Just went through a mess trying to finance a used car. I haven’t borrowed money since 2012, no debt, no credit cards, just living within my means. When I applied for a loan, I was told I was refused. Not because of bad credit, but because I hadn’t used credit recently enough.
The dealership advertises “no applications refused,” but apparently if you don’t have an active debt history, you’re too much of a mystery for the system.
Co-signer? Not allowed. Using my own bank account for payments? Denied. Their solution? Open a joint account with my dad just to satisfy a bank’s paperwork, pay hundreds in fees over 6 years just to make it work.
The credit system says you can’t borrow money unless you’ve already been borrowing money, like somehow living within your means disqualifies you. It’s not about good credit, it’s about loyalty to the debt game. Screw you for standing on your own feet, I guess.
Just needed to get that off my chest. Anyone else run into this nonsense?
Not always or maybe not a high enough limit depending on what you want to buy. I had the same problem as OP about 6 years ago, I tried to borrow $3000 from my Credit Union to take a class and advance my career. They wouldn’t give me the loan so the options I was presented with were: a secured loan where I paid the full amount I wanted to borrow up front as collateral and then when I paid off the loan I got the collateral back (I didn’t have $3,000, hence the loan); or, I could sign up for a credit card with a $1000 limit.
To clarify, I just meant for establishing credit, not instead of a loan
Gotcha. Yeah, credit card helped me and then I was fortunate enough that a family member was able to loan me money for the class, I used that money to do the secured loan and further build my credit. I paid said family member back when I got the collateral back from my credit union.