App lets banks lock your financed phone if you default on payment

Re:App lets banks lock your financed phone if you default on... by walterbell on Sunday November 08, 2020 @11:25AM (#25026764)

This is in Kenya where Safaricom's M-Pesa is widely used for mobile money/payments. From the article:

> the app was developed by them in partnership with a Kenyan carrier, Safaricom. A spokesperson from Google told XDA that the app was developed to help Safaricom with their new “Lipa Mdogo Mdogo” (Pay Bit by Bit) financing plan which lets customers get an Android Go device with monthly financing. However, if the customer could not pay an installment after four days of its due date, Safaricom locks the device with this Google app.

Does the lock also prevent M-Pesa payments? That would effectively be a telco kill switch for digital money wallets.

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Re:App lets banks lock your financed phone if you default on... by diebeforei485 on Monday November 09, 2020 @06:23PM (#25041201)

Yeah, four days is ridiculously fast. It should be like 2 weeks or something so people can prepare for it (eg. get an old phone from a friend/relative, transfer their photos and other data).

I'm OK with the general concept, provided the consequences of missing a payment are stated clearly in clear language.

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Re:App lets banks lock your financed phone if you default on... by 1023bytes on Sunday November 08, 2020 @11:38AM (#25026861)

There has to be some kind of exception for payment apps or else it's pretty dumb, how else would you make the payment

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Re:App lets banks lock your financed phone if you default on... by walterbell on Sunday November 08, 2020 @12:00PM (#25027049)

In this particular case, the payment provider (Safaricom) is also the one imposing the device lock. They could permit their own payment while blocking other payments, giving themselves defacto priority.

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