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From: olaf@ihwpt.UUCP (olaf henjum)
Newsgroups: net.invest,net.consumers
Subject: Re: Re: "No Money Down" (Other People's Money) Scam
Message-ID: <633@ihwpt.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-Jan-86 15:58:56 EST
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Posted: Sun Jan 12 15:58:56 1986
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I've been following this debate with some interest simply because I know of
at least one case where it was actually done, but the person involved
encountered practically all of the problems that have come up in this
discussion -- except one:

It really is possible to get 200+ VISA cards at once.  The key phrase is
"at once";  the person I'm thinking of had practically no credit record to
speak of but did live in the L.A. area (where there are a lot of banks).
He had some store charge cards before his "blitz" but that was it.

What he did was collect applications from every bank he could find in the
L.A. area, fill them out, and mail them in AT THE SAME TIME!  Out of 1047
applications, 207 were approved;  after that point, the time delay had grown
to a couple of weeks and the remaining banks had  started to notice this
person's massive and sudden acquisition of VISA cards.

Yes, it takes a long time to fill out that many applications; the only reason
the person had time to do it (and it took a few months to prepare all of this)
was because he was a high school student.  In any event, that's how he got his
start in real estate, at the age of 16.  I hope you'll forgive me for not
disclosing his name; he's in enough trouble already.  (The plan fell through
when the interest charges started to pile up and I suspect this young man will
have to declare bankruptcy -- if the banks involved ever catch up to the fact
that he's using the cards to pay off each other.)  Fortunately for the
electronic banking community, this young man apparently has no interest in
becoming a "password hacker."

   -- Olaf Henjum (ihnp4!ihesa!olaf)

"... the students then were sour grapes, today you're cream and peaches.
Conditioned by the status quo, you shun the iconoclastic;
just like the minds we help to mold -- the world is made of plastic."
   -- from the Stanford Daily comic strip "Gradepoint,"
         run as a "Poetry of the Absurd" feature