How long does it take to get a good credit rating?

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A few months ago I wanted to buy a phone on contract. My old phone had died and I didn't have enough money to buy a new phone outright. I was concerned because I didn't have any credit history. I never had any need to buy anything on credit before. So I Googled how to get a phone on contract. The answer came back ?just walk into the store, they'll give a contract to anyone?. So that's what I do. They have no problem with giving me a phone on contract except that I'd left my driver's licence at home and it was nearly closing time. My mother was nearby and she had her licence so they said they could simply put it in her name as a temporary measure. As far as I know she doesn't have any credit history either.

So a while later I want to get the phone transferred into my name. I go there and ask them to it, making sure to bring my licence this time but they say that I need to pay $300 up front just to show that I'm ?good for it?. They say the $300 will come off my future bills (but not the one I had to pay at the time). I didn't have $300 at the time. They said once the contract goes into my name so long as I keep up with the bills that will count as good credit history so I went run into this problem should I need to buy something on credit in the future (I don't know if they meant from the phone shop or from anyone).

So today I had money to spare so I go back to the phone shop. They ask what my job is, I tell them I resigned yesterday (the employment agency said I had to or they wouldn't take me on as a client). They said now they couldn't transfer the contract until I got another job. If they knew that it was a very low key job and that even while on the job I still got most of my money from welfare they might not have thought it made any difference (or might not have wanted to give me a contract in the first place).

And I know this guy who's kind of slow (think Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies), dresses like he's homeless (he isn't), hasn't held a job in years and has the vocabulary of a ten year old. He doesn't drive so I don't know what, if any ID he has. If they check his credit history it would say that he's tens of thousands of dollars in debt because every time he gets a bill he simply refuses to pay it. And yet phone stores give him phones on contract. What he used to do was go into a phone store, buy the phone expensive phone there on a contract, use it for a month, not pay the bill, get his phone service cut off and then do the same thing at another phone shop. He did this every month for a year or so until he ran out of phone store chains in town. I don't know why they give phone contracts to guys like him and not me?

I can still use the phone but it bugs me that good credit history comes from paying the bill on time and so long as I pay the bill and it's in Mum's name it just improves her credit history. I want to have a good credit history of my own to avoid stuff like this in the future (not that I want to buy everything on credit all the time but on occasions I may have to). It seems like a catch-22, you get good credit history for paying off something you bought on credit but first you have to already have bought something on credit.

By the time I get another job the contract might be half way through and half a contract might not be enough time to give me a good credit history. So my question is, how long long do I have to be in something like this before I'm considered to have good credit history?

The reason they give the other fellow a contract and not you is because you did not lie instead you played by the rules like I do and got caught in them.

To answer your question the best thing would be to ask a bank for your specific country. But for mine it?s a few years. I got a credit card and every time I put something on it I paid it off in full to this day they still haven't earned any interest from me so after a few years I had an excellent credit rating.