Nobel winner not worthy of phone without deposit http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100201/jsp/frontpage/story_12051688.jsp#top
AMIT ROY Ramakrishnan *London, Jan. 31:* Nobel laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan feels he has been deliberately humiliated by the mobile phone company O2 which treated him less favourably than most customers by forcing him to pay a £325 deposit and refusing to budge even after he had explained he was an established scientist with an impeccable record of paying his bills. “I am actually slightly suspicious that there is an element of racism at play here as well, since I can’t think of a logical reason why I should be denied credit,” said Ramakrishnan, who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for chemistry, worth $1.4 million, with two other scientists. The problems began on December 2 last year when Ramakrishnan, a US citizen settled with his wife in Cambridge for the past 10 years, went to a city centre O2 store to buy the highly recommended iPhone 3GS black, 32 Mb. Ramakrishnan had no difficulty with the young white assistant who served him but the store’s manager insisted he would have to pay a deposit if he wanted the phone. Customers considered credit-worthy are not usually asked to pay such a deposit. Ramakrishnan, who was in a hurry as he then was on his way to Stockholm to receive his Nobel Prize, took up the matter with O2 after returning home to Cambridge in January from a trip to India. He provided details of his blameless credit history but was still given the brush-off by O2. O2 denies behaving in a racist manner and has shifted the blame on to two credit-rating agencies, Equifax and Experian, which provide information to lenders so that they can decide whether a potential customer is a risk or not. After both Equifax and Experian backed up Ramakrishnan by confirming the scientist’s assertion that his credit worthiness was “excellent”, O2 has declined to discuss the case any further. “Your score is highly predictive that you would be a strong candidate for credit,” reads Equifax’s glowing assessment of Ramakrishnan. “You have no derogatory items in your payment history. You are well above the average for UK borrowers. Most credit grantors would consider this score excellent. Many credit grantors may also offer you preferential terms such as higher credit limits or lower rates.” It is admitted that as a US citizen Ramakrishnan’s name will not figure on an electoral register as he cannot vote in the UK but the credit agencies routinely give the green light to tens of thousands of Americans who live in Britain. “This is not an issue,” said an Experian spokesman. O2, with headquarters in Slough, Berkshire, describes itself as “the UK’s leading provider of mobile phones and broadband, offering the best mobile phone, SIM only, and broadband deals”. The Millennium Dome in London’s Docklands, where the late Michael Jackson had planned to give a series of concerts, is now branded after O2. The scientist, who uses a bicycle instead of a car and has not had a mobile phone before, recounted the history of what he feels has been consistently shabby treatment by O2. “Shortly after I received the Nobel Prize, I was inundated with phone calls and emails and felt the need to get a mobile phone to be reachable in a private way,” he said. “I went to the O2 store in Cambridge and asked to buy an iPhone. The young man was white, but I do not think he was racist in the least. He was trying to be very helpful and even went and asked his manager. The manager never saw me and just told him nothing could be done. The young man was apologetic about it.” Ramakrishnan is based at the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology on the well known Addenbrooke’s Hospital site in Cambridge. “Although I am a head of division here, have owned a house in the UK since 1999 (and since 1983 in the USA), have two major UK credit cards on which I charge £1,000 or more monthly, I was deemed insufficiently credit worthy and asked to pay a three-month deposit of £325,” he said. “I checked with the two credit bureaus they use and there is nothing wrong in my credit report. I then wrote to them and let them know my situation, but instead of redressing the issue by refunding the deposit, they said there was nothing they could do.” He added: “I am outraged in principle that they should require this from someone so completely credit worthy – I have been given loans in excess of £200,000 in the UK for my house!” Ramakrishnan recalled: “The shop sales person wouldn’t budge. Then I wrote to their standard customer service and got a non-response. Then I wrote to their complaints department, and got a response from Martin Nicholson (O2 complaint review service), which basically said, ‘Sorry, our algorithms sometimes don’t work even if you have too little credit history’. But this is absurd, because I’ve owned a house which was mortgaged twice, once after it had been paid off in full.” A spokeswoman for O2 said after reviewing the correspondence between Ramakrishnan and the customer services representative that she was “very sorry to hear that Prof Ramakrishnan was offended by our credit checking procedures. Every new contract customer is subject to a credit check. The process is fully automated using two external credit reference agencies, Equifax and Experian. The credit score is then factored into our internal bench marking and the decision would either be a yes, no, or referral. We have no influence over individuals’ credit files, we simply act on the indication of the credit reference agency.” She also said: “We strongly advise any customer who is not satisfied with the result of this checking procedure to arrange to see a copy of their credit file. For example, having little or no credit history in the UK (such as when a customer has lived abroad for a long time), or if they are not on the electoral roll can result in a poor credit file.” The spokeswoman commented: “I am dismayed to hear that Prof Ramakrishnan would suggest that this decision was in any way related to race. Whilst we are honoured to have a distinguished Nobel Prize winner amongst our customers, I can assure you that every customer is treated exactly the same regardless of their race, creed or colour and in accordance with the law. I hope this clears this matter up.” However, the matter is far from resolved. There has been no response from O2 after it was pointed out that its version appears not to stand up to scrutiny. Equifax and Experian acknowledge that Ramakrishnan’s absence from the electoral register may have caused an initial problem but both agencies distanced themselves from O2. Neil Munroe, external affairs director for Equifax, commented: “Equifax would like to stress that it is down to each individual company’s lending criteria whether an application is granted. If an applicant is declined or is not offered the rate or deal expected by a consumer, the lender should indicate the reasons for their decision and if it is suggested that this is because of information on their credit file, the lender should indicate which credit reference agency was used by them so that the consumer can obtain a copy of their credit file to find out more.” In Ramakrishnan’s case, O2 appears to have breached industry rules by claiming it is not in a position to divulge its internal scoring system. James Jones, consumer education manager for Experian, said: “We do not tell lenders which customers to accept, refer or decline, we simply provide details of people’s credit histories. In some cases, as appears to be the case with O2, the data is returned to the lender in the form of a score calculated to their own criteria. The decision of whether or not to accept an application and the terms on which credit is offered is always the lender’s.” The ratings have been double checked by Ramakrishnan who said: “I have PDFs of my credit history from both agencies, Experian and Equifax, and there appear to be no red flags except that I am not on the electoral roll. However, this is purely because I am not eligible to vote here.” He wants O2 to answer two questions: “What exactly about either report did they dislike enough to require me to pay a deposit? Why, after being told the facts in my case, did they not bother to make amends by refunding the deposit?” When making purchases in the past, he has not had problems even when his giving his first name as “Venki” or using just his initial. “It was my impression that the programs are capable of distinguishing nicknames, since the postcode/address/last name and date of birth match. I’ve often just used my original initial. I suppose the main thing is that they (O2) refused to look into it to find out what the problem was even after I’d told them who I was and my situation. The real problem is that even after I told them I was this year’s Nobel laureate in chemistry, that I had a good job, plenty of credit history, they refused to budge. So the people I fault are their complaint review service.” As for Ramakrishnan, the Nobel Prize winner had an afterthought: “It is the principle of the thing that annoys me. Life was simpler when I didn’t have a mobile!”
