A Citizens One Credit Inquiry Every Time I Upgrade?

Since you’re already a Citizen One customer, those soft pulls on your credit report won’t affect your credit score or record anyway.

Companies you currently do business with can as heck your credit whenever they wish, but those are not treated as negative “hard” pulls on your record.

Each phone you upgrade to is considered to be a brand new loan.

This isn't a credit card or a revolving line of credit, as shown by the fact you have to supply them with a credit card or bank account number for your monthly payments.

As stated in section 2b of the agreement above:

This includes applying for and entering into a new 24-month 0% APR installment loan (“New Installment Loan”) with Bank. Applying for a New Installment Loan requires a new credit check.

It's a bank loan on your new phone with terms that allow you to prematurely opt out of the loan and close it for a payment of whatever the value of your phone is, as long as you have made one year's worth of payments on your loan.

In many ways it's no different than if you moved to a new condo or new house each year; each new mortgage wouldn't be an extension of the old one.

So yes, it was clearly disclosed, in the very Terms and Conditions you had to agree to before ever entering the program in the first place.

I’m glad that helped. Sorry I can’t contribute words of wisdom to the “soft” vs. “hard” credit check discussion. I don’t know facts about this - I only have an intuitive feeling which may well be wrong.

Enjoy your Apple gear.

My understanding is that since you’re applying while still under a loan from that same lender, it is a soft pull. It’s not unlike applying for a credit increase from a credit card issuer whom you have a current, in use card. Or adding a line of credit to your mortgage while still paying it.

Those lenders already have access to your credit record and report since you’re currently doing business with them. So while you are applying for a new loan, you’re applying for it with a lender you already currently owe and whom you are in good standing with. So it should not show as a negative on your report as you are not a new customer with that lender.

At least that was how a Honda finance support person explained it to me a long time ago when I still had a few months to go on a car loan with Honda and was looking to trade in my car for a newer Honda with a new loan (trade in would pay off old loan, but new car would assume a new loan) - so those dealings where all with the same lender whom I was already an active customer with.

See the first bullet under paragraph 2b. here. It appears you were informed about the resulting credit check.

iPhone Upgrade Program Terms and Conditions

Probably they do somewhere in the agreement you entered into, have you gone back to read it? Or just call Citizens One and ask them to locate it for you.