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The disadvantage of not being in debt.
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I suppose we can all understand the use of credit checks by businesses expected to extend credit to a new customer — which is what they're committed to if they provide phone services in advance of payment. I can even understand their negative attitude if the customer has no verifiable credit history. After all, potentially, someone with no history represents hardly less risk than someone with a poor history — they're an unknown quantity. What's incomprehensible in this case is that O2 already have an actual verifiable history of a year's payment compliance by the OP for broadband yet have set that aside in favour of what is in effect a inconclusive report by a third party.
It's even more incomprehensible if you compare the payment policies as between O2's broadband and phone line services respectively. I signed up to the Standard LLU service in December and without any credit check nonsense, they showered me with largesse — 3 months service free plus a £75 cashback via Topcashback. All this for a £12 p.m. service. Yet if I were to apply for another £12 p.m. phone line service I'd be given the bum's rush because my situation re credit rating is the same as the OP's. It's crazy, I tells ya.
Disturbingly, this credit rating nonsense now goes beyond situations involving a customer seeking credit. I recently tried to open an A & L easy access account — I already have 2 online accounts with them relating to earlier issues. I got back bumph telling me I had to go through an unusually onerous ID check. When I rang the Helpline to protest about an established customer being put through this rigmarole, I was told that one of their procedures now involved a credit check being done by Experian. This had "failed" in my case so I was being put through hoops for the privilege of lending my money to A & L.
Bottom line is if you're afflicted with this problem when seeking credit, it may also bite you in the bum when you seek to extend credit (as a saver).
Joe0
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