I don’t know if it is real, but it is funny : shitposting

[-] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 63 points 5 months ago

This is kinda funny, but extremely fake. I'm a second generation immigrant. I can attest that obtaining a credit card without citizenship is basically impossible, and very difficult even with a green card.

Also, when people from Asia travel they usually have dual currency credit cards that work very well in their country and the west. All the major financial organizations have offices in China. Hell you can get a dual currency card from the bank of China in MasterCard or Visa.

[-] linkhidalgogato@lemmy.ml 19 points 5 months ago

Getting a credit card with a green card is not hard at all, what are u smoking.

[-] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 10 points 5 months ago

It is if your country isn't on the western credit based system.... A recent immigrant isn't going to have a loan or mortgage, and most often are in low income jobs, or even paid under the table.

[-] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Nah, my SIL is Chinese with a green card and has credit cards and even a mortgage. Arrived in 2017.

[-] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 4 points 5 months ago

Sister in law...... Which means she is married to an American. I didn't say it was impossible, just very difficult for most immigrants.

[-] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago

You know it's possible for two green card holders to be married, right?

[-] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago

But, I'm guessing that's not what's happening in your situation. If that were the case wouldn't you have just claimed that you or your brother were immigrants?

And my point still stands.... Just because your sister in-law or brother have green cards and have access to credit cards doesn't mean that's the norm for most immigrants. It also doesn't mean that it wasn't difficult for your sister in-law.

You literally don't have a credit rating when you come here as an immigrant. So unless you have someone willing to co-sign and accept potential liability, then you're not going to be able to borrow anything.

I've heard discovery has a specific card that a lot of middle/upper class. immigrants apply for, but even then it's still hard to get a line of credit unless you have a fairly well established work history.

I think a lot of people on Lemmy aren't really exposed to many immigrant communities. It seems like most of you think the majority of immigrants in the country come from middle or upper class families, most likely because your idea of an immigrant is someone who came here for school.

That may be more common nowadays due to the rising importance of sponsorships for green cards, but nearly half of the current immigrant population happened prior to the 2000s. When most immigrants were entering the country without any kind of support network in the states.

For these people, establishing a foothold in banking and credit institutions could take a decade of hard work.

[-] linkhidalgogato@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 months ago

how recent do u mean, like sure if u been here less than a year and u dont have a green card probably hard but when u have it its not hard at all, how do u think people exist in this country before the 5 years for citizenship are up or even beyond that if they never get citizenship. also the person in the post studied in the usa they probably lived here atleast 4 years.

[-] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago

how recent do u mean, like sure if u been here less than a year and u dont have a green card probably hard but when u have it its not hard at all

I think you are vastly underestimating how hard it is to get a start in a totally new country where you don't speak the language.

how do u think people exist in this country before the 5 years for citizenship are up or even beyond that if they never get citizenship.

Cash....... Most immigrants rely on cash and don't really trust banking institutions. There are plenty of check cashing services that charge predatory amounts of money to cash checks for people who aren't able to utilize or get a checking account.

also the person in the post studied in the usa they probably lived here atleast 4 years.

On a student visa.... You can open a bank account with a student visa passport, and a letter explaining your residency status. If you apply for an individual tax ID number and get assigned a social security number, you can apply for a credit card. But you don't really have any credit history, and they know you're only in the country temporarily.

I went through all this when my cousin came from Korea to go to school, it was a lot easier for him to just use his dual currency card.

[-] linkhidalgogato@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago

man i am an immigrant and most people im close with are too its not that hard to get a credit card, i have seen it tons of times people get here and as soon as they get their work permit and have a couple month of direct deposit they can get a shitty credit card and after that they get a decent one, also it doesnt really matter how much of a pain in the ass it would have been for the student if his plan was to do this its perfectly doable.

like i literally know so many people who have been here only a little over a year and are already drowning in credit card loans, when my family emigrated my mom got a credit card less than a year into living here. migrants get credit cards all the time its super normal are u sure we are even talking about the same country here.

