Ordered a phone online & they said I had credit bureau discrepancies?

I ordered an iPhone from a reputable company & today they emailed me saying:

"Some discrepancies came up as we were processing your order through the Credit Bureau. We can't process your order until these discrepancies are cleared by presenting two pieces of photo identification in store."

What do you think they mean by discrepancies? Is this normal protocol for online orders?

There's probably a lot of fraud around online iPhone sales.

Any chance that your shipping address is different from your credit card billing address? That's a big red flag to fraud-sensitive merchants.

While it's unfortunate when it happens, it's possible that there can be a mix up with identities when the credit evaluation is performed with the information provided. As such, you are referred to visit one of the carrier s company-owned stores (NOT an affiliated retailer) with ID in order to confirm your identity & what the was processed with the evaluation.

Similar occurrences have happened with customers ordering service & phones over the phone where issues arose with the credit evaluation that I've seen during my tenure as a Customer Support Representative for one of the major carriers. Policies by the carrier states that we had to referred the customer to the nearest company-owned store to clear things up.

This is more common with people who have similar or nearly identical names living in proximity of each other (within the region of a major city) that the credit evaluation may not be properly prepared for. With proper government issued photo identification, they can help eliminate these discrepancies. I know it's a bit inconvenient to visit a store for an online order, but the company is trying to protect itself from potential losses & is just trying to play it safe.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FORCE ANOTHER ORDER ONLINE OR WITH A REPRESENTATIVE ON THE PHONE! THOSE ORDERS WILL BE IMMEDIATELY CANCELED BY THE ORDER REVIEW SYSTEMS ON THE SAME DISCREPANCIES YOUR ORIGINAL ORDER WAS FLAGGED ON!

While it's ultimately your choice if you wish to proceed here, I hope this sheds some light on the subject.