When I was a young adult I bought my first car with a loan because my girlfriend at the time relied on her parents old van which had the engine die (I very recently learned this was due to off label oil change practices her ex told her to do when he worked at the Walmart auto dept)

Anyways since I had basically no credit history, I ended up with a 22% interest loan on my car! I didn’t know what I was looking at in the paperwork and the sketchy dealership my BIL insisted we go to flat out was “joking” "oh you don’t want to read that. Just sign here!’

Once I had a chance to look at what I signed I quickly opened a bank account and got that loan refinanced down to an 8% interest rate. I also learned that it had some extended service plans added on that I didn’t know about which didn’t cover anything that wasn’t already covered by the manufacturer warranty.

Later on I went back to college, pulled equity out of the car and refinanced it again down to a 4% interest rate, then a few months later I totaled it hitting a deer.

I kinda forgot what my point was in sharing this story but here we are I guess

Back in the day, one could get a credit history by being listed as an authorized user on someone elses card. One never needed physical possession of the card, nor needed to use it.