CRNA

I live in a suburb of Chicago, but I am in college and go to a small school in the middle of nowhere. I started in July so it hasn't been too long and only really had one card for a long time to start MS'ing slowly.

The town that I go to school has a pop little over 30k, but theres a fair amount of poverty in a majority of the town. The town is pretty close-knit where almost everyone knows everyone. When I go into a grocery store most cashiers get pretty flustered when I buy 1 or 2 VGC's $500ea when its rare for people to spend over $100. One of the two grocery stores recently stopped selling me VGC's and put signs at each register saying they can't sell VGC's with CC's and require a manager now just to activate even though their company policy says they can up to $500/day. But whatever Anyway so far I have found a way to max out the 5k/mo for bluebird. The only major bank they have here is wells fargo and I rather not open an account with them.

Back home I have plenty of grocery stores that sell VGCs with CCs all they require is to see an ID. about 3 SM's within a 30 minute drive. Local casino even lets me put chips on my bar tab that I pay with CC. I can do 10k-20k/mo with ease. Im from a nice area and there are plenty of banks that want to take your money so I have 5 banks that I use to smuggle my money through.

diseased

Depends on my vacation plans plus I have the wf 5% cb card and a few new cards. I probably spent 45k in the past 30 days.

macrophage

Small potatoes.

Marathon Man

Everyones volume is way low. Thats cuz all these forums and blogs yap too much and some of the readers are airlines and hotels and the credit card companies. They troll the net and stop what they see. When people blabber it makes their jobs easier.

So by "sharing" you are shooting yourself and your fellow mser in the foot and making it easier for those people to get paid to make up new stoppers for you!

But no one believes me on this.

The key is to stay in small text and email groups and never put anything of value on these sites and stop denying that doing so hurts us all.

Ive heard ALL the excuses and answers and in my 17 years doing this the only thing thats happened is its all whittling away piece by piece.

Some deals die and are never replaced by anything new or better.

Too many people in the game. Shut up!

Phantom707

So then how do you propose that someone joins a small group? Do they just have to luck into it by knowing the right people in real life? Or is it about building up an online presence in a form like this? I would assume an exclusive group wouldn't want to have a member who hasn't been proven to be knowledgeable, and one test is in their post history.

Here's the thing. EVEN IF we accept your premises, your conclusion fails. Your own standards show you are wrong.

macrophage

1. Online presence that does not spoonfeed techniques - giving volume is ok as it is untraceable for the most part

2. There is a human aspect to this. There is only so much you can do behind a screen

3. It's like an addiction support group

4. This attitude won't get you into a group

Remember folks: the more visibility a "deal" or "strategy" gets, the probability it will end increases infinitely.

Credit companies read these! Airline and hotel reward program staff read these! THE NEWS reads these! Remember what happened to the coins 2 months after the report aired on TV?

There are only so few closely guarded things I do left because some people want internet points or short term windfalls vs long term benefits that span across deals.

Phantom707

So sincere question, then. Would you or any member of your private groups be willing to invite a person who only ever made completely non-descriptive posts? Like, imagine if my post history were just vague comments like "I MS $XX XXX per month" or "You should do some research". Would that make me desirable as a member?

It's a catch-22. You criticize the people who posted about the mint and coins. I wasn't around at the time, but from what I understand, it was widely known at its height. So you wouldn't want a person who posted about widely-known methods? So you would be willing to invite a person who just made those vague posts?

I'm legitimately curious about how you propose your strategy. It's the classic case of a secret club dying out because it's too secret.

macrophage

My MS levels have significantly dropped because of the loss of RedCard. My Serves are on the way... Will ramp back up by December.

We're getting off topic here with the secret clubs...

Obviously we don't just invite random people. Meet people in person, use the PM function, read past posts, etc.

Not everything is posted online. Why post the same crap over and over again if it's well known? Can we as a COMMUNITY at least TRY to stay under the radar? Seems like spoon-feeding tutorials only help auditors find and close loopholes. Oh and don't even get me started on bloggers who rip content from here and literally live off of that revenue.

MS mechanisms don't have expiration dates as credit card offers do, so those techniques are even more sensitive.

Phantom707

Okay, fine. I'm just saying that your initial post was way too wide in its scope. It's better that you limited down what you meant, but you have to understand why your initial post was objectionable.

And to get back on topic, I guess that my "maximum limit" per month is $50 000 or so based on the inherent limits of things like prepaid cards. However, I do have rewards debit cards through which I could push more, and that's limited by the actual money that I have in my accounts. This also isn't taking into account money orders, where my personal limitation is just time.

PaulMSN

Yet I'm doing far more MS this year than ever. My last two years have been unmatched by anything before in garnering points -- the only thing even close was the MS Bing games.

Marathon Man

Well i could come back with:

Well if you dont know then thats why you aint in one. But i wont

Its like this:

Say i am in a museum looking at great art. And you are there doing the same. And each week we are there and finally notice each other. We then chat about it. Two people. Together maybe at some cafe down the street. About art and our unique views. Maybe even things we think others just do not see.

Then you tell me how your cousin from another city is like us. And later my buddy from college also shows the same interest. And so now theres four of us. We each bring something new to the table thereby showing the others we got it and can think on our own too.

Maybe it gets to about eight ppl.

And you are also a member of say three other eight people groups all sep from one another.

Each person is creative and proactive and can think for themselves and is not lazy or overly reliant on others. Each person can bring sonething new to the table. A different idea or concept ot perspective. All of you can draw too and have good skills.

And so on.

That is how. That is the only way unique ideas live in ms

Now in fine art we want the world to see it in museums for all.

But ms is like counting cards in a casino. Not illegal but NOT something to ever be made public or shared w people who dont know how to treat the practice w kid gloves. Ms is like an engine being tinkered with like as though you are the wizard of oz. not just anybody can work it! And they shouldnt

But they all have been invited to the party and now look at the state of things

I could go on but no

PaulMSN

I just see greed and selfishness. And a lot of rationalizations to excuse them.

Marathon Man

Agreed

Ms is a selfish sport

No arguing that

And if you have a special deal you do that is great and working, do NOT tell me or others. It will last longer for you and those closest to you. And on that note, only if someone proves themselves to you might you ever share it.

And theres abs nothing wrong with that!

What is not cool however is when people actually say "i have a deal but wont tell you it"

Theres no need for that at all

crazy_p.o.w.

I like the analogy of how people with like interests can get together and start a group. This has actually happened with me and some people I have known/met where we share tips. I started out small but am now around ~20k/mo. I don't think the problem is numerous people MS'ing, it is the people who don't take time to read. They just see from the bloggers: get as many CC as you can, get a Serve card, buy some GC and the cash will start rolling in. They don't take the time to figure out what cards work where or how to actually do it correctly. This is the bigger issue. They also don't realize that the person is getting paid to tell them what CC to sign up for as well.

Phantom707

To Marathon Man, I won't quote your post because the thread would probably get unwieldy. I will, however, say that that's not what I was questioning. I was specifically asking about macrophage's position which, as initially described, was completely untenable.

You have introduced a completely different methodology which I haven't addressed (and decline to do so here because it's a bit off topic). It's both unfair and nonsensical to expect me to have already addressed your points when I could not have possibly known about them.