Identity

[greencreeper]

My phone is playing up and with me spending more time at work than at home, I thought it was about time I moved to a contract phone. I'm with O2 so I ordered a new phone from them, via their website. Read all the small print and carefully picked the phone and tariff. Just to wait for it to be delivered - I thought. Next day I receive an email asking me to call them, which I did. Bloke asks me a load of questions that I'd already answered online, including asking my date of birth twice. "I will need proof of your date of birth - passport or driving license will do. You can email me them now if you like", he says. I had to repeat myself twice, "I don't have a passport or driving license". I had no choice but to cancel the order Setting aside the assumption that everyone in the UK has a scanner, why is it that if you don't have a passport or driving license, people treat you like a weirdo or criminal? I don't understand why they need proof of my date of birth. Proof that I'm over 18 I can understand - but that can be verified by asking me to pay up front with a debit/credit card. The best laugh is that I can't have even a provisional driving license - I can't prove my identity It's very worrying that we're heading down the road of a society based on immediate mistrust where access to goods and services is dependant on whether you drive and/or travel (and by extension, have a decent income).

Not a happy bunny at all I've ordered another phone with T-mobile.

[patrickp]

Are you on the Electoral Roll, greencreeper? Most companies will check this first: if they find you there, they'll generally accept you as Ok; if they don't, they will get a bit suspicious.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by greencreeper

why is it that if you don't have a passport or driving license, people treat you like a weirdo or criminal?

You aren't the only one, see this report from the CAB to Ofcom

"* people on low incomes often find it very difficult to open a bank account. This may be because they are in debt or are undischarged bankrupts and many banks will not open even a basic account where the applicant is in debt. People also have to provide proof of their identity and address in order to open an account under international legislation to combat terrorism and money laundering. People on low incomes often do not have documents that the banks will accept as proof of their identity, such as a passport or driving licence. Worryingly for people paying for their fuel by pre-payment meters or who only have a pay-as-you-go mobile, the standard document required by banks to prove address is a utility bill. Of even greater concern is that some banks do not appear to want to open many basic bank accounts and try to persuade applicants for basic bank accounts to open a full current account instead, even though it is unsuitable.

"A CAB client from Kent had been unable to open a bank account, to facilitate receipt of her benefits, because she had no recognised means of identification. She had no passport or driving license and no utility bills as she had been paying for fuel via a pre-payment meter."

[BBKing]

I tell you what would really help these poor souls; using their tax money to pay for a massively expensive database that stores 50 bits of information about everyone in Britain, whether or not they have problems proving their identity or not.
</sarcy>

Surely an easier option would be for the Government to have a cheap way of confirming your identity, such as allowing banks to access (with the applicant's permission) employment, tax and birth records. Even if you can't drive, never travel abroad and don't have a gas contract, you're still born somewhere (or you've immigrated legally - illegal migrants needn't concern us overmuch here). After all, philosophically speaking, what's your identity in the end - it starts when you're born and ends when you die.

[Tuftus]

This is one example of why identity cards would be just great hey?

[Chimaera]

Originally Posted by Tuftus

This is one example of why identity cards would be just great hey?

But surely you'd have to prove your identity to get the ID card?

[BBKing]

Excellent point. The logic goes:

1) The Government assume they can already prove your identity sufficiently to get an accurate ID card system (since any large scale inclusion of already false identities renders the whole exercise fairly futile)
2) Therefore there must already be a way for the Government to confirm your identity (for instance, for the benefit claimer who can't open a bank account, they're presumably well known enough to the State to get given the benefit in the first place!)
3) Therefore, for the small amount of people who have trouble proving their ID when they need it, why can't they use the system in place? The problems are with inflexible bank rules, not personal or Governmental.

Again, repeat 'ID cards are not for your benefit'.

[greencreeper]

ID cards would just legitimise mistrust - not good at all. Besides which, we can't allow one nation's pursuit of oil to shape our domestic policy.

Interesting post, Graham. I'm fortunately not on a low income - just seemingly abnormal But I have been there. Very worrying.

