E2save scrutinising my utility bills

gareth81

Hello everyone!

I've been using this sire for quite a while now and has given me lots of advice, however, I'm hoping someone can help with this.

I've just been accepted with E2save for a T-mobile contract. E2save asked for a utility bill as identification. I emailed the most recent one that stated - by mistake and now rectified - that I owed £60 from a previous electricity bill. E2save have had the cheek to tell me they cannot accept this as it shows I am in arrears; I thought this would be illegal. I am not actually in arrears, however, the silly girl on the phone said they cannot accept people with ccj's (my credit history is small but clean). Now they want a bank statement to scrutinise that too!

Is the practice of asking for proof of address then using it to make a credit judgement not illegal? I passed the credit check with T-mobile.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

OneADay

Provide them with the bank statement they are asking for - else go somewhere else. Its normal practice and at least shows they care about who they deal with.

gareth81

Well I'm struggling with that as I have online statements instead of paper.

OneADay

You need to contact your bank then and ask for a paper copy. Not much else you can do, online statements I would not trust and I suspect nor would e2save.

DarkConvict

Be aware banks will probably request a charge for printing you a copy of a paper statment, if you only have online ones.

leskerr

I see this as a breach of data protection.

When you provide personal data to a company, they are restricted in what they can use it for. In this case, it seem clear that the purpose of the utility bill is for identification purposes, not credit rating. Therefore, if they are using the fact that the bill is in arrears, they are in in breach of DP.

I'm not sure how you can use this, other than to make an official complaint. I suspect the girl who spotted the arrears has made an error, and is not following company procedures. If the company's procedures were to check your credit position with the utility company, and they did not tell you this, it would be a major breach worthy of the Data Protection commissioner's attention.

Les

Proc

leskerr wrote: »

I see this as a breach of data protection.

When you provide personal data to a company, they are restricted in what they can use it for. In this case, it seem clear that the purpose of the utility bill is for identification purposes, not credit rating. Therefore, if they are using the fact that the bill is in arrears, they are in in breach of DP.

I'm not sure how you can use this, other than to make an official complaint. I suspect the girl who spotted the arrears has made an error, and is not following company procedures. If the company's procedures were to check your credit position with the utility company, and they did not tell you this, it would be a major breach worthy of the Data Protection commissioner's attention.

Les

It's for identity purposes but they also use some common sense. If someone sends in a bank statement that is constantly overdrawn, or utility bill that isn't even paid, the networks should be (and will be) asking the question; 'can this person afford a phone?'.

Would you agree to send someone an expensive handset who spends most of their life in the red? The chances are, if they don't pay their basic utility bills, they won't bother paying for their phone.

No, they won't be "scrutinising" the OP's bank statement. I doubt they care very much what you spend your money on. Really. They just want to see your address and check you're good for payments.

wizk1

Sometimes common sense leads to the violation of peoples' rights and the DPA in this instance. Yes, I agree that is a convenient way of determining a customer's eligibility for a product, but at the same time, the data was used inappropriately, therefore in breach of DPA principles.

If e2save wanted to check if a customer can afford the product, that's what the credit check is for. What's to say that this bank account is the customer's main account? That would mean that e2save is processing INACCURATE information, which is yet another breach of the DPA

gareth81

Well folks thanks for the advice and opinions.

All in all I think that E2save made a mistake as they practically used a bill with a clerical error for a credit check. If they had bothered to ask me then it could have easily been rectified.

In addition, I am a student and use my overdraft regularly; I cannot be a credit risk, because the bank see me as responsible and gave me a credit facility to assist financially during my studies.

It was all in vain anyway. Turns out they never had the phone in stock, they cancelled my order and proceeded to carry out a whole new set of credit checks - these included three mobile operators who they checked me for the previous application - and the second time I got refused? I checked with Experian and there is a whole list of duplicate checks with mobile operators. As they say, no company likes to see a load of checks on file as it makes you look desperate - that was never the case.

All this because some idiot couldn't find my address that I've lived at and been on the roll for six years. My only options are to wait three months and try again, or go direct with Orange for a more expensive, and less attractive deal.

OneADay

Try a different retailer like phones4u, dialaphone?

You might get lucky. Unless there are specific suspicious reasons for rejecting a contract on the credit report, I cant see why you could still not pass the check with another retailer.

Some of them might ask for a deposit from you to let you have a phone. But worth shopping around if you really need a phone now. Otherwise pay and go or O2 simplicity 1 month deals etc.

gareth81

Hi

I also have the issue that the local authority has just changed my postcode. I went to mobiles.co.uk and received 3 replies:

1. O2 have accepted you but would like a #50 deposit.
2. We (mobiles.co.uk) cannot find your address on our system for our security check and cannot process your order. Bear in mind O2 accepted me.
3. You have failed our credit check and we have cancelled the order.

I called to query this and they told me that I had been accepted by O2 - they obviously found me as I have their broadband - but as my address did not show up on Royal Mail postcode check they cancelled it.

A bit of a backwards process if you ask me. However, that left another mark on my report.

CPW sister companies need to sort their staff and application process. I was accepted twice on different networks, which were both cancelled as they are idiots. Now I have no phone and a list of credit checks, of which, only two I agreed to.