Pick a card. Any card.
Sounds like the start of a card trick, doesn’t it?
It’s not though. It was the life of Sandra Murray of Gardena, California, in the nineties, deciding which of her 1,000 valid credit cards she wanted to use next.
A credit card obsession
Sandra got her start with credit cards in 1971 when she was 17. Her first one was a Sears. Ever since then Sandra has been developing her techniques to get more cards. Lots more.
A typical weekend in Sandra’s life consisted of filling out postcards to get credit applications. She also fills in applications received from the previous ritual of sending out postcards.
In 1989, Sandra became particularly aggressive with her credit card endeavors. She started each month by going to the post office to buy anywhere between 500 to 800 postcards. That’s the number of applications she requested each time.
Then, it’s over to a group of Rand McNally Bank Directories she paid $200 a year to get. Looking through the directories gave her the addresses of the next banks she wanted to investigate getting cards from. Sandra was quite successful with her bank and Travel & Entertainment card applications, as proven by the $25,000 she paid in annual fees for her 600 valid MasterCard, Visa, Diners Club, Carte Blanche, and American Express accounts!
Why so many credit cards?
You might be thinking, “How could anyone possibly have 600 bank card accounts?” It’s easy when you have good credit, know what you’re doing and have institutions in existence like Citibank, where Sandra had 25 accounts.
Sandra didn’t let her weekends stop with just getting more bank card applications to look over. She also went for all the retail outlet aps she could find.
Sandra looked through magazines to find addresses of retailers she could approach for applications. Even if she could only find a retailer’s name, that was good enough. She’d track down the address and get an application.
With so many applications to choose from, Sandra’s work began. She had to choose which 35 applications she’s going to send in for the month. She didn’t like to send more since it had a tendency to put too many inquiries on her 20 page TRW credit report.
You may be wondering if all this was really worth the effort? Sandra thought so. She loved having a credit line that totals $2 million. It helped keep her in the little luxuries she so much enjoyed, such as her shiny black Cadillac and beautiful red Corvette.
Becoming a member of a credit card collecting club
Then, Sandra became a Credit Card Collector member, and an interest in older and collectible cards started. Thinking of the cards she had cut up before starting to save them, she wanted to replace some and fill spaces in her collection so she could get a complete picture of their evolution.
Sandra had 2,500 credit cards, all in her own name. That number jumped astronomically as she started to take an interest in getting additional and replacement cards, something she hadn’t bothered doing in the past. Her only interest had been credit lines and not the plastic itself.
Until finding Credit Card Collector, Sandra felt alone in her endeavors to get more cards. Now that there are others who share her interest, which mainly lies in current bank cards, she’d like to be contacted by them and to share what she knows while taking a keen interest in learning from others their techniques in handling excessive inquiries, getting credit limits raised and how to get more bank cards.
Copyright 1990 by Greg Tunks
