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I've used the service plenty of times now, and was never charged interest. I wonder what situations lead this to happen? I know one has to select the payment option when purchasing through Apple and not all items are eligible. Maybe people just assumed the payment plans would be automatically and didn't require selecting the option during checkout?

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I believe if you fail to make the entire monthly payment by the end of the month you will be charged interest.

Also, you do need to explicitly specify you want to use the interest-free installment option when making the purchase. It's not automatic, even when buy an Apple product at an Apple Store.

Yes. I found this out after purchasing a new laptop for my wife. One call to the Apple store that I bought the device at fixed it though. It really was (mostly) painless.

Oh, now that's interesting news. I never would have thought of that! The one time I did it wrong was on a small enough item I was able to pay it quickly via savings.

I mean... isn't that how most interest-free cards work?

Yeah, I don't think I was ever charged interest on Apple products either, but I wasn't paying that close of attention. I'll have to go back and check to see if I can get a sweet class action payout.

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