Carphone warehouse rant

ann418558

My son ordered an iphone 6 online, he was contacted by email the next day to say they required a £300 deposit. He called customer services and was told that as he was 17 they required the deposit. He said in that case he did not require the phone. The guy he spoke to said could he get someone else to get the contract in their name and he suggested me. The guy took my details and called me, we went through the whole sales pitch and agreed to the contract in my name and he also sold me a spare sim with £10 or airtime, cost to me £5 and an essentials extra pack of screen cover, phone case and car charger for £9.99 usual price £25.00. These 2 payments along with £14.99 delivery charge and 1p fraud check payment were all debited to my card and i was advised that the phone would be delivered the next day.
I received several emails confirming my order and then one confirming delivery between 11:24 and 12:24.
At 12:30 on the day of delivery when the phone had not been received I contacted the delivery company who advised me that CPW had recalled the parcel.
I contacted them and they said that I had failed their internal security checks and would not be receiving the phone. I also would have to wait 3/5 days for the phone to be received back on their warehouse before I could have my money refunded even tough the phone had never been in my possession.
Neither customer services nor the complaints department could tell me what checks I had failed and then said that to find out what information they held about me I would need to request in writing pay £10 and this still would not give the reason why I failed their internal security checks.
I might add that I have lived at my address where the phone was to be delivered for 19 years, I have worked for a police force for the last 7 years and have had my bank account for 10 years and have previously been a customer of CPW as has my daughter.

Tony5101

Only CPW would be able to tell you why you failed their internal checks - and if they're not willing to do that, then that's entirely up to them. They have no obligation to sell to you, just as you have no obligation to buy from them.
I am curious though as to your first comment about your son placing an order - even though he's only 17. At this age, he would be completely unable to sign a binding legal agreement, which also leads to confusion about them saying they require a £300 deposit due to his age? Something doesn't add up in that respect.
At a guess, I would say that your refusal of a contract is something to do with the (very recent) previous contract failure (ie your son) from the same address.

ann418558

My son will not be 18 until May. They emailed him advising they would need £300 deposit due to his age and it was the customer service advisor he spoke to that advised him to try and get me to do it in my name to avoid the deposit. Clearly the credit searches have caused the problem and will now make it difficult for me to get a phone on contract now. This is very frustrating as my credit history is fine and I have never had a problem until mow

robbies_gal

when u say you credit is fine have u got any other credit? have you checked experian or smilar site to see what it says

it could be a number of reasons why they rejected you it doesntmean you'll never get a contract again

gycraig_2

as a former cpw employee i can hopefully clear this up.

a lot of times with online orders / over the phone the issue is a miscommunication, a adress spelt wrong, a wrong date of birth or
an incorrectly spelt name.
can also be if you have moved house for instance and the bank card is still registered to the old address.

if you have a bad or low credit score they will either decline or offer a cost, if its just scraped not getting a contract its 50 pound if its just over a rejection they will offer a deposit of 300 pound.

shouldnt affect your credit rating as we regularly had these errors and after the 31 days security window if you fix the error they can put it through.
it is a security check it has absolutely nothing to do with credit / a credit check at that point as if it was accepted it would still be accepted as such

Intheforest

I have also just fallen foul of the internal security check nightmare. I couldn't be more boring and stable house, bank and jobwise! I really can't see why it would have failed - but of course they don't feel any compulsion to explain why. But this was also accompanied by quite the most terrible customer service when encountering these problems - four times being told I'd be called back when the check was refused - and then not being called and having to go through the whole thing again from scratch, and then suddenly being told that I was now barred and couldn't come back for 28 days! One person said like you gycraig that it's often due to a tiny glitch in matching but (a) that seems a ludicrously inefficient system and (b) when this happens they should have some system to go back through every detail with you to check. You'd have thought it worthwhile to make the sale. instead of which you get a different person doing it each time and no one helping get a grip of what might have gone wrong. Last time I used carphone warehouse a few years back I found their customer service and systems outstanding. Not any more - bureaucratic, heavy-handed, unresponsive and failing to fulfill simple promises at every point. I have better things in life than to struggle with them for hours on end to order a new phone contract. And this was when I was keen to buy a whole new contract from them for two years - I can't imagine what it would be like if you had a problem you needed them to solve. Take my advice - go somewhere else than carphone warehouse.

Ian011

You cannot legally sign a mobile phone contract until you are 18.

On their system, you should now show up as two separate customers. If the agent simply amended the person details on the first order, then a complete mess will have been created.