A Best Buy worker is going viral on TikTok after sharing the lengths one customer went through to get his hands on the new iPhone.
Dallas Ponzo (@dallas_ponzo), a Best Buy employee, said he recently encountered a customer in his mid-to-late 20s who wanted the latest iPhone 16. Ponzo said the customer also wanted the phone unlocked, meaning it doesn’t have a SIM for any cellular provider.
But after Ponzo explained that third-party sellers, including Best Buy, can’t do that, he said he learned the hard way why the customer wanted an unlocked phone. As of Sunday, his video explaining the customer’s predicament had amassed more than 66,600 views.
Best Buy customers’ quest for an iPhone 16
According to Ponzo, he wasn’t able to sell the customer an unlocked iPhone 16 because of Apple’s set rules. To buy the latest iPhone through a third party, Ponzo said customers have to activate it through a provider account (e.g. AT&T or Verizon).
As a result, Ponzo said the customer said he was “willing” to get a phone through AT&T. When the two went to set up his AT&T account, however, the customer got denied during the mandatory credit check.
That’s when Ponzo said he suggested that the man try to set up an account with Verizon. But Verizon wouldn’t approve the customer’s request, either.
Then Ponzo learned why: The customer owed more than $5,500 to collections, according to a Verizon associate. The associate said the debt had been collected over six years.
“I didn’t even know how to react,” the worker said upon learning this news.
Ponzo said Verizon offered to open the customer’s account if he paid off his debts right then and there. The customer said, though, that he didn’t have that kind of money on him.
“I just looked at the customer and I said, ‘I’m sorry, man,’” Ponzo recounted. Then the two scrapped their initial plans and the customer bought an unlocked iPhone 15+ with cash.
Ponzo said he was “surprised” that the customer insisted on buying an iPhone after that exchange.
“That’s a lot of money,” he said. “I’m surprised he would even wanna try that.”
@dallas_ponzo Bros willing to lose his house before his iPhone
♬ original sound – Dallas
Buying the new iPhone
According to Apple’s website, customers can only buy an unlocked iPhone through Apple directly.
Customers who choose to go this route, though, must pay for their iPhones in full. They can then choose to set up the carrier later.
If you buy an iPhone on an installment plan, however, you must choose a phone carrier to make this purchase through.
Why would someone owe thousands to collections?
There are several reasons why the customer may have owed nearly $6,000 to collections.
Some of the most common reasons, however, include missed payments (e.g. not paying your phone bill on time), high usage charges from making international calls, billing errors, or forgotten accounts. It’s also possible that the customer fell into financial hardship and forgot to pay their bill after a prolonged period.
Regardless of the issue, Ponzo still couldn’t understand why the customer insisted on getting a new phone.
“Bros willing to lose his house before his iPhone,” he wrote in the accompanying caption of his clip.
Viewers express shock at customer’s decision
In the comments of Ponzo’s video, several viewers said they couldn’t believe how much debt the customer had accrued.
“That’s a wild amount of money,” one woman said.
“How does it even get there with a phone bill?” another asked.
“Damn dude was reckless,” a third viewer recounted.
“People surprise me on a daily basis,” a fourth user wrote.
Others, meanwhile, guessed as to how it got that bad.
“Either he was irresponsible with payments and just chose not to pay them or… the possibility of his parents using his social security and abandonment of payment,” one viewer suggested.
“Verizon employee here – sounds like he bought 5 phones (probably pro maxes) and then never paid the bill, so they charged the full price of the phones and a couple of monthly bills,” another added.
“He might of tried to use his phone while roaming,” a third user guessed. “That’s a lot of money unless he had a business account.”
And some viewers expressed hope that debt collections would forgive the customer after seven years.
“One more year and it’s gone if I’m not mistaken,” one viewer said of the customer’s debt.
“6 years?!? Might as well wait until after 7 years and dispute it to get it dropped from his credit,” another suggested.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Ponzo via TikTok comment and to Verizon through email.
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