When I tried to buy my wife an iPhone for Christmas yesterday, the salesperson tried to make me pay an extra five hundred dollars as a sort of security deposit. When I asked why, I was told to check with AT&T's customer service phone line and then credit rating agencies. After several hours on the phone and online, I was able to get print outs of my credit report from three credit agencies. Never having seen one of these before, I don't know what is or is not supposed to be there, but none of the three showed any failure to pay bills, or legal problems. One of them states explicitly (and correctly) that I currently have no debts at all. They all show a list of companies that have made inquiries about me recently, but state that none of these would affect my credit rating. As I own a house, have had stable employment for the last 34 years, pay my bills on time, and have not borrowed or tried to borrow money for more than ten years, I can't understand why I would be denied credit for something that doesn't even involve borrowing money or any other significant risk to Apple or AT&T. Could this have something to do with my age? How can I get AT&T to tell me why they denied me credit? If I am doing something wrong, I can't fix it if I Can't find out what it is?