EVO Plans - Be Careful

[Mobilemandan]

So just a heads up for anyone on Vodafone they only sell handsets on EVO plans now and this may cause a few headaches. 

now they even credit check upgrades and differently for addition lines

on the OLD way once you pay for A SIM for 3 months you can upgrade to a phone, and when you are due a phone upgrade you can pick any phone. 

also if you want to add an additional line once approved you can pick what you like. 

HOWEVER!

EVO has changed all that, now a sim only customer gets credit checked for an upgrade which might decline….. and worse…..

if you are on a handset plan and due an upgrade they check you for that too now, which means you can be due an upgrade, fail a new credit check and be declined your new upgrade phone meaning you usage to keep what you have or change to a sim only. 

also if you pay off your phone or choose to upgrade on 12 months it’s ANOTHER credit check being done on you to see if they will let you, not an internal one based on your bill history like before. 

when EVO was announced I thought it was amazing and excited to see the deals, however I have already known of someone who had an account with Vodafone already, had handsets only last month which were returned in order to order on the new EVO plans and get declined, and then declined upgrading their sim to a phone also. 

seems a backwards move so just a heads up to everyone to look into the details before getting too excited, personally if I paid my bill every month for 2yrs and then I got told I can’t upgrade to a new phone because of a credit check system I would end up just getting my PAC and going elsewhere 

[WelshPaul]

Apologies, I thought you were comparing the two models. I'm not saying every handset on EVO is above RRP, but the Samsung and Apple models I compared are. My point, do your homework before signing up for something! 👍

[simax]

Here’s an idea that Vodafone might like to consider… many credit providers now do a soft “eligibility” check for consumers before they do a full application for a product. Why not offer that so customers can see not only if they’re eligible for what they’re applying for, but also would allow them to see what they’re also approved to get as well? Might provide some additional revenue if someone gets a watch as well as a phone etc… 

It will also appease anyone not wanting a hard check done for nothing….

Not sure what everyone thinks of that idea….?

[garetc]

Your above statement about checks isn’t correct re Vodafone.

If you joined on a SIM only plan and had 3-6 months clear payments (on time) they would allow users to upgrade to a ‘handset plan’ after which you could then upgrade every 12/24 without a further credit check. If you joined on a handset plan and you upgrade your handset there were no further checks as long as your account is in good standing. Now they credit check you every single time rather than rely on your history/standing with them. 

It’s easy to say ‘just keep your credit history healthy’ but there’s been many challenges for people over the past 12/24 month and different factors affect credit worthiness in general.

I decided against getting a phone plan this year and just bought my handset outright from Apple but many people aren’t in that position. People also prefer the convenience of having a single bill/biller rather than having to look around or mess around with PayPal credit or Klarna. 

[WelshPaul]

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@garetc wrote:

People also prefer the convenience of having a single bill/biller rather than having to look around or mess around with PayPal credit or Klarna. 

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I don't! I take the route that gets me the best deal! We all have to pay via direct debit these days and so no need to check bills, make manual payments to different companies like days gone by. As for PayPal credit or Klarna, I don't use them as I buy my handsets outright. But providing you can pay the monthly direct debit, I don't see any harm using them... Especially if it saves you a little money and you get a handset that hasn't had it's firmware modified/customised and regular firmware updates. 👍

Each to their own though. 😂

[garethr]

No, my statement on credit checks was not incorrect. It is what Vodafone have always done and maintained an internal credit score. You’d always be checked against this before any kind of upgrade or new contract. It has always been this way. The three/six clear payments thing was only simply a policy decision before which they’d not consider an upgrade. They’d even used to be able to tell you how many handsets you were allowed on your account. It’s based on your payment history with Vodafone. 

And re covid challenges - I appreciate that may have caused issues for some people, but that plainly will make you more of a risk in the future. Unfortunately individual context rarely matters when it comes to credit risk factors. It’s very binary (not that I agree with that being the case). You’d have the same challenges with any other kind of credit though, Vodafone is no different. 

[Jambo1872]

garethr I didn’t get credit checked on upgrades. I’ve been with Voda over 13 years and upgraded every 2 years with no fresh hard credit checks until now. 

[garethr]

Yes you did, but it wasn’t as overtly obvious because it was almost always against only their own internal scoring profile rather than using a third party but it was absolutely still credit checked.

The real question is with the Evo plans, has Vodafone’s target risk profile changed to become more challenging to meet the threshold?

Also, does their credit control team still have the option or ability to override any system based decisions as they’ve been able to do previously? (For example if you wanted to add an additional handset on your account that exceeded your account threshold it would always go to a manual credit control team for a decision)

The reality is that a hard search for a mobile phone contract won’t do anything to hurt anyone’s profile when applying for credit down the line. Profiling systems are much smarter and more complex than the meaningless scores presented by reference companies to consumers - lenders get the raw data and make their own decisions based on that and their appetite to risk. They’ll see hard searches, what it was for and who the potential lender was. An application for credit for a mobile phone is viewed differently to a credit card. 
Vodafone has always reported data to credit reference agencies on the monthly running of accounts anyway. 

[Jambo1872]

Not almost always. It was always against their own customer profile then, as there hasn’t been a hard credit search by Vodafone on my name since 2008 until now. 

I get the point you are making but Vodafone checking against their customer profile data they hold on you and running a hard credit search against the credit reference agencies are ultimately different things. 

[moonlit_freedom]

I've had exactly the same problem. I've paid my contract to Vodafone for nearly 18 years, never been late with a payment, and now I can't upgrade my phone. Even though the upgrade price was half of what I'm currently paying.

[garetc]

Are you at the end of your contract? Or is it an early upgrade/upgrade promise?