I bought a new iphone 5 back in September from a T Mobile shop - set up DD and off I go!
Am travelling to USA on Friday so just called them to see if I could buy a booster to keep my call costs/texts low - to be told I can't use my phone abroad unless I give them a deposit of £250 as I don't have a credit rating with them?
It takes between 3-6 months to receive a thumbs up from them - this was not explained when I bought the phone - what a bloody cheek!
Am fuming!

Generally International roaming isn't allowed on a new account without a deposit. Very rarely they will allow it but you'd have to have a perfect credit rating or already been with them for a few months (6). This is pretty standard with all networks.

Surely you can see why the networks mitigate the risk by doing this? Easily run up 100's and even 1000's of pounds whilst over there.

Not sure what you have to do then to have a perfect credit rating - I own outright one property, have a mortgage on a second, have a full time job, earn a significant sum, have no debts etc - sorry that sounds like I am bragging but I am staggered - surely the shop should have explained that this would be a problem - surpose I needed the phone for work.
Of course I understand that people could run up debts and that businesses have to be careful but blimey I just think I should have been told before I went ahead with the purchase.
They were not too bothered about my credit rating when they signed me up to a 2 year contract at £36 per month and took £269 for the phone!!!!!

I am sure you can afford the £250 deposit then

I was in the US last year and rather than use my own phone it worked out cheaper to buy a prepay phone in the US to call home in the UK. You can go into any Wallmart or similar store any buy a cheap prepay phone for less than $10. Then just buy a prepay sim card which includes credit for international calls.
You can also buy a US sim card and swap it over for the one in your UK phone, or if you have Skype on your UK phone use Skype to call the UK. Free wifi is widely available in the US and you can use that to Skype.

Quite normal with most networks, there has been planety of horror stories of people having bills of £1000's due to data whilst roaming.

How odd, I've been able to turn on roaming on every network I've ever been on straight away, and never given it a second thought.

I had this once before a few years ago. I specifically said in the store that I wanted international roaming enabled. At no point did they tell me there would be a deposit. I went abroad on business and got to the other end to discover I had to pay them £250 or my phone wouldn't work for the week I was there. Given that I was expecting to meet people there and needed access to my emails, I was forced to pay it.

On a positive note, I called back after 2 months and they did refund the deposit almost immediately.

Me too.. But my partner had to hand over a deposit last time. Only £50 though.

Glad its just not me that is surprised by this.
Actually went into the shop this afternoon and of course they said they could not understand it!
Am going to try and find an old payg phone and buy a sim I guess.
To the poster that said I can obviously afford the deposit - thats hardly the point!

Presumably they charged you royally for the pleasure of using your phone too, on top of the £250 deposit?

Did you ask them if they wanted to knee you in the balls as well as you leave the shop? just to add a final insult.

Roaming is subject to status. Always has been. Don't know what the issue is?

Either do I. Anyways best way is always get a Local sim if you have an unlocked phone available. Has the added benefit that you can give a local number to local businesses/people whilst over there.

The annoying thing was that I didn't discover there was a problem until I got to Barcelona, so they'd got me over a barrel by then. I had to pay it.

Oh and no balls here!

I thought it was common knowledge that you have to borrow money to get a credit rating. Owning stuff outright means bugger all because you dont exist on the ratings db then.

The reason I was told they couldn't rate me was because I was a new customer and I'd just bought a house. Clearly the fact that a bank would lend me money for a mortgage doesn't count (was actually my second mortgage too).

It does count, but possibly in a negative way. (too much credit) remember that when you look at your credit report; any "score "or credit left is essentially the agencies guess and means little in the real world.

It's not a case of the more your borrow the better your credit rating. If you have a very high amount of borrowings then lenders will be reluctant to lend as you will have a lot of commitments and less expendable income.

My credit rating has rocketed on checkmyfile since I paid off 35k worth of debt, some people I know who have mortgages (I don't) have a lot lower scores than mine. I know the scores don't necessarily mean anything as each lender does their own scoring.

You need to regularly borrow and successfully pay back to get an excellent credit rating, but high borrowings will also mean lenders might not touch you - too many commitments already and little headroom if an income drops or a family emergency happens etc, and it's always the phone companies that people don't pay, not the mortgage.

Not sure I agree with the logic, for the simple reason that you might run up a potential bill of thousands, but we all know it doesn't cost the network that amount, in fact it costs them peanuts. As a result the actual credit risk is low.

That's because retail staff are useless and know absolutely nothing other than how to sell the product they're told to sell.

I have heard of this happening before, or of the customer having to wait 30 days? or something like that before they can activate roaming, weird how they asked you to pay so much updront.

Anyway, like everyone has said here, unlock your phone, get a local sim, use skype or their cheap internation rates etc...