Credit, cell phones, and stupidity

It has been stupidly impossible to get Canadian cell phones.

When we arrived in Canada, this was one of the first things we sought to do at the mall. We dutifully went to every storefront & kiosk, and collected all their brochures, plans, and basic provider details. Some trends quickly emerged:

• In the States, most cell phone plans include "free" long-distance minutes. As in, you pay for airtime, it doesn't matter the destination of your call (so long as it's in the country!) In Canada, this is entirely unheard of. In fact, one "representative" told us that we'd be charged long-distance rates if the person calling us was far away.
• In the States, most cell phones plans include voice mail, caller-ID and call-waiting. In Canada, you get call-waiting and consider yourself lucky. Voice mail not only has an additional cost, but typically comes in two tiers of service ("3 minute messages" vs. "5 minute messages" was one example). Caller-ID is not standard, but is frequently bundled with voice mail. As in, CDN$5 each, or $8 combined.
• Obviously, we're going to mostly be calling to and from the US. I would think, as US-centric as almost every other Canadian business is, this would be common, but no. You can get a "World Business Traveler Plan" or something, which has built in US roaming and US long distance, but it's crazy expensive. Or you pay 25-35 cents a minute. For us, at least, this quickly became the primary criteria among different carriers. (Also, since we know very few Canadians, local-call-oriented plans weren't very appealing.)
• Liz had a trip to Germany this fall, and we're both going to Chile in December, so we wanted to keep an eye out for tri- and quad-band phones. Like the States, though, CDMA is more common than GSM, but some GSM providers are to be found.

So, we find a provider who has decent long-distance rates, GSM phones, and world-roaming available. And they take Visa.

But, they want to do a credit check. "No problem," we're thinking.

Except, it turns out, that we have no - zip - zero - nada - Canadian credit. Our US credit doesn't transfer over. The Canadian credit check system can't check with the US credit check system to see if we pan out. Theoretically, Donald Trump would have to get someone to co-sign for him in Canada...

Anyway. We go to the bank and try to apply for a credit card. Except, at this point, we don't have a Social Insurance Number (SIN), the Canadian equivalent of a Social Security Number (SSN) in the States. It's not really necessary, except that, like in the States, the banks use your number as your ID number in their system. In other words, we are told that without a SIN, we don't exist in the eyes of the credit system.

So, we go apply for a SIN card. For some reason, even though I am just piggy-backing on Liz's work permit status, mine arrives right away (three days!) But, because of my work-permit status (I don't have an offer letter, basically, while Liz does), the bank tells me that I don't stand much chance of getting credit.

We wait two weeks for Liz's SIN card to arrive.

When it arrives, we go to our bank and apply for credit. In a few days, we find out that we are denied. The bank offers to set up a "secured line of credit" — basically, they set CDN$500 of our money aside in a CD and give us $500 of credit. If we're "good", we might get the deposit back in 6-10 months.

Obviously, this isn't an attractive option, but we mull it over.

We happen to be grumbling about this with Liz's aunt, who lives here in Toronto, and she offers to try to set us up with her bank. I get some emails from a woman at her bank, who specializes in corporate big-whigs who move in international circles. She offers to try to set us up — they have a US branch, they think they can grant us credit in a circuitous loop through their US branch.

This process takes a few weeks — there are papers to fax, faxes don't come out well, so things have to be mailed, etc. Eventually, though, everything goes through fine — Liz, not I, gets a shiny credit card in her name. The bank assures us that we now have CDN$5000 credit to our name. (Well, Liz's name.)

But try telling that to the cell phone company! They scan our credit three times, each time, it comes up declined. No one knows why. The credit card is good, but they can't give us a two-year cell phone plan... but, we can always go Pre-Paid.

Pre-Paid Plans in Canada are not unlike those in the states — the per-minute rate isn't great, but it gives an illusion of flexibility. (The problem, in the end, is that the pre-paid minutes expire after so many weeks of inactivity. So, you can't really use them whenever, they are still only good for so long.)

When we mention that Liz is leaving in a week for Germany ("and that's why we wanted to get the phone tonight!") he suggests that she shop around in Europe for an unlocked phone. "They're much better over there!"

Well, better, maybe. But cheaper? Not at all. Liz did her shopping, but the overall "bang for the euro" seemed about the same.

So... We're about to go buy the Pre-Paid phone, but it's not cheap. Altogether, a basic phone is going to set us back about CDN$200 each, plus or minus some "starter minutes". Of course, if we had done this two months ago, and cut off our US phones, we'd have spent the same amount by now, but...

It occurs to us that, at least, to set a "floor", we should see what kind of premium unlocked phones carry. After a few minutes on Google, I find a few eBay-store "distributors" selling the same model, unlocked, for US$50.

Plus US$50 for international shipping (which is ridiculous!) Plus US$15 for shipping insurance. Plus CDN$50 for a SIM card...

So, altogether, we figure it's about the same price, but it's an unlocked phone, plus they throw in some cheesy-but-mildly-useful accessories (like a car charger), so why not?

Well... All the stores I can find are eBay store-fronts and only accept PayPal. No problem, I have a PayPal account. Oh, except, they only ship to "Paypal confirmed addresses". Our new address isn't confirmed yet, we haven't updated it. That should be easy...

Hmmm. It turns out, there's no option to change my address to Canada. "That's odd," I think, and start trying to think of another option.

(I find out later that Paypal has an absurd policy that they can't let you change your address to another country. No one at their customer service department could explain it to me, except to say that I had to cancel my US account and create a new account.)

We decide to create a new Paypal account, using Liz's shiny new credit card. No problem. Except, it takes a few days for Paypal to do it's direct deposit magic and "verify" our card. And, somewhere along the line, we fritz out something, and Paypal starts telling us that it "can not process your request at this time, please contact your merchant directly for assistance." We have no idea what that means, but we're hoping we can find a way to just pay for it with a normal credit card and move on.

We've been here for 8 weeks, and we don't have cell phones yet. We have two banks, one credit card and SIN cards — but no cell phone. We still have our American phones, but we haven't used them to dial in or out since GenCon.

Monday, when Liz was stranded at the Toronto airport, waiting for her luggage to arrive (she would wait until Wednesday), it cost her CDN$4 (four! dollars!) to call me on my US phone for 1 minute.

More as it develops...

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