I emailed 02 commenting (sarcastically) that O2 seemingly only accept orders from drivers and foreign travellers. They replied:

Originally Posted by Muppet

Thank you for contacting O2 Customer Service.

There is no such policy that we accept orders from people that drive or travel. We accept orders from all of the UK
residence.

Your order GM-006450768 for the Samsung E720 has been cancelled due to the Credit Check failed. To get assistance, please
contact our Equifax on 08700 100 583.

If you need further information about this matter, please reply to this email. For further details about O2, please visit
our online Help Centre at:

http://www.o2.co.uk/help

Kind regards,

Poonam Dahiya
O2 Customer Service.

And I replied back:

Originally Posted by Moi

No the credit check did not fail. Your employee said that the order
could only proceed if I could prove my date of birth by providing
either a driving license or passport, and since I neither drive nor
travel abroad I was forced to cancel the order. This effectively means
that those who do not drive or travel abroad are excluded from
purchasing mobile phones online from O2. Poor state of affairs. Your
employee refused to accept a birth certificate. A better way would be
to have the customer make the first monthly payment by debit/credit at
the time of ordering, thus confirming that the customer is over
eighteen. I have moved to T-Mobile.

[patrickp]

Originally Posted by greencreeper

And I replied back:

Have you checked with Equifax?

They're a well known credit checking agency. It's not impossible that you've picked up a bad credit reference somewhere; these things can often happen through, for instance, identity mix-ups.

If someone suggested that an agency like Equifax had given me a bad credit reference, I'd want to check it out.

[greencreeper]

Originally Posted by patrickp

Have you checked with Equifax?

They're a well known credit checking agency. It's not impossible that you've picked up a bad credit reference somewhere; these things can often happen through, for instance, identity mix-ups.

If someone suggested that an agency like Equifax had given me a bad credit reference, I'd want to check it out.

No need - never had a credit check. Whoever I spoke to at O2 has marked the order as cancelled due to failing credit check, either because of poor training or poor computer systems, but the real reason is that O2 only accept orders from those people with a passport and/or driving license. My order was cancelled because I'm not one of those people.

[patrickp]

Originally Posted by greencreeper

No need - never had a credit check. Whoever I spoke to at O2 has marked the order as cancelled due to failing credit check, either because of poor training or poor computer systems, but the real reason is that O2 only accept orders from those people with a passport and/or driving license. My order was cancelled because I'm not one of those people.

A bad credit reference may be the reason they were asking you for proof of your date of birth.

Certainly, if there's been some suggestion that Equifax has given you a bad credit reference, you need to check it out in case it needs sorting out. Otherwise you may keep coming up against the same problem - possibly when you really don't need it.

[BBKing]

I'd recommend that, too. We've just checked ours, £2 online, letter sent in a couple of days, clean as a whistle, which frankly amazes me (considering how much debt my other half got into in her youth...bloody storecards...). If there is something on there that shouldn't be there you really should get it taken off before it stops you doing something more important than getting a mobile!

Of course, if there *isn't* anything on there, you've got a big stick to beat 02 with, and you can go to a rival provider and know that if they reject you for credit check failed that you're clean.

[Taf]

So has O2 marking you down as "failing credit check" now set your status on credit check databases all over the country as "failed" ?

When we moved to this new home, I was distressed to find all "credit" checks failed .... but eventually got it sorted... a previous tenant was a bad credit risk, so the whole address was black-marked.

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by BBKing

I'd recommend that, too. We've just checked ours, £2 online, letter sent in a couple of days, clean as a whistle, which frankly amazes me (considering how much debt my other half got into in her youth...bloody storecards...).

Time is a great healer of past spending misdeads, your credit record is only 7 years long, so depending what you define as age and youth it may well have dropped off the report.

[handyman]

Just remember that having no credit references is just as bad as having bad debt. Also If you have a bank account or credit card these companies (and insurance companies) routinely credit check to make sure they have credit lines in place for the correct people.

If you want to improve your credit record simply apply for a credit card from your bank and they should allow it. Then snip the card. This will leave you a open clear line on your credit record.

A lot of companies will not accept anyone with out either

voters roll
a proven credit record
more than 3 searches in the last few months
......