Greentext

No joke, I’ve had a car dealership tell me they can’t sell me the car I want because my credit score was nonexistent (no credit history in 7 years). I was paying in full, in cash, literally in an envelope in my hand.

There are car dealers (especially at the low end of used cars) that don't make money selling cars. They make money with horrible debt and payment terms trying to trap vulnerable people. The worst of these dealers may end up "selling" the car 2 or 3 times repoing it each time when the buyer can't pay.

So its first possible that this dealer didn't want to sell you a car for cash because its against their business model.

Grand total of 8k, all in 100s, super easy to count.

$8k in cash is super sketchy for a single purchase. Its untraceable and that sets off fraud alarm bells. The dealership also may not be set up to deal in large sums of cash like that lacking the security to do so. Lastly there are laws at the state and federal level called KYC (Know your Customer) for some transactions that require the seller to verify the money is legit. With cash, thats nearly impossible.

You might have had more luck showing up with an $8k cashiers check or offering an $8k wire transfer from your bank. Both of these are exempt from lots of regulations (because there's a paper trail) where cash would not have that luxury.

But no, I didn’t have a “good enough credit score” so I couldn’t buy that car from them, despite having the money to do so. Mental gymnastics on that one.

I'm guessing that was just an excuse to not sell to you because either they're the sketchy dealer (that likes to sell loans not cars) or they thought you were super sketchy as a buyer.