Fred Wilson Can't get a Prepaid iPhone

If you buy an iPhone, you have to sign up for a two-year contract with AT&T. Your bill comes every month, and then you pay it. Because you're paying the bill after you make the phone calls, this is a form of credit, so AT&T runs a credit check on you when you sign up for the plan. But here's the problem: what happens if you fail the credit check? The iPhone isn't activated in-store: it's activated at home, unwrapped, and plugged into your iTunes-running computer. You've been sold a phone, and you have every right to use it as a phone.

So for the people who fail a credit check, AT&T has quietly waived the mandatory two-year contract, allowing them to sign up for prepaid service instead.

Naturally, as soon as they found out about this, techy types like multimillionaire Fred Wilson, who will not about to fail any credit check, decided that they wanted a prepaid iPhone too, which they could play with and try to unlock.

I want to activate with a prepaid plan. I've read that the best way to do that is activate via iTunes and then type in 999-99-9999 when asked for a SS#, and that will fail the credit check and lead to a prepaid option.

Evidently that didn't work out so well, and Fred's not happy:

I would be happy to join a class action suit against AT&T.
Last night I tried to activate the iPhone that I recieved as a gift with a pre-paid plan... I talked to a very nice customer service rep who told me that I could not get an iPhone without giving them my social security number...
After about five minutes, the manager got on the line... it was AT&T policy to only issue pre-paid plans to people with valid social security numbers who fail a credit check.
So there it is. You cannot get a prepaid plan from AT&T unless you are a deadbeat. That's discrimination in my book. And I suspect its illegal at some level.
I will never, ever, use an AT&T service again.

Now if Fred was complaining about the mandatory two-year contract, I would have some sympathy with him. But he's not. He's complaining that AT&T won't treat him as though he has bad credit when in fact he has excellent credit, and he reckons that this is a form of "discrimination".

Doesn't your heart just bleed?

The only real problem here is that AT&T has been altogether far too quiet about the prepaid option. They should be touting it loudly, as a special outreach program to immigrants, holders of defaulted subprime mortgages, and other people who for whatever reason have difficulty passing a credit test. If they just made it clear that the prepaid program was for this select group only, then Fred Wilson might not be quite as upset.