Ordering a Samsung Galaxy S4 from CarphoneWarehouse

I don’t normally use English here, but I’ll do it this time – obviously for Google-related purposes.

Three days ago, my wife ordered a Samsung Galaxy S4 from Carphonewarehouse. You can see the offer here (adding a screenshot below just in case the page suddenly disappears)

One day later, she received an email stating that she failed her credit check, so her order couldn’t be processed. It was a bit surprising, seeing how she doesn’t owe money to anyone at all. She never applied for credit, she never had unpaid bills. I figured she may be a bit too young (22) and since she only opened a bank account last year, she may not be “trustworthy” from a company’s point of view. After all, a company can’t expect much from young customers – especially when you’re talking about credit / responsibility. There was no follow-up call, no email address to reply to or any way of contacting the company.

I figured I could help her. After all, my bank account is three years old, haven’t been in debt, never applied for credit or a mortgage or whatever either. There have been times when my balance was getting close to 0 – mostly due to using another debit card issued by another bank – but no major events. I’ve been here for a while and my bank account looks decent, so I ordered the phone for her. This is where it gets funny.

Apparently, my credit rating is just as bad as hers. Amazing, right? But then again, I figured this may have something to do with me not owning a credit card. Ever. Every time I’ve been asked whether I wanted a credit card, I simply said “no, thank you”. There are a few logical reasons for that, but I’m not going to get into that debate. Bottom line: I wasn’t interested in spending money that didn’t belong to me, especially since I generally manage to save around 1000-1200 pcm.

This is where it gets funny. Ten minutes ago I received a phone call from CPW. Obviously it was about my order. Yeah, so we’d just like to know if you’re still interested in that phone. Erm…yeah, but you just said you couldn’t process my order. Errmm…uhhhmmmm…we were just wondering if you’d be interested in getting it on another network?

Hoooold on. So let me get this straight: my credit rating won’t allow me to buy this phone on t-mobile, but it will allow me to buy it on another network? What exactly is going on here? I went from “couldn’t care less” to “wait, what?” in less than 5 seconds. I went to T-Mobile and checked their prices. Here they are:

The same plan, the exact same phone (no case included), the exact same monthly fee, but you get to pay 269 pounds instead of 99 (as advertised by CPW). Now here’s a question: how exactly would CPW be able to sell the same phone on the same network with the same plan…but 170 pounds cheaper than T-Mobile?

A mean person would say they never intended to offer the phone and never had that plan. The same kind of person would say they were just trying to trick people into ordering, only to call them back and offer them a “slightly” more expensive “deal”. That person would claim it was BS all along, just another marketing trick. Get people to order an expensive phone for an “amazing” price, then claim their credit rating wouldn’t allow them to get that phone on that network. However, the same credit rating would allow potential customers to get the same phone on another network – where it’s more expensive.

But hey, I’m not a mean person and I don’t really need a phone. As for my wife, she’s ordering the HTC One right now – from a different supplier, obviously. Like I said, I’m not a mean person. My wife, on the other hand…

P.S IF you feel like posting a comment, please use English. Thank you.