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Too bad we don't have more detailed data directly from this guy. It would be interesting to know what his three FICO 8 scores are and his AAoA, AoYA, and AoOA, and his inquiry level. The journalist says the guy's scores are "nearly perfect" but those might not be FICO 8 and "nearly" might be 800 rather than (say) 848. If we knew that the scores were actually 848, that would answer how big a penalty FICO 8 gives you for having too many cards. There is a FICO negative reason statement for that and a few people here (e.g. Revelate) have received it.
The journalist writes:
"He also says that all of his credit cards have different spending limits, the lowest of which caps at $50."
Unsure what the phrase "caps at" means in this context. I think it means "is" -- i.e. his lowest credit limit is $50. That's interesting as well -- I haven't heard of a CC with a limit of $50. The lowest CL I have heard of is $200.
Yes, the article raises a lot of questions for us. Does he have any Chase Cards (1500/24 rule?...lol). Over what time period did he do this? What is his AAoA. It is hard to beleive that it can be more than a few years. How long has he had them? Clearly he is not using 99% of them. Have any been shut down for non-use.
Great observations. My guess is that, when the journalist writes....
Cavanagh says... that he only uses one card that he pays off every month.
... he's misunderstood what the guy actually does. He probably only lets one card report a positive balance, but likely makes a small purchase every 12 months on every card to keep it open.
Otherwise the guy would hit a wall with 100+ cards falling off his report every year, and since he was obsessed with winning the world record I am pretty sure he would have taken every step to prevent that.
It does illustrate, however, what is common when journalists cover a story about credit, which is there are often very implausible claims made in the piece because they don't know enough about credit to evaluate when they are saying something dubious.
@Anonymous wrote:Great observations. My guess is that, when the journalist writes....
Cavanagh says... that he only uses one card that he pays off every month.
... he's misunderstood what the guy actually does. He probably only lets one card report a positive balance, but likely makes a small purchase every 12 months on every card to keep it open.
Otherwise the guy would hit a wall with 100+ cards falling off his report every year, and since he was obsessed with winning the world record I am pretty sure he would have taken every step to prevent that.
It does illustrate, however, what is common when journalists cover a story about credit, which is there are often very implausible claims made in the piece because they don't know enough about credit to evaluate when they are saying something dubious.
This would mean he is making a charge on 125 different cards each month to get a charge on each of them once a year. Certainly possible, but that is a lot of swipes. He has to be the poster child for auto pay. I would love to know more about this guy and how he does this.
If he is willing to do a lot of shopping at Amazon, he could register all his major cards (VISA, MC, Amex, or Discover) with Amazon and put $2.01 on each once a year. Adding $2 to 100 cards would take maybe forty minutes.
The retail cards (non-major) would be more problematic. Maybe somebody here can think of some (relatively) painless ways to put spend on them while wasting little time and no money. (The Amazon trick involves no waste of money if you think you have 2-3k worth of stuff a year you'd want to buy there.) Retail cards don't need as frequent spend as do major cards to avoid closure due to inactivity. Many people have reported a retail card going well over 25 months with no threat of closure.
And we don't know for sure whether the number of cards in this article were all open cards. We are led to assume that they are, but maybe that number included closed ones.
If the article is accurate, which I doubt, the average credit limit is only $1135.
@Anonymous wrote:Great observations. My guess is that, when the journalist writes....
Cavanagh says... that he only uses one card that he pays off every month.
... he's misunderstood what the guy actually does. He probably only lets one card report a positive balance, but likely makes a small purchase every 12 months on every card to keep it open.
Otherwise the guy would hit a wall with 100+ cards falling off his report every year, and since he was obsessed with winning the world record I am pretty sure he would have taken every step to prevent that.
It does illustrate, however, what is common when journalists cover a story about credit, which is there are often very implausible claims made in the piece because they don't know enough about credit to evaluate when they are saying something dubious.
You give him, the press, and Guinness far too much ....credit.
This story comes up every few years - and the relevant quote is still:
"If the cards aren't valid anymore, Cavanagh doesn't count them in his total collection. He assumes they are valid until he's told otherwise."
He may have applied for and received ~1500 cards since the late 60s, but it's safe to say that many (most?) of the cards are not actually active anymore, and the random small retailers haven't bothered to "tell him otherwise".
The record isn't about the length of his credit report, Guinness isn't checking that the tradelines are actually active. Just his wallet length. (Literally - he also has the record for "World's Longest Wallet".)
Hoarder? Yes.
AZEO follower rotating 100+ cards a month and doing PTZ before statement cut? Nope.
@iv wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:Great observations. My guess is that, when the journalist writes....
Cavanagh says... that he only uses one card that he pays off every month.
... he's misunderstood what the guy actually does. He probably only lets one card report a positive balance, but likely makes a small purchase every 12 months on every card to keep it open.
Otherwise the guy would hit a wall with 100+ cards falling off his report every year, and since he was obsessed with winning the world record I am pretty sure he would have taken every step to prevent that.
It does illustrate, however, what is common when journalists cover a story about credit, which is there are often very implausible claims made in the piece because they don't know enough about credit to evaluate when they are saying something dubious.
You give him, the press, and Guinness far too much ....credit.
This story comes up every few years - and the relevant quote is still:
"If the cards aren't valid anymore, Cavanagh doesn't count them in his total collection. He assumes they are valid until he's told otherwise."
He may have applied for and received ~1500 cards since the late 60s, but it's safe to say that many (most?) of the cards are not actually active anymore, and the random small retailers haven't bothered to "tell him otherwise".
The record isn't about the length of his credit report, Guinness isn't checking that the tradelines are actually active. Just his wallet length. (Literally - he also has the record for "World's Longest Wallet".)
Hoarder? Yes.
AZEO follower rotating 100+ cards a month and doing PTZ before statement cut? Nope.
Agreed.
I personally think the article is baloney.
He's going to need a bigger wallet.