SIM contract denied after credit check declined

[Homegirl]

Hi all 

I applied for a SIM only contract which was denied after failing the credit check, the contract was for less than £14 a month. I am a homeowner (20 years)  I am on the Electorial register, I still have a landline for 30 years now, my credit score on Experian at the time was 974 out of a possible 999 it has since dropped to 880 because of this hard search that EE ultimately declined me. I have not missed any payments on anything. I know PAYG phone service doesn't count for much but I have had mine initially on Orange for 15 years and now 5 years and counting with EE so the same mobile number for 20 years in total. I wanted to add a contract SIM to my account,

I was surprised I got declined and no explanation is ever given so it does leave me wondering why. I am now curious as to how stringent the credit check is and if other people have had similar issues of failing credit checks when they should have seemingly been accepted. Is there some other hidden company criteria that customers with excellent credit scores don't know about that is resulting in their application being declined.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

[Profile closed]

Hello.

People with the best scores get declined.  It will be down to the criteria they have on the system. 

[Chris_B]

@Homegirl  Your Experian score means nothing.    Your PAYG account doesn’t mean anything when applying for a contract. 

Have you had credit in the past ?   Have you ever made a late payment on anything.  

Home ownership doesn’t mean you’ll get credit nor does have a landline or even being registered to vote.  

[Homegirl]

Hi Chris

I understand that each company sets their own standards but you would think that showing a pattern of reliability or stability would count a bit. It also devalues the hard search if none of the things on your file that they checked matter in the grand scheme of things.

So what does actually matter? This is not a how dare they decline me moment, I am genuinely asking this because I really need to change my current network provider however this setback has made me a bit weary of being declined again by another network and once again being clueless as to why. 

[Rodders3536]

Hello

i know this is a little late but I just wanted to give my opinion on this. I have found EE to be extremely picky I once wanted a sim declined left right and centre then I left it a year and applied for a handset and was approved I was on 5 lines by the time I left then I came back in may 2022 and I got referred to underwriter and was approved for 2 lines then upped to 5 lines a week later I have brilliant credit very very high credit card limit £13.5k and banks don’t give out them limits on a whim so honestly try appealing it but if that doesn’t work try getting a credit card from what your score says on Experian is that you have a thin file no one I know has that score and we all are brilliant payers. Ie I’m on 901 on Experian 890 on ClearScore and 611 on transunion also credit providers don’t see your made up score by the reference agencies they will process all your information from what you said and what sources they use to dig up dirt on you.