BML account declined for no apparent reason. How to obtain more info?

[anfibil]

Good morning to whoever reads this (though based on other topics here, I can see that it could be days until someone actually takes the time to reply to my question)

Last night, driven by the so exciting offer of being able to pay a purchase balance within 6 months with no interest, I decided to give billmelater a try. This was the first time I ever "used" the service and as such, the first thing I attempted to do was to go to their website and apply for an account.

Now for the facts. I have a perfect credit score (and I sure hope that this incident will not affect that) and there is no reason on earth why I would be declined an account for reasons related to bad credit. Uppon filling up the online form with all my information, reading the lenghthy terms and clicking the "magic button", I imediatelly received a very generic message saying something along the lines of "We are sorry but we were unable to create an account for you". I was very surprised to see how generic this message was given that we are dealing with people's credits here! 

Later in some hidden topic on one of their FAQs, I found a sentence that said that the user should not have to create their account but rather start one at the time of a checkout. Very well. I then went to the website where the purchase was to be made (adorama.com), and chose BillMeLater as my payment method. Again I filled up a simple form (date of birth, last 4 digits of SSN, etc) and, to my surprise, I was again unable to proceed. However this time the website's checkout had a more elaborate message about the reasons why that had not worked. It said that some of my personal information added did not match "the records". It was also nice enough to ask me to verify the information and try again. Needless to say I did try again and again it did not work.

I have pulled a personal credit report last night and I can see that BillMeLater has been checking my credit as well, so at least I know that regardless of how bad their online system is, the part where it goes into the credit company's system and pulls your credit report is functioning very properly.  

Because my credit is very good and because of the message I saw at the adorama checkout, I strongly suspect that the reason why I could not create an account has to do with the amazingly smart system used by BML not being able to correctly parse my personal information and therefore not being able to verify that I am who I am. Now my question is... if that is the case, is this great lovely company ever going to inform me the reasons why I was declined an account? I called them on the phone and they told me they had no way of giving me that information. Secondly, is this incident involving me being declined an account because of a glitchy system going to be reported to the credit company? I have seen numerous reports of people who had similar problems and needed to spend months and months to fight against an error similar to what I am describing. 

I no longer wish to use BML for this transaction, nor will I ever attempt to use the service again. All I need to get is information about this shady account decline and reassurance that they will not hurt my credit because their system was not able to match my personal info/address with "the records". Ps.: I am aware that they use Equifax for their credit checks, and according to my Equifax report, I have added all the correct information.

[WillieFlo]

I had this same problem yesterday and PayPal told me the issue was with some software upgrades they were doing yesterday. We'll see. I'm going to try again shortly.

[anfibil]

Interesting... Keep me informed, I'd be curious to know if you managed to get it working.

I don't see why a software update would cause this type of problem to be honest. And I called them multiple times and nobody mentioned that to me.

[anfibil]

I tried again just now (not even sure why) and I had the same problem. It keeps saying "Hey, maybe you typed your address wrong, sir." Don't think so.

Now I am convinced this system is messed up and I will not try again. Good luck to you though.

[bkabq]

I posted this on a thread by itself, but it sounds something close to what y'all are going through.

I won an item on ebay (today 8-28-2011) and went to go pay for it using BML.

When I click on the "pay now w/ the BML option" on the ebay site, I'm taken to the paypal login page.

I log in  and then I usually just enter the last 4 of my ss number and answer one question and agree to the terms and and confirm everything and thats all. I have a very high credit limit so there's plenty of room for this purchase.

All of a sudden, today, It takes me to a page with my billing info, phone number, and email.

Below that it is asking me to "choose a paypal password" and below that "re-enter the password".

Then below that is the "Agree and create account" button.

I already have an account (with both Paypal and BML), plus I already have a passwords for both.

When I enter the password i currently use, it states " You cannot use an e-mail address or card number that belongs to an existing PayPal account. If you have a PayPal account, please log in. If you don't, please change the e-mail address or card number and try again"

If i go ahead a fill out the password area using a new password and then click the "agree and create" it just loads and loads with the square circlish arrow going round and round. I let it go for almost 20 mins.

...there's more. If I disregard the BML option and go to paypal directly, I am presented with the BML option again, after logging in, on my PP payment option page. Only it's weird because where you click on the BML option, all it

says is " ,a PayPal Service" (the comma was there). The BML part is missing.

Okay, so i click on that option and it takes me to the next page, where it wants me to confirm, but that I'm using my PayPal account.

[bkabq]

I posted this on a thread by itself, but it sounds something close to what y'all are going through.

I won an item on ebay (today 8-28-2011) and went to go pay for it using BML.

When I click on the "pay now w/ the BML option" on the ebay site, I'm taken to the paypal login page.

I log in  and then I usually just enter the last 4 of my ss number and answer one question and agree to the terms and and confirm everything and thats all. I have a very high credit limit so there's plenty of room for this purchase.

All of a sudden, today, It takes me to a page with my billing info, phone number, and email.

Below that it is asking me to "choose a paypal password" and below that "re-enter the password".

Then below that is the "Agree and create account" button.

I already have an account (with both Paypal and BML), plus I already have a passwords for both.

When I enter the password i currently use, it states " You cannot use an e-mail address or card number that belongs to an existing PayPal account. If you have a PayPal account, please log in. If you don't, please change the e-mail address or card number and try again"

If i go ahead a fill out the password area using a new password and then click the "agree and create" it just loads and loads with the square circlish arrow going round and round. I let it go for almost 20 mins.

...there's more. If I disregard the BML option and go to paypal directly, I am presented with the BML option again, after logging in, on my PP payment option page. Only it's weird because where you click on the BML option, all it

says is " ,a PayPal Service" (the comma was there). The BML part is missing.

Okay, so i click on that option and it takes me to the next page, where it wants me to confirm, but that I'm using my PayPal account.

[anfibil]

It really do think nobody will ever answer either of our questions 🙂

[anfibil]

So after all this time I suddently got a letter saying "I'm so sorry, sir. We couldn't create your account because we couldn't match your information to that provided on your credit report. Sorry about that".

Oh well, I have my credit report in front of me. The information matches letter by letter with what I typed in when I was attempting to create this account. In any case, after seeing all the posts about "BML is fraud! BML is SCAM! BML is BS", I'm kind of glad their einstein system couldn't match my info 🙂 

[manac320]

I feel your frustration. I applied for an account a week ago and was approved but for some reason I haven't been able to use my account. It declines my purchase even though I have a high credit limit. Called CS several times and all they can do is send it to the research dept which does absolutely nothing. I plan on canceling bill me later because they need me but I don't need them. Unreal!

[cubs_008]

same thing is happening to me and i'm new at this,I don't know what else to do.

[anfibil]

Follow my advise and stay away from it. That's the best you can do, my friend.