I found the following article which said
If you don’t use a card at all, you have no credit history. That’s almost the same as bad credit history.
1) Do they mean the same?
2) If YES, why?
3) For no other reason than to make good credit history, does a person really need to use a credit card and pay off high interest?
A bad credit history means based on your past, you are likely to make bad decisions with credit and a lender should beware, as you are known to be untrustworthy. Whereas, no credit history means we don't know. It is risky to loan money to you because we aren't sure you will pay it back, but we can't say you won't.
Since many credit unions have programs to help people with no credit start a history, I can say for sure that there are more people willing to loan money to no credit history than there are will to lend to bad credit history
But there is no requirement that you actually pay interest at all. Lender like it when you pay interest, they make it easy to pay interest, but from a credit history standpoint, there is nothing saying that you must.
As others have said, you do not have to pay high interest for using a credit card. But the credit card companies try to get you to pay interest with a variety of tricks. Many people have no idea as to how credit cards work, and so fall for these tricks.
If you have a credit card, the card companies emphasize the minimum payment that you have to make to keep your account "in good standing." Lots of people like the idea of keeping their account in good standing and so happily make the minimum monthly payment. But what happens is that once you do so, interest starts getting charged on the unpaid balance every month until the unpaid balance is reduced to zero. For lots of people, this means never and so they live their lives in the belief that using a credit card means paying high interest: they have no idea that a different modality of existence free of credit-card interest is possible. If you ignore the credit card companies' blandishments and pay the total amount of the monthly balance every month by the due date you will not be charged interest: no interest at all if you follow this practice each and every month after you open the account. But if you have been carrying a balance and decide one day to pay off the balance in full, there will be a minor hiccup of one month when you will be charged interest again. Don't fall off the wagon and resume your bad habit of making the minimum payment or partial payment each month because of this hiccup. Keep at it and religiously pay off the full statement balance every month and you will not have to pay interest again.
Your question in the comments about one-year waivers also has a double meaning. Many credit cards come with annual fees, and some of these are waived for one year. Many other cards are available without any annual fee too. If you have no credit history, you might not qualify for some of these, but look around: your local bank might be more helpful than a large issuer like Citibank. The other kind of one-year waiver is for a "Transfer your balance now and pay no interest for a year" deal. There usually are charges for the balance transfer that are not called interest, but are in effect prepaid interest. There also are "Use these checks like cash to pay your other bills" that are actually cash advances on which you pay interest. Be very cautious in accepting such deals.
It is not exactly the same. But it isn't good either. A bad credit history implies that you do not manage your money properly and that you are unreliable. No credit history indicates that you are an unknown and that they do not know if you manage your money properly or not.
No credit history is also not the same as never having had a credit card. You could have had a bad credit rating, then closed your card. Over time (I'm unsure of the exact period), your data will expire from the database. It is important to keep in mind that your credit rating is used by just about all lenders, who are not just card companies. These also include banks and other institutions that provide loans and so on.
Here's a random link which appears to explain some of these facts quite well, albeit with a hint of bias.
A good credit history simply means that you are "good" at acquiring debt and paying it off.
A bad credit history means that you are "good" at acquiring debt but bad about paying it off.
No credit history means that you haven't acquired debt.
So, no, no credit history and bad credit history are not the same thing. However, if you are going to live like a "normal" person and have debt most of your life, then they can have very similar implications.
If you have no credit, the fastest way may be to get a very cheap monthly phone contract. Even the cheap ones usually work out as good as pay as you go, and it will count towards credit without paying any interest.
You can also make purchases on a credit card and then pay it off with your current account (especially easy in the present day with online/mobile banking - I can pay off the credit card before leaving the shop). I tend to leave £50-100 on the credit card so that it accrues a couple of pounds interest a month. I spend far more on pasties, I figure it's worth letting the credit agencies see that I'm not quite perfect - they stand to make a bit of money off me but I keep control of my debts and consistently make repayments.
