Gemmie
Clam dip nose
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2014
- Messages
- 4,073
- Reaction score
- 29,230
You don't have to be wealthy. You simply need to like a high reward simply for opening accounts. lol Take me for example. I opened a BUNCH of accts over the years simply for that reason. At least a dozen. I made a good amount of money that way with the various cash rewards simply by moving some money over there. Considered doing one yesterday when I got an offer for $525 to open a new savings acct at a bank I don't have a savings acct at. At the beginning of Covid I opened one up at a bank that offered $600 for any new customers to that bank (I had never banked with them) by opening a checking and savings acct. I'm like... SCORE! They'll give me $600 to open accounts and now I no longer have to go inside the branch to make my CC payments! I can just transfer money from the safety of my home. Woohoo! Plus I was getting paid 1.5% cash back just for paying my utility bills, and other necessities. (that only works if you pay your CC in full.)But how do four 20-somethings who don't seem to be from wealthy backgrounds have so much money in college that they even need this many financial institutions? As SGH said, it was like 8 or 9 different financial institutions counting the credit unions. I don't believe it's student loans (certainly not federal student loans, and they'd have no reason to get private loans). I get what you're saying about people knowing each other and having the same bank, but 8-9 different banks? And college aged kids, all of whom need that many?
This whole case is very weird.
MOO.
And now that I'm with some of these institutions they keep offering me $100 per person that I refer to them (that sign up). Also, all the above accounts weren't simply for the initial reward to open the acct. It was also for the rewards when using the CC. Cards for 5% for grocery stores, 3-4% for entertainment (Hulu, Netflix, concerts, etc.), etc., etc. I use different cards depending on where I'm shopping to get the highest cash paid back.
So... back to the members of that house all having multiple bank accts... they very well may have done what I mentioned above. It would have been quite smart of them if they did that, actually. Also, they needed to do something to get a decent FICO score. That's the perfect age to start. Sounds to me like someone clued one of them in to how things work financially, and that person educated the others. And got rewarded for it as well!
The 2 biggest parts of your FICO are your payment history (35% of your score). This shows whether you make payments on time, etc. Then there's How much you owe on loans and credit cards (30% of your score). That is based on the entire amount you owe, the number and types of accounts you have, and the amount of money owed compared to how much credit you have available. High balances and maxed-out credit cards will lower your credit score, but smaller balances may raise it – if you pay on time.

How Your Credit Score is Calculated - Wells Fargo
Learn what your credit score is based on and the many ways you can improve it.
I'd like to think they were being financially smart having all those accounts, and they weren't for bad reasons.
Last edited: