The iPhone 17 will be available in New Zealand in the middle of September.
Photo: AFP / Nic Coury
If you want a new iPhone, be careful what you’re signing up for.
The iPhone 17 will be available in New Zealand in the middle of this month.
But Telecommunications Dispute Resolution (TDR), which deals with complaints about telcos that cannot be resolved directly by consumers, said it was dealing with an increasing number of people who found themselves in financial difficulty after they signed up for a more expensive phone plan in order to access a new device.
Telcos often promote the option of paying off a new phone, interest-free, as an additional charge on phone plans.
One NZ said iPhone 17s would be available for preorder from 12am on Saturday on an interest-free term with a pay monthly mobile plan.
“Once pre-orders have been fulfilled and stock is more widely available, the phone will also be available to purchase outright.”
But chief executive of TDR Herman Visagie said people should take care with that.
“What we’ve seen is that while it can be a really great new toy and the interest-free payment plan options that providers have, can be a great way to access it, there are fishhooks from a kind of base affordability perspective and a broader suitability perspective that sometimes gets people tripped up.”
He said people needed to make sure they could afford the payments, and that the plan they were on would be right for their needs.
“Because there’s limited stock, [telcos] generally force you to go on a payment plan for normally two to three years….
“And they’ll offer great discounts for certain plans. You’ll often seen the advertisements for up to $750 off or something but you’ll look at the fine print and it’s a really high end plan.
Photo: AFP / Nic Coury
Apple iPhone 17 models are displayed during Apple’s “Awe-Dropping” event at the Steve Jobs Theatre on the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, on September 9, 2025.
“If I’m on a $40 plan and I’m going ‘ok cool, I’ll change to the $75 plan to get this discount’, people get stuck and they can actually sometimes end up paying more because often the discounts have conditions like you have to be on an eligible plan for the whole payment period of your phone. So sometimes when you cost it out, you may find that actually that increase in monthly payment more than offsets the discount you’re getting.”
He said iPhones were expensive devices.
“They cost more than a laptop.
“You’re looking at a $2300 device, and you can put it on a 36-month payment plan, it might only go to $100 or so a month, which seems really affordable. And actually it’s much better than putting it on consumer credit for instance, but it does mean that sometimes people think short-term about it, ‘this month I can afford it’.
“They don’t think about Christmas when their money might be tight, all that kind of thing. You’re tying yourself up for a really long period of time.”
Visagie said telcos did not assess the affordability of a plan in the same way that a lender would if someone was applying for credit.
“They don’t actually really have a way of going, ‘hey, John, can you actually afford this? And we’re assessing whether you can or not’. And look, consumer choice, right? You don’t want to make it too difficult.
“You don’t want to be expecting people to bring in screeds of paper and their bank statements to prove that they can.
“But I think it’s that classic thing of you don’t do a formalised assessment and then you package it in a way that a consumer might go in the moment, oh, that seems doable. But then they don’t think about all the future months.
“Sometimes they forget that they go, ‘I could pay $120 a month’, like that seems feasible. But remember that’s before you then also add your $69 plan. So actually you’re paying $190 a month.”
He said it might be a good idea to pay more money upfront to reduce the ongoing monthly payments, or try to buy the device outright from Apple.”
One NZ said the “vast majority” of customers wanted to purchase their phone with a monthly plan.
“That’s become even more popular with One Wallet. It allows Kiwis (regardless of whether they’re a customer or not) to earn Phone Dollars to save on their next interest free phone upgrade when they choose to join One NZ on a Pay Monthly mobile plan.”
Spark was also approached for comment.
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