Tab, a Contract?
 

I was just wondering, If I sign up for a tab, and pay the tab off right away, like the next day?, does it affect my credit rating? My purpose is pretty much buy the phone outright.

Edit: The reason is the person at BestBuy told me if you chose that way to buy the phone outright and do that a lot it might affect your credit rating. But I was thinking, the credit rating isn't affected by the cancallation of the tab but every time you signed up for an tab/contract your, the cellphone provider checks your credit scores.

If you pay out your tab it has nothing to do with your credit whatsoever. The reason why the rep at BestBuy wanted to tell you that is because he doesn't want to lose a phone out on you that just want the phone and walk out of the store empty handed.

Your credit rating only really gets affected if you're constantly signing up for a plan to buy a phone on a tab. If you do this again and again, every credit check hits your credit rating for 1 point, I believe.

If you're buying outright without doing a credit check, then that's bullshit, basically.

Clarify, so are you buying the phone outright or buying it on the tab?

Bottom line as mentioned above, if you are opening a tab they will check your credit and it will impact it if you do it frequently. If you are truly buying it outright without opening a tab then it won't.

Activate new phone = dips into your credit score

Simple as that.

Example:

1. Customer Joe Blow activates one phone in 1999. Activates another for his son and daughter in 2003. Credit rating queried only twice. This is ok.

2. Customer Plain Jane activates one phone in 1999. Cancelled phone within 4 months of service due to account being in arrears. Activates another on 5th month and repeats the cycles. Activates a phone maybe 7 times within a 2 year period. Credit score takes a dump due to credit requests and delinquent accounts. This is bad.

Note: This only applies to post paid accounts. Nobody cares about pre-paid. Activate as many as you want.