Guaranteed Phone Contracts

This is a contract where a customer will not be credit checked as part of the application. Usually when you apply for a mobile phone contract the provider you are applying through will credit check you as part of your application. A credit check is basically a check against how well you have managed your finances in the past. If you have missed payments in the past, you have high debts or you have never taken any form of credit in the past you may have a poor credit rating. Unfortunately, if you have a poor credit rating it is likely that you will fail a credit check and you will be refused a mobile contract under normal circumstances. But there are alternatives. One such alternative is a SIM only contract. A SIM only contract is not credit checked to as high a degree as a standard phone contract because no phone is bundled free of charge with a SIM only contract. So if you have bad credit but already have a phone, you would stand a good chance of getting a new phone contract by taking out a SIM contract. Again, this should not be considered as a guaranteed phone contract but because no actual phone is included as part of the contract there is a much greater likelihood of being accepted for the contract.

If you have had bad credit in the past or you have previously had a mobile phone contract application declined then you would benefit from taking out a bad credit contract (this could be a phone contract deal or SIM only). This is a deal where a higher percentage of applicants will pass a credit check and could apply to people in the following circumstances:

• A customer that currently or has had poor credit in the past
• University students that need the value of a mobile on contract but do not have a good credit score
• Anyone that has had an application for a phone denied in the past
• Customers that need a phone and also need to rebuild a poor credit history would benefit

Inevitably many people will go through a period when finances are tight and their credit rating has taken a turn for the worse, but this should not stop you from applying for a phone contract. Mobile phones are such an integral part of modern life that it is a necessity that most cannot do without.Some of the more expensive phones such as the latest iPhone 9 or iPhone X will be subject to fairly stringent credit checks but there are a number of phones that are considered mid-range phones that would be achievable on a contract even for people with a bad credit status. Good examples of top quality mobiles that you might want to consider applying for would be models such as the Samsung Galaxy S7, iPhone 6, HTC, or Sony Experia models. Mobiles that still have high specifications but aren’t the very latest model in the range.

You should not be expecting to get a guaranteed phone contract if you have bad credit. If applying on a bad credit basis you should expect the free phone that is included as part of the deal to be one of the mid-range types of mobile rather than at the very top of the range. Also, if you were to find a 100% guaranteed acceptance phone contract from a specialist provider you will inevitably have fewer free minutes and free texts than a standard contract that is subject to a stringent credit check because the supplier will be taking a risk on an applicant that with bad credit because they may end up defaulting on their bills. If you want to get a better mobile deal then you would need to opt for a contract that involves a credit check so it is worth being realistic and choosing a contract from a provider that is known to have easier credit checks to pass or opt for a deal that includes a less expensive mobile so you counter this by getting better terms on your free minutes, free texts and free Internet allowance.

Our data suggests that of the major phone networks in the UK, Virgin Mobile, EE and Three are the two networks that consider people with bad credit when applying for a contract. Although, better deals are often to be had with online phone shops such as e2save or The Smartphone Company rather than applying for a contract direct with the network. You could potentially apply for a contract via an online phone retailer to get the best value but make sure your application is for a contract phone on a preferred network such as Virgin Mobile or Three to maximise the chances of acceptance.

Once you have a clear idea of the sort of contract deals that you want to target you can use our comparison engine to compare all the mobile phone deals for bad credit based on the criteria that are most important to you. This could be filtered by, mobile network, mobile manufacturer, phone type, number of free minutes, number of free texts, free Internet allowance, free gifts included and above all else, the monthly price of the contract.

Once you have found the deal that you are interested in, you simply need to click on that deal from our comparison table and then complete your details on the pages that follow. It should take no longer than a few minutes to apply online and you should know the results of your application the same day. To help your contract application you may be asked for supporting details or even requested to pay a deposit (or larger deposit) on the mobile phone.

When taking out a phone contract some networks or providers allow you to contribute a deposit towards the cost of the mobile. This typically helps you to get a better deal in terms of the number of free texts, minutes, etc. and can certainly help with passing the credit check because the provider is taking less of a risk in granting the contract based on them having received some money up front as part payment for the ownership of the phone. Generally the higher the amount of deposit you can afford to pay, the more chance you will have of being granted a contract. If you are concerned that you might not pass a credit check then selecting a deal where you have to pay a larger deposit may help you in being approved for the mobile contract.

There are some mobile phone providers that allow you to take out phone contracts on a pay weekly contract basis. These tend to be companies that specialise on offering services specifically to people with low credit status. Speak to your preferred phone shop or supplier to see whether they would be able to offer a pay weekly mobile phone contract.

