Credit History question

I'm trying to order a contract phone for the fist time but I have no credit history. I don't believe in bank cards and wouldn't be doing the mobile thing if I had a landline (not possible)..

But they want me to send a £50 deposit, proof of ID and proof of address! The only way I can send this is my insurance policy for my house, and a scan of the front and back of my debit card..

clearly this is dodgy.

But it's official, I checked (and used up £5 calling credit in 3 minutes of calls!)..

Has anyone else ever had a similar experience? To be honest the whole thing's pretty scary. I hate companies. I wish I could buy a phone that some bloke called Dave had made out of wood and was selling in his shed.

But the coverage would be pants.

My brother is in your situation, no credit history. Not bad, just none. I signed up for a family plan for him because I have credit and he would just pay me. If he were to try and do it on his own, he would have a huge deposit and limitations.

Do you have any prepaid phone services? That does not require credit because you pay in advance.

I too didn't believe in bank cards, credit can get you in to trouble fast, but you need credit as you can see. I suggest doing what I did. Get a little $500.00 credit card through your bank. Use it occasionally like for internet purchases and pay it off in full each month. That way you build credit and you don't get in over your head.

Your proof of address can be anything so long as it has your name and address on it basically - i use my bank account statements. as for ID, what about a passport or birth certificate or something? surely they'd take these.

I actually didn't know that you needed credit history specifically, i thought they just looked at how you have operated bank accounts etc... i mean how do you get one if you need one to start one? I got refused for a debit card once, by my bank and i presumed it was because i had a bad credit history (I wrote a £3 cheque over my limit when i was like 15....).... but seeing as I've never had a credit card, then presumably i don't have any!

Ok here is a tip to get a credit rating in the UK (not sure about the rest of the world) Get yourself one of the large catalogues, Kays or Littlewoods etc and buy yourself something over £100 and pay for it through their credit terms. This instantly gives you a credit rating. If you default on the repayments your rating will go pear-shaped so make sure you pay up every month.

Proof of address can just be a household bill with your name on it. Never scan the front and back of your debit card to give to people. You are just asking for someone to clean out your account.

Is there any reason you aren't going for a pay as you go phone? if you did you could go into a phone store and ask to be served by someone called Dave. The Phone probably won't be made of wood though and I doubt he will take his shed to work with him.

I work for a mobile phone company over here in Australia... To help with credit, take Skullduggery advice get a pre-paid. If you take the number from the pre-paid over to the contract it shows the contract company your going for that you have a history with another mobile company.

Second, the company that your firstly going to may not take you as you don't have a credit history. What you can do is go to any phone company and apply... you may be rejected as you don't have a history, but after being rejected once, you've atlest opened a credit file. You would only be rejected on the base that no other credit file had been opened, it won't place a black make upon your name.

Third, look around for the best plan... what you might think is a good plan, say you get 20 free sms, may not be the best for you. It may have a high call rate, and charge by 30 seconds or even by the minute ... Look for something that is charging by the second. Also check with the included calls, the plan may state it is a $20/ 20 pounds a month with $20 / 20 pounds of calls... these are not free calls, the way it breaks down is that the $20 is the min. monthly fee. So if you only made say $10 worth of calls, you'll still need to pay $20, if you made $20 worth of calls you'll pay $20, and if you made $30 worth of calls you'll pay $30, you won't have to pay for the access for the phone + the calls you make... just what you go over with. If your going with a company that has free time calling within the same company, check with family and friends first to see if they to are with that network... nothings worse than being on a network that has free calls and nobody to call...

Also look at the handsets... there may be a phone that you want, but just be careful, the plan that it may come with could be quite high. Make sure you have a look at a working model aswell... you don't want to be on your way home and find that the phone just plain sucks...

I hope this helps...

And also as for the sending of the card details and address details. If the company is quite big, you don't really have a problem... Due to laws they can only use them for the purposes that are stated in the terms and conditions of the comtract, such as for id purposes only. If there is anything on your forms that you don't want them to see, make a copy first and balck out what it is you want to keep to yourself, and send in that copy. It really only needs to state you address. Now to the deposit, you'll get the money back, this is just a security for the company. The money may be credited to your account rather than credit back to you in $$$ form... so in a way, they'll still get to keep your mney...

Now... that should cover almost all of it...

Thanks for all the advice everyone!

The reason I'm going for this particular phone is that it has 1000 off-peak minutes to other o2 phones a month for a really low price... and my girlfriend's getting one too. Basically we'll be paying far less than we currently are on pay as you go. And they don't seem to have any similar good deals on prepay.

Having got in touch with them they now say I can just ring them with my card details which will confirm my address and my ID in one... the only problem now is that my card is registered to a different address!! But if they'll change the address of the order, or just let me cancel it and start again, that's OK I guess.

Thanks for all the help - you've all really put my mind at ease over this as it seemed incredibly dodgy, to be honest! I'm going to try and get a bit of a credit rating by doing some of the stuff you suggested - I've also been told to get a store card, buy a couple of things on it, pay them off straight away then cancel the card... another way for pretty instant credit, apparently, though I'm not certain how much I'd have to spend on it to make it worthwhile.

You all helped thanks!