Thursday, July 05, 2007

When bad credit works to your advantage

Proper posting will resume sometime tomorrow, but until then, I thought I'd at least drop a quick line with a link to an article that amused me: "Some people can buy iPhone without 2-year contract"

It seems that if your credit rating is bad enough for you not to qualify for the two-year contract AT&T (aka Cingular) requires for the iPhone, they're still willing to take your money -- sans contract, as many cell-phone buyers would probably prefer. As Reuters put it:

The companies did not widely publicize that customers who do not pass its credit test have the option to pay for their service on a month-by-month basis, escaping what some consider a restrictive two-year plan.


If you don't qualify for the two-year plan, AT&T will offer you a prepaid plan. It's more expensive than service would be under a standard monthly contract, but it also doesn't have the nasty huge cancellation fees providers stick in those contracts.

I wonder if AT&T will let people with good credit go for the prepaid option, if they know about it and push for it ...