Thought experiment: could you run a credit card mini-Ponzi?

[johnfm]

A bit bored. Reading this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1540719/Big...

and noticed one poor consumer with £416k debt on 57 credit cards!! Just under £8k per card.

Got me thinking - how much you could run up by running a mini ponzi scheme with credit cards.

Using one card to 'cashflow' interest payments on the previous one etc etc. (via an intermediary as you cannot pay a credit card with another credit card, surely)

Bearing in mind minimum payments are in the order of just 3%, thats a fair amount of leverage.

So, if you keep the minimum payments ticking over, how far could you get with 20 cards?

had too many wines to do the maths tonight!

[btsidi]

Why not just give me the money - much better investment...? I will spend it on beer and send you regular pictures of empty pints

[Zod]

Have you ever looked at your credit report? The credit card companies swap data. It would never work.

Or, that's the theory at least, but, as we know, the banks are incompetent, which is how the feckless moron ran up £416k on 57 cards.

[johnfm]

Zod said:

Have you ever looked at your credit report? The credit card companies swap data. It would never work.

Or, that's the theory at least, but, as we know, the banks are incompetent, which is how the feckless moron ran up £416k on 57 cards.

This is my point though. THe credit agencies are rubbish. If you don't miss a payment you are a great credit risk!