Each network has their own criteria for offering contracts to people with bad credit. Many networks will require a credit check to be passed before a contract is offered. If you are a new customer to a network, experience suggests that O2, Three and Virgin in that order are the network operators that accept the most bad credit contract applications. One thing to remember if you are worried about failing a credit check is that you would likely stand a better chance of being offered a mobile contract if you are a pay as you go customer and you apply to the same network that you are using on your PAYG phone. This way the network will have some evidence that you pay your phone bills responsibly and they should value your custom by allowing you to upgrade to a contract phone. In our new best mobile contracts section we have subsections that include the networks and online phone shops that offer the highest acceptance rates in our experience. If you go to the phone shops section you will see that there is a section for each phone retailer that provides credit check information for each of the phone shops so if you want to get a deal from a particular retailer but you have bad credit you may want to take a look at the detailed information on the respective retailer page. For more details click on any of these links for details on retailer credit checks –

• e2save
• Mobiles.co.uk
• Mobile Phones Direct

Yes, it is possible to get bad credit phone contracts with free gifts bundled together. Examples of free gifts include widescreen TV’s, games consoles such as PS4, Xbox One, tablets such as an iPad, or Samsung Galaxy Tab, along with a range of other exciting gadgets. If you needed to buy one of the free gifts on offer or planned to use it as a gift then this can be a significant factor in selecting your mobile phone contract.

There are a wide variety of mobile phones with free gifts that you can search for by using our comparison table. Many of the deals on our site offer free gifts included so there are contracts for every particular requirement. For example, popular searches for free gifts on denied.co.uk include “iPhone 7 with free gift”, “iPhone 8 with free gift”, or simply “iPhone with free gift”. Other popular phones that are bundled with gifts include the Samsung Galaxy S8, Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus, Samsung Galaxy S9, Samsung Galaxy S9+ and a variety of phones from manufacturers such as OnePlus, HTC, Huawei, Motorola and Sony.

It depends what type of gift you are interested in as there are a wide variety of gifts that are given away for free with a new phone contract. Obviously some of the more expensive gifts will be reflected in a higher monthly contract rate in order to make up some of the cost of the gift, but they can be an effective way to get an expensive gadget or electrical item if you needed it for yourself or as a gift for a friend or family member and you needed a new contract phone. By combining the two you could potentially save yourself money. One thing to bear in mind is that there are often different gifts on offer based on the phone model selected. For example, if you chose to view the free gifts given away with an iPhone 9 contract there would be fewer options than if you chose to search for Sony Xperia free gifts. The reason for this is that the Xperia is an older and cheaper (but still very well specified) phone compared to the newer and expensive iPhone 9 so there are more inducements to take out a Sony Xperia contract given that both the phones and gifts as part of the contract are free. So if you are looking for one of the more expensive bundled gifts, you may want to choose a mid-range phone or at the very least a phone that is not one of the latest flagship models.

So what free gifts could I choose from when taking out a contract phone?

Our non-exhaustive list includes the following items (these can be subject to change so carefully check what is on offer)

List of free gifts with selected contracts

• £100 Gift Voucher (Amazon or general)
• £50 Gift Voucher (Amazon, High Street, or M&S)
• Acer Netbook laptop
• Amazon Fire HD 6 8GB
• Amazon Kindle 6 Inch WiFi
• Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7 Inch 16GB
• Amazon Kindle Paper
• Amazon Kindle WiFi
• Apple iPad Air 16GB
• Apple iPod Nano 16GB
• Apple iPod Shuffle
• Apple iPod Touch 16GB
• Apple iTunes Voucher
• Apple TV
• Beats By Dre Pill Wireless Speaker
• Beats Solo 2 Headphones
• Bose SoundDock III
• Fitbit Flex Fitness Band
• Fitbug Orb Bluetooth Activty Tracker
• GHD Hair Straighteners
• Google Chromecast
• Google Nexus 7 WiFi 16GB
• Google Nexus 7 WiFi 32GB
• Google Nexus 9 WiFi 16GB
• HP Laptop
• iPad Air 16GB WiFi
• iPad Air 2 16GB
• iPad Mini 16GB
• iPad Mini 3 16GB
• Lenovo Thinkpad Laptop
• LG 22 Inch TV
• LG 32 Inch TV
• LG 32 Inch TV With Soundbar
• Nintendo 2DS
• Nintendo 3DS XL
• Nintendo Wii U
• Samsung 40 inch TV
• Samsung 42 inch TV
• Samsung Galaxy Gear Fit
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 WiFi
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 16GB WiFi
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 8GB WiFi
• Samsung HWH550 Soundbar
• Sony Playstation Vita
• Sony PS Vita Slim
• Sony PS3 Slim 12GB
• Sony PS3 Slim 500GB
• Sony PS3 Super Slim 12GB
• Sony PS4 Console
• Sony Smart Band
• Sony Smart Watch 3
• Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
• Sony Xperia Z3 16GB WiFi
• Toshiba 32 Inch TV
• Toshiba Laptop
• Xbox 360 4GB
• Xbox 360 250GB
• Xbox One

