iPhone upgrade offer/Loan not paid off: RESOLVED

[Pheltzel]

I received the email offer in October 2024 below to upgrade my iPhone and pay off the  loan with Affirm. The phone was sent back to Visible and my account shows it was accepted in good working order for a value of $520. But Affirm was never paid. After many calls and chat, customer service keeps saying I received a credit.  That’s incorrect. Affirm should have been paid to settle the loan. They haven’t been, there’s no credit on that account. And I’m being billed by Affirm for a phone I don’t have that Visible said it would pay off.  Again, I have received no credit. 

I’m stuck and owed $520. Visible keeps saying a credit was sent but that’s not true. Affirm will keep billing me. Affirm was the only account used in the transaction. 

Here is what I told customer support:

My issue is not resolved. I was offered $520, as Visible shows is owed on my Order History page, to pay off the Affirm loan used to pay for the device. This should have occurred in November, 2024. My Affirm account shows no credit has been applied. I have made multiple calls, used the Visible online chat multiple times, and sent multiple messages to your Reddit customer service account, with no resolution. Affirm shows no credit via Visible, as promised in your offer letter. 

The email offer Visible sent me on Oct. 1 said:

“The new iPhone 16 Pro. Now available at Visible. Apple Intelligence coming fall 2024. Get it now.

Hi Paul,

You're eligible for our upgrade program!

You financed your phone with Affirm and you're halfway through your payments–congrats! As long as your phone is in good working condition, you’re eligible to upgrade to a new one. We’ll pay off your remaining financing when you upgrade to a new phone from our selection, and finance through Affirm. 1 Log into your account 2 Navigate to your account page, click Your Device > Upgrade status 3 Select an eligible new phone to finance with Affirm 4 Add Visible Protect plan to help protect against life's mishaps 5 Send us your old phone in good working condition 6 We'll pay off your old device's remaining loan balance.”

My order history shows the phone was received “in good working order. Trade-in phone was processed at $520 value.” That page also says: “We’ll keep your trade-in phone. No further action is needed.”

The offer I received says “We'll pay off your old device's remaining loan balance.”

This has not occurred as stated in the Visible offer.

Note that the offer is to pay off the Affirm “loan balance” not send me a credit. Regardless, no credit has been received by me.

As of Jan. 31, 2025 my Affirm account shows no credit for the $520 my Visible Order History page shows is due to pay off the balance for this iPhone 15, purchased on the Visible website, and returned to Visible, as instructed by the Visible email offer.

Please help. I can’t get anywhere with customer service. They keep saying I’ve been sent a credit. Where? No one will say and I’ve received no such credit. I’ve been told multiple times this has been resolved and that just not correct. 

Most recent response from Visible:

Trade-In Credit Issue

Hi Paul. I’m Claude with the Visible Care Team.

We're reaching out regarding the issue you are experiencing with the trade-in credit. Upon further review with the backend team, the refund was already granted on your payment method with the amount of $520 on 11/7/2024. When this refund method is chosen, no gift cards are granted for the trade-in. If you feel this is not correct, please contact your banking institution for further information and confirmation. Thank you for your patience while we worked this out.

Tap any of the links below for help. To update info on your current case, please include reference #0760428.

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#iphone 16

[DeanKevin64]

FYI, this is a peer to peer forum so I am not sure what you think we can do for you here in this community. Only thing we can do is suggest to file this in small claims court, or file this at the BBB if that even helps. Have you contacted Affirm? Only other thing is to keep contacting customer service with that case number and keep hounding them it is not fixed otherwise the case may close.

[Pheltzel]

Love a message that starts with "not sure what you think we can do for you here." 

This is resolved. What I was hoping for was to hear from someone who had worked this out successfully with Visible, because I'm aware it's happened to multiple people who have posted on this forum and on reddit.

Nobody in customer service would tell me where the credit they said had posted in November was supposed to have appeared. My 'preferred' payment method made no sense since the phones were paid for using Affirm. And Affirm showed no credit. So I showed every potentially connected account--the one used to pay the bill primarily, my Visible account, and the Affirm accounts, and they agreed no credit appeared when it was supposed to have been made. 

Using Facebook Messenger (where you can at least upload attachments--none of the other support means allow you to show what's going on/document anything to prove what you're seeing),  I uploaded screenshots of my accounts. About 2 days later, they called to say they'd be sending a credit to the card used to pay my monthly bill. That's not what happened. The next day a Mastercard (virtual) gift card for the amount due from Blackhawk Rewards appeared in my email inbox. So if this happens to anybody else, at least you know what to look for-- a virtual Mastercard by email. The credit for the phone you turn in won't go directly to Affirm as it suggests in the email offer, or to your payment method on file, as suggested by multiple customer service agents. 

[DeanKevin64]

Glad you love a post that starts out that way, at least I made someone happy.

Only reason I worded it that way was that it really sounded like you were looking for an answer from customer service. All we can do is give suggestions but in the end it still needs to be handled by customer service. Maybe if it had started out with "has this happened to anyone else" or something on those lines and not sounding like more of a rant then I likely would have not responded at all. Besides, there are only maybe 3 of us that reply to these topics, they may get a few views but that is it.