WHY did Mobiles.co.uk fail my credit check?

troublemetonight

Hi, I recently tried to buy a £25/month (24 months) mobile phone contract with Orange through mobiles.co.uk, however about 1 hour after completing all the online forms and submitting the order, I receive this email:

"All of our applications for contract mobile phones have to be passed to the network you selected for a credit check. Unfortunately in this instance the network declined the application, so we have no choice but to cancel your order."

So then I contacted Orange and they said they never received a credit check request from mobiles.co.uk or their parent company carphonewarehouse, and in fact, Orange had PASSED my credit check 1 month ago when I went in-store to enquire about a phone.

Then I started ringing mobiles.co.uk and they were directing me to carphonewarehouse which in turn directed me either back to mobiles.co.uk or Orange. Finally, I decided to email mobiles.co.uk and got this response:

"Unfortunately as a third party company we are unable to get any further information regarding the result of your credit check. The credit check is done by the network within a Carphone Warehouse branch, other than the result of the credit check we do not get any further information from them."

Now, I really do not understand why my credit check had failed and nobody could give me an explanation or a clue because of the data protection act. I have never been in debt, have always paid my bills on time and earn over £24k/year. Also, the most depressing thing is to see people who don't even work full time or don't even work at all strolling around with a brand new iphone - how in the world did they pass a credit check???

I have applied for a credit report today through Experian but that's going to take 5 days. Anyone got any advice on what I could do to try and rectify the situation quickly or has anyone else experienced the same unreasonable credit check failure from mobiles.co.uk/carphonewarehouse which was resolved?

Please help, I am desperate for a new mobile phone contract before my current one runs out. Thank you!!

P.S. I have gone through the brilliant credit check guide on this website and I seem to fulfill all the criteria for a good credit rating.

simax

CPW do their own credit checks, which are odd to say the least.

Why can't you get a contract direct with the network?

grumbler

because it is (much) more expensive?

troublemetonight

simax wrote: »

CPW do their own credit checks, which are odd to say the least.

Why can't you get a contract direct with the network?

Apparently CPW do it through Equifax and Experian..maybe these two companies are super strict? but it wouldn't make sense even if they were because loads of people manage to get a phone from CPW without any problems.

A direct contract with the network is expensive, but also they have quite old phones and when they do release new phones (next batch in May) the price is ludicrous.

grumbler

troublemetonight wrote: »

Apparently CPW do it through Equifax and Experian..maybe these two companies are super strict?

What two companies? Experian and Equifax? They cannot be strict because they just supply the information and don't do scoring.

I think you are just a victim of "computer says no", probably because of some minor discrepancy in your data that a normal human being would be able to disregard.

mobilejunkie

Mobiles.co DO have their own internal rules; often it isn't the networks who decline. If you have a lot of contracts in a short period with all cpw companies they cancel the order and it MIGHT be for that reason. However, they specifically state it was the network who declined you; perhaps it was, but it may not have been. I'm afraid when you deal with cpw you can end up being sent round in circles... However, if it WAS cpw and not the network, it is possible to overturn the decline with a phone call if you get through to the right person/department. Assuming this was a cashback deal, you may have escaped lightly unless you really know what you're doing at every stage.

masterlumps

if you were credit checked by orange last month it wiull work against you this month going for another search

simax

grumbler wrote: »

because it is (much) more expensive?

How so?

I got an iPhone 4 direct with Vodafone on their website and got £151 cashback?!?

grumbler

Who said iPhone? iP marketing is unique.
And cashback, although smaller, is available for mobiles.co.uk too.

Majority of phones are much cheaper at third parties because they share with you the huge commission they receive from the networks.

I've got my Desire for £130ish (after all cashbacks, with some useless airtime) from D-a-P and 24x(300m+500Mb) for free (with £70ish profit actually) from mobiles.co.uk. And this was 4 months ago.

Even now can you get it with the same airtime for anything even close to £60 in total for 24 months from any network?

troublemetonight

Guess what happened today? Some representative from mobiles.co.uk decided to ring me to offer the same cashback deal and tariff but with a different network and that representative kept shifting the blame saying it was the Orange network that rejected me.

I wasn't having any of it! Because a) if I take on another network and they do a credit check again they might fail me which would worsen my credit rating further b) there is NO proof that I'll have that cashback deal because it's his words against mine at the end of the day plus that deal he's offering with a different network isn't even posted online c) I've already checked with Orange and they did not do a recent credit check on me - so it's unlikely they rejected me.

Overall, I think this company is trying to use dirty tactics. Perhaps they just rejected me for no apparent reason so that they could try and get me onto a different network claiming I would get the same cashback deal but then at month 6,8,12,18 when I try to claim, they'll say "nope, we never gave you such a deal". Or they'll sign me up and suddenly it's £30/month rather than £25.

Anyways, i'm gonna wait for my credit report and go from there. Steering clear from mobiles.co.uk for the time being. I would encourage everyone else to be cautious as well!

mobilejunkie

It is wise not to accept any deal which is only offered orally by phone. There may be exceptions to this rule but you really would need to prove exactly what you agreed to in case something goes wrong - and with cpw dealers that is not so unlikely, as you've already found. Patience is a virtue and there will be other (possibly better) deals along in due course.