DD having problems getting a uk phone contract.....

[idobelieveinfairies]

DD has started at uni in England. She wants a phone contract set up but o2 are saying no. She is from the channel islands so has offshore bank a/c which we thought might be the problem but her bf has a channel islands a/c and this was excepted for his phone contract and it is up and running. The shop just keep saying the computer is saying no to your card????? and won't help any further.

She has been to t-mobile and they said they could offer her a 3 month at a time contract as she has no uk credit history and it would be a bit of a gamble for them without it. She said yes to this but later found out that she can't call/text international numbers or call english numbers but can text them, and thats all that they can offer her.

ANyone got any idea how it all works??? :)

Sounds like she needs to open a mainstream UK bank account and/or a credit card in order to establish her credit history.

If the bank account address doesn't match the address you're giving then that can be a problem too (as can silly things like the exact format of the address - I've had to make sure I put an extra space between two words in mine as some of the systems are convinced there should be one, or if you don't have postcodes, but the system expects you to have one)

Easiest really is to open up an onshore UK account, then try for a month to month, sim-only contract.

In other countries they'll sometimes take a deposit if you don't have enough of a credit history - you could try that as well.

She could try a couple of other phone places - maybe tesco or something. I got turned down for a phone contract (£12 a month) with one provider but accepted by another within five minutes in the same shop.

I had moved back two years earlier after years abroad so had lost most of my UK credit history, and was only working freelance, but I did have a UK bank account. They all seem to have different credit-scoring requirements. If all else fails, she may need to go PAYG.

Open an onshore bank account, and offer a deposit for the handset. When I came to the UK from the Netherlands I couldn't get one either due to lack of credit history, even though I did open a UK account, but after speaking to them they let me have it with £150 deposit (was an expensive handset), to be returned after the first six months of the contract provided I paid all the bills on time. I've since had to do that once more, again due to a credit history problem, and that time I paid £150 deposit which they held for 6 months, then used to pay 6 months worth of bills if you see what I mean - so I gave them £150 up front, paid 6 months worth of bills, and then stopped paying and the rest of the contract term came out of the £150.

When we returned to the UK, we had to pay o2 a deposit despite having uk bank accounts and debit/credit cards.

Get her on the electoral register (this is the first thing a credit check looks for) and a UK bank account.

Tell her to look at Giff gaff It's a PAYG company but you can get goody bags for minutes and calls which are far better value than lots of contracts are.

She could try virgin mobile, me and dp have very very bad credit ratings (can't get any credit anywhere) but virgin accepted us on £20pm contracts

She could try virgin mobile, me and dp have very very bad credit ratings (can't get any credit anywhere) but virgin accepted us on £20pm contracts