I agree that it sometimes seems insane - you need debt to secure debt.
I had awful problems a few years back when trying to buy a washing machine on HP - it was refused on the grounds that I had no credit history, and I was forced to get my mum to buy it for me, then I paid her off completely over two months.
More recently, I'm happy to use credit options where possible precisely to get a credit history - one of the main reasons I first got a credit card from my bank, actually.