If you would like to get a phone contract with a particular type of gift it is possible to filter our comparison table to just show phone contracts for a particular model of phone and a particular type of free gift.To use our advanced contract filter options follow these steps to find your free gift –

Step 1 – Search for your desired phone and click on the image of the phone.

We show a list of the four most popular phone options by default. If you would like to check a different phone you simply need to click the “view all phones” tab and use the drop down menus to select your desired phone manufacturer and model.At this stage you can choose the preferred phone colour by clicking on the colour icon next to the phone image.

Step 2 – Click “advanced search” if you want to specify number of minutes or exclude redemption deals.

This allows you to specify minimum or maximum monthly cost, number of free minutes, and Internet data allowance preferences as well as giving you the option to filter out redemption deals from the comparison table.

Step 3 – Click “choose a free gift” and click on the gift of your choice.

When you click on he “choose a free gift” tab our comparison engine will display all the free gifts on offer for the options you have chosen. Helpfully you can also see the lowest cost monthly contract fee alongside the image of the free gift. This will give you a good idea of costs.

Occasionally you may click on a free gift and no deals are displayed. If this is the case you might want to widen your search to include more options or an alternative phone model.

Step 4 – Choose the best contract with free gift from the list.

The final stage is choosing the best overall deal from the results that our phone comparison engine gives you so that you can get the phone you want with the free gift of your choice.

If you already have a mobile phone that you are happy with and you are concerned about your credit status or costs of a mobile phone contracts, a SIM only contract can provide a very cost effective way of obtaining a mobile contract. SIM only plans come in 30 day rolling contracts, 90 day, 12 month and sometimes up to 18 and 24 month contracts. They do not provide a mobile phone as part of the deal – they only include a SIM card which is how the phone networks are able to keep the costs down on these products. By only offering the small SIM card, there are no costs associated with offering expensive mobile phones as part of the deal and these cost savings are passed onto the customer so that it is possible to get a SIM contract with inclusive minutes, texts and data for as low as £5 per month. See all the latest SIM only contracts on our dedicated SIM only deals comparison section.

Some of the best contract deals in our comparison tool are often refurbished mobile phones (you can see which deals are refurbished by a small graphic below the phone on our comparison tool). The reason these types of contracts are such good value is that strictly speaking the phone that is included as part of the deal is second hand but in many cases phones that are considered refurbished have been sent back unwanted within a 14 or 30 day period. For example, if the customer changed their mind or decided on a different mobile phone. This means in most cases you are getting virtually a brand new model for a lot less money. I have personally owned several refurbs and in each case I received a phone that was in mint condition with no visible marks on it whatsoever. The latest phones are usually included as refurbished (or sometimes called reconditioned phones) mobiles with common models being the iPhone 7, iPhone 6, and the range of Samsung Galaxy models. Due to the nature of the phones being refurb models there can often be limited stock of each deal so if you see a contract that is of interest it is usually best to try to get the deal straightaway as it could be out of stock within a matter of hours. The good aspect is that there are regularly refurbished contracts on offer so if you do not see the type of mobile that you are interested in, then it would pay to check back the next day (we refresh all our deals every 24 hours). Being able to get a free refurbished iPhone on a monthly contract that is little more than £15 a month is a bargain and is certainly an option to consider if you have a tight budget or you are concerned that bad credit might affect you purchasing power.

When you look at the contract comparison table you may see a monthly price and below that a higher monthly price. The higher monthly price is what you would pay if you did not redeem the cashback that is available on that specific contract.Some contracts allow you to claim back a portion of your monthly bill. These are often called a redemption or cashback phone contract. Typically they involve you sending copies of the last three monthly bills to your supplier and in exchange you will be credited back a set amount of “cashback”. It is worth checking with the provider how they process each cashback deal as each often have their own policies, but these deals can be effective ways of getting a very competitive monthly tariff. The only downside is that you need to remember to send off your bills at regular periods or you could lose out on the redemption savings.