Vodafone won't give me a contract but credit history is excellent???

Jaunty_One

Hey. Hopefully I can get a solution and stop someone from going through this nightmare!

Last week, I tried to purchase a pay monthly phone from Vodafone. I was refused after a credit check and was very confused, so I asked the customer assistant to attempt the check again. Subsequently, I was refused once more.

I was very concerned that someone may have been committing fraud under my name so I immediately looked at my credit history using Equifax. As expected, my credit isis (and I quote) "excellent". I've recently been accepted for a mortgage, I hold no debt (apart from my student loan), I'm on the electoral role, haven't moved address in 15 years and I've had a pay monthly T-Mobile account since 2004. I attempted to purchase the Vodafone phone again a couple of hours ago to no avail.

I've never had any credit problems in the past so could someone possibly please explain why I've been refused this product? The Vodafone customer assistant has suggested that I may have been declined because of my credit checks last week, but that doesn't explain why I was refused in the first place. Please let me know if there's any information you need to know.

The Vodafone assistant gave me the email address
[email]**[/email], but I got an email bouncing back stating it didn't exist. Great. I contacted them again and they gave me the following email addresses: [email]*[/email]; [email]*[/email]

Still no acknowledgement. Starting to feel like Vodafone don't care about their customers: I haven't even signed up yet! Should I just go to o3 instead?

Jaunty_One

I obviously meant o2. The stress is getting to me!

chipz2803

I received a sales call from vodafone last week 21/5, i then proceeded to take out a contract with them, on the 22nd i rang to see if i could change my mind (by this time i had already received the handset) when i gave the vodafone customer services my details they didn't have anything on their systems to verify that i was a vodafone customer, i gave them my postcode, my mobile number and my email address, but when i think back to the sales call they didnt take my email address or mobile number, they didn't even take my bank account details, my question is, i am now sitting here with a brand new handset and don't know what to do?
Will they realise their mistake and block this phone?
Or have i just been lucky?
Any thoughts people?

mobilejunkie

It probably wasn't Vodafone. Never buy from an unsolicited phone call.

chipz2803

mobilejunkie wrote: »

It probably wasn't Vodafone. Never buy from an unsolicited phone call.

I didn't give them any bank details

keith1950

In the past I have received three phones from two third party retailers that the sims were never activated , rather than ring to query this and alert them to to a problem I inserted a spare sim and used the phones. If the accounts had become live I would have fulfilled the contracts that I had requested however as they never became live after several months I sold the phones .

I may be wrong but I am told that as long as you don't insert the sim that was supplied with the contract they cannot be blocked....maybe someone could comment on this ?

chipz2803

Thanks for your reply Keith, i have been in contact with vodafone and they have said that the 3rd party sales did not activate my new sim, i (stupidly) gave them the sim number and the sim will now be active in 24 hours, I don't think i could have taken the risk of waiting for the contract to become active or not, as then i may have signed up to a new contract in the meantime and ended up paying for two.

DCFC79

Your credit history is no guarantee you will be accepted for a phone contract.

Eeasp

There are 3 main credit check companies in the UK - Experian, Equifax and Callcredit. Vodaphone may use one of the other 2 companies for their credit checks. I know that when I was applying for a mortgage my experian credit check was different to my equifax credit check, never checked callcredit. It was down to the different companies prioritising different aspects of credit for their assessments. If your equifax score was excellent, try using experian or callcredit and see if their any different, all are free for a certain amount of time, you just need to remember to cancel before they start charging. Good luck

Eeasp

Also, found this on the Vodaphone website, don't know if it helps or not....
"If you’re making a Consumer Credit Application -
Vodafone Limited and its group companies will use the information you provide us to carry out credit checks and confirm you are who you say you are. We’ll search the electoral roll to verify that the address you’ve provided us with is genuine. We’ll then only use licensed Credit Reference Agencies (you can find a list of these below) who’ll keep a record of our search and your application. You should be aware that any information a Credit Reference Agency may have about you could also be linked to existing records for one or more of your personal partners. As part of this application process you may be treated as financially linked to your partner so we’ll also take into account any other “associated” records. If you don’t want a search of a particular partner to take place, and you’re sure that this financial link won’t have any adverse effect on your application, let us know. We’ll then check this information with the Credit Reference Agencies. If we discover any associated records which would affect the accuracy of this declaration, we’re sorry but we may not be able to proceed with your application. If you’d like to proceed on this basis please let your salesperson know so they can contact our Credit Assessment department who’ll carry out a manual review."

Eeasp

So if you're married or "financially linked" (mortgage) then your partner's credit may work against you if it's not as good as yours?

Also, are you registered to vote at your current address? Sounds silly but I was rejected for a mortgage the first time round due to this!