Paybright Canada iPhone 13 Orders Stall Under Heavy Traffic [Update]
Update Sept 9, 2022: Are you kidding me? Paybright ruins the pre-order experience for iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro, too.
Sleepy Apple customers were surprised this morning to see 0% APR financing over 24 months for iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro, especially after term lengths were changed to 6 months earlier this week.
But Canadians looking to purchase iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro with Affirm’s Paybright financing have struggled to complete their orders this morning.
Due to heavy traffic from Apple customers, Paybright servers went offline and orders were stalled. Some saw ‘502 bad gateway’ errors, but now Paybright’s website has an error message that reads, “There is a bit of a traffic jam. Please go back and try again.”
For some that used the Paybright financing option, when they go check order status on Apple.ca, they get a message that reads, “unfortunately, an error occurred. Please try again later.”
@AppleSupport I hope this doesn’t mean what I think it means. Thanks for coming out, your order is screwed now! I was here right at 8am and did everything asked of me. Please reserve my phone! @Apple pic.twitter.com/2K5h4pzn2E
— Christopher Carruthers 🌻 🇺🇦 (@TaoOfSatoshi) September 17, 2021
Understandably, people were pretty frustrated with the website downtime for their precious iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro order.
massive fail, @PayBrightCanada and @AppleSupport need to fix this
— 𝔪𝔲𝔯𝔡𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔰𝔬𝔫𝔢 (@murderous_1) September 17, 2021
Yes but all I’m getting are 502 or 503 errors and then my Apple bag is empty and there’s no order on my account. So this order is sitting in digital limbo? How do I get to it when paybright finally functions if within an hour?
— 𝕤𝕒𝕚𝕝𝕠𝕣 ♡︎ 𝕞𝕠𝕠𝕟 (@nattiecakez) September 17, 2021
Down for me too. It’s kinda pathetic they can’t handle the traffic. They should have known 🙄
— APM (@Skbapm) September 17, 2021
Apple launched financing with Paybright for iPhone, Mac and iPad last month.
Were you able to complete your Paybright financing option for an iPhone 13 purchase? We’ve reached out to Paybright for an update and will update this story accordingly.
Some news for those frustrated. I talked to @Apple Chat and they said that due to @PayBrightCanada shitting the bed, they are extending the timeout period for orders placed this morning to 9 hours. He confirmed my order (placed at 8:30am) is still valid and to keep trying.
— Christopher Carruthers 🌻 🇺🇦 (@TaoOfSatoshi) September 17, 2021
According to Christopher Carruthers (@TaoOfSatoshi), Apple support said over chat the timeout for preorders placed has reportedly been extended to 9 hours. This means existing orders are still being held as Paybright issues start to resolve.
Update Sept. 17, 9:08am PDT: it appears Paybright is starting to fix some of these orders. What has worked for some is to visit the queued URL from your history and try it again:
If you tried this morning and got the queued URL, try it again from your history. It worked for me! #paybright
— LAOneSix (@LA_16) September 17, 2021
Update Sept. 17, 1:34pm PDT: If you’re still dealing with iPhone Paybright issues, check your email. The company has sent out emails explaining “due to an issue this morning, you may have been unable to complete your application and may have multiple orders with Apple.”
The email then informs users to click the link to complete applications, as noted by @brandanspyker in a Twitter thread with other iPhone in Canada readers:
UPDATE: Got this email from paybright, after a few clicks of the link, got my original order from 5:08am this morning confirmed and looks like original shipping date too Sept 24! pic.twitter.com/ISZiNVqVA7
— Brandan Spyker (@brandanspyker) September 17, 2021
Let us know the status of your Paybright financing and iPhone 13 in the comments.