Credit

BrianStephan

BrianStephan

Expert Member
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
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Location
Mauritius
How come its so hard to get a R200 p/m cellphone contract but so easy to get a credit card? And when u have a credit card and a salary way above the R200 p/m mark you cant get a cellphone contract its sick but when you are drowning in debt u snap your fingers and you have 1.
 
hmmmm, when I applied for my contract I was told above R 3500.00 p/m salary required. Credit card was more than R 2000.00 p/m.

Funny thing though. I opened a clothing account years ago with a salary of R 2000.00 p/m, my limit was immediately set to R 4000.00 and highest monthly installment was R 600.00. I don't know how some companies work.
 
J0n0 said:
Funny thing though. I opened a clothing account years ago with a salary of R 2000.00 p/m, my limit was immediately set to R 4000.00 and highest monthly installment was R 600.00. I don't know how some companies work.
Click to expand...

Yeah that was back in the day before the NCR ;)
 
I have a salary over R3500 p/m but Vodacom declines me because I dont have a credit rating but yet I have a credit card
 
I have no idea why you need to be in debt to get credit in this country.

I understand people in debt have a record but i cannot grasp why kippie earning 20k a month with no debt cannot get that 1m bond for a house while kippie number 2 who earns 18k and has large debt will get it far easier.
 
ah slootvreter now I understand you thanx but that takes months lol have 1 left on my phone contract
 
A credit card don't give you a credit rating unless you pay something off in more than six months, so if you clean your credit card each month it does nothing for your credit rating
 
I got a thruworths account like the people at the bank advised me, bought stuff with the vouchers and then after about 8 months I got my homeloan.
 
phoneJunky said:
A credit card don't give you a credit rating unless you pay something off in more than six months, so if you clean your credit card each month it does nothing for your credit rating
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You are joking right. Thats the most absurd thing i have ever heard if it is right.
I mean that should give you an excellent rating.
 
superskully said:
You are joking right. Thats the most absurd thing i have ever heard if it is right.
I mean that should give you an excellent rating.
Click to expand...

When inquiring about my credit rating, the bank told me that using your credit card and clearing it at the end of each month is one of the best ways of gaining a score, so obviously there are different opinions here.
 
I had the same problem when I bought a second hand car in 2008.
Up till then I paid cash for everything and didn't exist on any credit bureau's database.
Fortunately for me my bank (Standard) provided financing (prime +0.5) where ABSA, Westbank, etc. wouldn't even consider helping me.
I opened an Edgars account to build up some credit rating and in 2009 I bought a house which I wouldn't have been able to do without a credit rating.

The problem with someone with no credit rating is that they have no history of payment so how do you know that your new client is not going to default on payments?
A lot of people have no self discipline when it comes to budgeting and accounts in arrears can sink nearly any company if not kept in check.

With regards to cell phone contracts :
Most people view paying their phone bills as having lower priority than repaying a car or house so when the banana hits the fan that's the one of the first things they default on.
People can live without a phone for a bit but a roof over your head and transport is a necessity.
Seen all the retrenchments in the telecoms industry recently? The bad debt in the telecoms industry is cronic - people just don't pay!
 
I am just saying what they told me. I have a credit card and I pay it of monthly, but the people at the bank told me to get an extra account that I can pay over six months and that is what I did.

As for the cellphone contract. I got my phone a month after I started to work and I just showed them my contract with my employer and they gave me mine. Vodacom denied me my contract, but not MTN. Don't know if you what to use MTN though.
 
it all comes down to credit scoring not just what the bureaus have on you !
how companies use the data from the bureaus differ ie cellphone companies might have a stricter scorecard than a credit card company (bank)

best thing to do is have a healthy record with not too many enquiries ! remember everytime you apply for credit that company does an enquiry at the bureau, so if you have more than a certain number of enquries during a specific period of time ie 1 year, last 30 days etc you will get a straight decline ! believe it or not !

no of enq is a BIG scorecard characteristic for many credit providers.

i should be charging for this info :D
 
another thing to remember is don't apply for everything ie you want a cell phone contract and you apply to mtn,vodacom,virgin and cell c you end up taking the mtn contract, thats 4 enquries but only one taken up.

alot of people do this when looking for vehicles as well, they apply for everything they like but ultimately take only one car !

bottom line is DO YOU RESEARCH ! find out what you want first and then apply for it only if you sure you going to take it !
 
Its crazy how credit works in general...how i pay the R200 on my cell phone contract is only a small indication of how well i would pay my R8000 bond....
 
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