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To: BWAC who wrote (161240)	10/30/2008 9:59:38 PM
From: lisalisalisa	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

I have a trust fund friend who is young, but whose mother, father and grandmother passed away leaving only her and her brother. they each get some sort of $15k a month stipend or something from the money left to them. Her brother seems to take out as many CC as he can ever 5-7 years it with the sole purpose of getting as much in cash advances as he can and then buying the highest dividend paying stock he can find with a stock scanner. If the stocks work out he will sometimes pay back his cards for a bit. Eventually he always default though. I think its more just because it is a hassle for him to keep up and send in the payments. I don't think he really cares that much about the money one way or the other. In fact I think he does the whole operation just for kicks and just because he can. I guess money he wins gambling is more exciting than the monthly trust fund checks or something. He certainly does not need the money, it changes his life not one bit one way or the other. The first time he tried this was in 1999 and he lost it all on tech stocks. The next time was in 2005 or something and he took out 12 cards I think and put it all in FRO because it had the largest dividend he could find at the time. FRO actually worked out well, and I think the stock went up a bunch on it too. He sold it more than a year ago though, in the 30's or 40's i think. He was more excited by the dividends than the stock appreciation. however, despite the winning trade during the second attempt, he still defaulted on every card. He tried to buy a car on credit a year ago and could only get approved with a 14% interest rate or something (and this back when rates and loans were still very easy to get for most people)-so he just paid cash. He bought a used ford aerostar van, he thinks they are comfortable. They are both very eccentric. It helps that they were also left about 7 stand alone houses and 3 big luxury apartment buildings spread across sea cliff, pacific heights and nob hill, so they don't really need credit for anything- not even to secure a place to live. Both of them have absolutely terrible credit, and it is all due to things that they consider too much trouble to keep up with, like utility bills or forgotten credit cards. The typical punishments that exist in our society for these types of defaults are insignificant to them. To be frank it is pretty insulting the way they both just blow off everything like a big joke. But I do not even think they are aware of how they might come across that way. What really bugs me is when he or she (is mostly the brother) is too lazy to leave a proper tip at a restaurant. Whenever we go out to eat as a group, the less wealthy among us always have to double check the tip and very often end up having to cover for them. One of my friends gets really, really bothered by this, so we let him do the confronting for all of us on the issue. He does not hesitate to call them out about it and gave them both wallet sized cheat cards for tipping and they have gotten better at trying to pay more attention when the bill comes lately. But still, when it comes down to it, even though they have improved, they always round down, and never up, and that really does bug me. They are decent people, but I just do not think they understand how privileged they are. I do not think they can fathom that for some people the difference between a 10% and 18% tip really IS a big deal. I have witnessed them both piss off a lot of people with this attitude and they are not even aware of it happening most times.