Having been out of the country for over 6 months has had some interesting side effects. One of that being a non existent credit rating, which has made some things very tricky.
The first, which was a major surprise, and a sign of things to come, was opening a new bank account. After my troubles with Standard Bank in Germany (see here), and further troubles while I was in Brazil; I decided to change banks. After getting all the necessary documents in order, I was quite surprised that ABSA (which had the best package in terms of fees and services) were somewhat reluctant to open the account of my choice, given my non-existent credit rating. However, sanity somewhat prevailed (after the sales rep, who has been most helpful - a very pleasant change to Standard Bank, and FNB for that matter), and I have been assured that everything will be up and running on Monday morning.
The second, of more immediate concern, was trying to set up a cell phone contract. My new job provides a sizable cell phone allowance, and I know quite well that I will be using that allowance, and probably more. And, while I admittedly left it quite late in trying to get a contract sorted out (I was hoping to sort out the banking issue first), getting a business cell phone contract has, so far, been impossible. It seems, that because I have no debts, I am not to be trusted with a business cell phone contract. Hopefully, I can get more time to reason with the sales staff (more importantly, the people who approve of the contracts), and get this sorted.
It seems to have a good credit rating, you must first be in debt. Surely that is a bit counter intuitive - a person who can prove that they can pay their debts should have a better credit rating than a person who can prove that they have debts?
1 comment:
ah, but with no debts, no record. That makes you a wild card: an unpredictable entity. And that makes you a risk.
Even worse, it means you're more than likely what is referred (or 'heffered' to, whichever takes your preference) to as a 'dry cow' in debt terms. Financial institutions (aka anyone _backed_ by a financial institution these days, including cellphone providers) do not want people who pay of their debt timeously... they want people who pay off just their interest timeously. They can't make money off you if you're good at managing your debt.
And that, my friend, is a sick system.
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