Failed credit check for new phone contract, will it affect credit score?

Hurley

Hello all.

My sister recently applied for a phone contract through Carphone Warehouse on Vodafone. She got a message saying she had failed a credit check.

I'm really not sure how that is possible as she is pretty much perfect with money, has a mortgage, car lease, utility bills, never missed payments and tonnes of savings.

Will this failed check negatively affect her credit score?

And is it even worth trying to get a phone contract elsewhere, as obviously she has no idea why she has been declined and won't want to risk further rejections if it has a bad effect?

Thank you for any help.

Candyapple

There is no such thing as a credit score - only your credit history.

I've read numerous threads on here about Voda declining people for contracts and they had supposedly a good credit history. It might be that she doesn't fit their customer profile. Tell your sister to apply elsewhere. Voda are rubbish anyway, they've done her a favour!

In case she wants to double check her credit history, she can check it for free at Clearscore and Noddle and pay £2 to Experian.

Hurley

It was a really good deal that unfortunately isn't matched anywhere else.

I think she can get a free Experian report from Barclays, so I'll tell her to do that. Many people complain of the same thing and some have even been accepted when going direct to the network and not through a third party. I think an error might be to blame here.

But the issue is whether this rejection has some sort of negative affect? Is she OK to try for another contract and not have to fear about it looking bad on her file? I thought I read somewhere that numerous failed credit checks aren't advisable.

Candyapple

You get a free Experian credit score only and not your report from Barclaycard which is updated every 2 months, which basically means nothing.

Is it the £20 per month deal which is unlimited texts/mins and 20GB data? If yes, BT offer the same deal but for £16:
https://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/4g-sim-only-plans/bb.html

One application search won't mean anything. Yes she is ok to apply elsewhere. It's only if you applied for a lot of products in a short space of time so you'd have lots of searches on your file that would cause problems.

Hurley

OK, thanks I'll pass that on. It is a little worrying though because she doesn't know why this one was rejected so the next application you're going in blind not knowing whether you will get accepted or not. Obviously you can't keep doing that indefinitely.

The deal was a Galaxy S6/unltd texts/1000 minutes/2gb data and £29.99 upfront. No one gets close to that as far as I know.

My other sister got accepted for it last week and isn't nearly as good with her money. Odd.