Was I approved? Or no?

April 23, 2008 11:20 PM

I just ordered a cellphone over the internet. On a contract. It didn't seem like there was a credit check at any point. How does that work?

I am Canadian. Ordered through Bell.ca. Filled out all my info, including birth date, picked my plan, area code, etc. Then it asked for my credit card, did that. Thats it. Where was the credit check? My credit is sorta bad. Like I defaulted on a credit card 4 years ago type bad. What happens if the credit check doesn't go through? It doesn't make any sense to me. I'm a little worried. Will call in to Bell first thing, but they don't open until 8am.

Anyone know how this works or done it yourself?

posted by heavenstobetsy to Technology (6 answers total)

Cost of the handset is negligible.

They pre-authorized some multiple...let's say 6...of your monthly fees. A pre-auth is not an actual payment, but a confirmation that you have that much credit available on your credit card. That's the credit check (flawed but good enough)
posted by randomstriker at 11:47 PM on April 23, 2008

Also, their isn't much of a tangible downside to you not paying them. Their infrastructure is sunk cost. Their bandwidth is pretty much unlimited. If you don't pay, they cut off your service...big deal. Not like they loaned you money for a car or a house.
posted by randomstriker at 12:00 AM on April 24, 2008

I Am Not Your Cell Phone Provider, but I do work for one, and I've done shitloads of work with the back-end systems that handle new contract activations. You were very likely credit checked while you placed your order by a system like Experian or Equifax. The information you gave Bell is more than enough to get a yay or nay from either of those agencies in real time.
In general, you'll be put into one of a few different categories like 'Unconditional Accept' 'Conditional Accept', 'Reject', or 'Referred', with a whole bunch of different sub-categories. If you were unconditionally accepted, it would have gone straight through. If they took a deposit from you're credit card, you might have been conditionally accepted, which basically means that they think you're a reasonable risk to take, but they'd like a little insurance. If you were rejected or referred, in all likelihood your order wouldn't have gone through, or you would have been instructed to call their sales team to finish setting your account up.
I'm sure you'll be fine.
posted by Kreiger at 2:44 AM on April 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

If it works like Verizon and other companies here in the states, they will contact you if there is a credit problem and offer you some options.

I have horrible credit, due to divorce and a gambling-addicted hypochondriac ex-wife leaving me with more medical bills than I can possibly pay. I was once told that my credit score was virtually the same as if I had gone through bankruptcy. Anyway... bad.

I had been using a pre-paid phone for years, and finally decided to get onto a plan with Verizon. I picked my plan and my phones, filled out the paperwork, and within a few minutes they gave me some paperwork showing my options. All I had to do was give them a deposit of $200 ($100 per line) to start service, and it was set to go right away. The rep told me there are three tiers of bad credit risks they deal with, each with a different deposit requirement. I was in the middle tier. The highest tier required a $200 per line deposit, I think.

So, based on my experience, just be prepared for a deposit. And if you don't hear anything pretty soon, I would say you are good to go.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 5:29 AM on April 24, 2008

I Am Not Your Cellphone Provider (or even involved in that industry), but I have experience with how customer enrollments are handled in another vertical. Kreiger has it right; in fact, his explantation is eerily similar to how the company I work for does things.
posted by lowlife at 5:43 AM on April 24, 2008

Like Kreiger, I am also not your cell phone carrier, but I do work for one. In my role I take the technical requirements and design the sales processes on the back end. We have had lots of problems with our commerce functionality due to the complexity of cell phone activations. Up until recently we even just had portions of the commerce system accept whatever was entered and then someone would process it in our POS system on the back end. If there was a problem they would then contact the customer via email or phone the same day.

If there are problems you'd then receive a follow-up phone call most likely within 48 hours (probably sooner) as the last thing they want to do is risk losing you as a potential customer.
posted by Octoparrot at 5:28 PM on April 24, 2008