Or maybe there is no 5/24 rule at all.
No, the 5/24 rule as speculated in the wiki is "more than 5 credit cards".
Not 5, more than 5.
So since this person had
exactly 5 in the past 24 months, even if it was no prequal there is no reason (for those who "believe" the 5/24 rule) to expect this person to have been denied.
You ask
everyone else to keep their facts straight, but when someone presents facts that are
not in contradiction to the theorized "rule", you conveniently ignore those facts and trumpet that the rule may have been disproved. Huh?
Whether the "rule" exists or not has
nothing to with this particular anecdote. Please wait for anecdote which
clearly is in contraction to the theorized 5/24 rule before labeling that anecdote as a counter-example to the theorized rule.