I bought a car, but then decided to not make the repayments.
What's the recourse for the lender?
To be fair, car sellers have also started things like being able to brick your car if you're behind on payments. Or, for the up and coming ones, have the car just drive itself back to the dealer (Ford).
Credit reporting and collections.
There's a reason carriers pull credit reports for post paid accounts and 'free' phone promos right?
Although, personally, I prefer to be on the prepaid side of the carrier. I'm not getting a promotional phone, and I'm not paying for it in my monthly rate, so if my phone works for more than two years, I'm saving money. And I don't really need to use secret handshake financing... I'd rather pay $17/month for my plan and pay for a phone when I need it.
That said, T-Mobile tried being the 'uncarrier' and charging fairer prices for service and financing phones directly, and it must not have worked as well as carrier norms because they reverted to secret handshake financing.
Currently the carrier will publish the phone's IMEI to a central blacklist, so the phone can't be used with any carrier that subscribes to the blacklist.
Also iPhones can be activation blocked via Apple, which is entirely independent of the IMEI block done by carriers.
Small claims court? Inability for the debtor to get a loan for even another phone (or a used car or whatever) for a period of time?
It's messy and expensive, but perhaps it should be messy and expensive.
> jump to another carrier and abandon the one with the finance plan. What’s the recourse for the carrier?
Subprime auto lenders use “electronic devices to remotely shut down vehicles” [1].
Carriers could install remote management profiles on phones financed for subprime borrowers. If a borrower defaults, the loan is sold to a collector and phone erased and put in lost mode.
It isn’t pleasant. But neither is being locked into a phone plan you don’t want.
[1] https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/03/14/car-lenders-...
The same recourse any other lender has for a borrower that defaults.