[-] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago

like i literally know so many people who have been here only a little over a year and are already drowning in credit card loans, when my family emigrated my mom got a credit card less than a year into living here. migrants get credit cards all the time its super normal are u sure we are even talking about the same country here.

Lol, this makes no sense. First of all the credit cards they typically give have very low credit lines, often depending on the amount you deposit. So even if they got a card it wouldn't be possible to rack up a lot of debt. Secondly, if you have no credit rating and you do rack up debt, your credit rating is going to be awful and you won't be able to get better cards.

One of the only ways to build up your credit at this stage is to use your card responsibly and keep it paid off. That's unless you have someone who can co-sign your applications, or become an authorized user on someone else's account.

doesnt really matter how much of a pain in the ass it would have been for the student if his plan was to do this its perfectly doable.

Oh yeah, I'm going to go from having no established credit, to being able to rack up 140k in unsecured credit in 4 years, on a student visa. Bullshit.

[-] besbin@lemmy.ml 12 points 5 months ago

First Gen immigrant here. Credit card obtainment is itself not that hard if you already have guardians or sponsors who are willing to cosign your paperworks. If you don't even have that then it would have been impossible for you to even legally get into this sh*t hole to begin with so I have no idea why you said it was hard.

The hard part is getting a credit line as high as 100k without a stable income and high credit score. Even many US citizens I known don't even have close to that numbers in all their accounts combined fresh out of college. The conman in the post either already have rich relatives who are paying it back or must have lost even more cash withdrawn from China to bankroll his "scam"

Lastly, regardless of how you spent that money, it's still entrapped inside the US economy and thus not enrich his own country at all. Unless they bought gold or cash back to China, of course

[-] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 6 points 5 months ago

Credit card obtainment is itself not that hard if you already have guardians or sponsors who are willing to cosign your paperworks.

Pretty large "if" for a lot of immigrant communities.

[-] Amanduh@lemm.ee 45 points 5 months ago

I mean it would be cool if you could do this in a country and then leave and never go back, I think a lot of people would take that deal lol, I would take that deal lol

[-] dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 5 months ago

I wrecked my credit when I was younger.

I am now building it up again to do just this. Except I won’t be leaving the country they can just send me letters for 10 years before giving up again.

[-] JudahBenHur@lemm.ee 13 points 5 months ago

its true. its unsecured debt. they can't take your possessions. they can only send letters, call until you tell them to stop, and get judges to say "yep he owes that" (judgements)

[-] dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 5 months ago

Exactly. The only one to be careful with is government debt like not paying council tax. They’ll take it straight from your wages.

[-] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

I mean all it does it make the borrowing requirements for those who come after you harder.

[-] Habahnow@sh.itjust.works 33 points 5 months ago

Assuming this is real, how would this shake out? If they leave the country, would those banks be able to get their money from this person?

[-] StaticFalconar@lemmy.world 41 points 5 months ago

If they truly never step foot in america again, they just may get away with it assuming China wont play nice with america.

[-] Bleys@lemmy.world 31 points 5 months ago

This is definitely not real. There’s no way an international student got $140k in credit with no collateral. A tenth of that MAYBE but at that point there’s plenty of Americans doing the same thing anyways.

[-] Venator@lemmy.nz 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

They might've done it fraudulently using fake names?

Or they might be able to get that with no collateral if they had a good credit rating, a lot of Chinese international students have very wealthy parents so they could've got a good rating over the course of study...

[-] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 months ago

Yeah the only way this is real is through identity theft, which would be fucked up no matter how much you hate America. More likely it's just a troll post.

[-] Bleys@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

Credit rating doesn’t translate across countries. Even the US and Canada don’t share credit rating info (source: I’m a US citizen living in Canada and my credit history in Canada started from nothing), so the US and China definitely won’t. And banks are absolutely not giving favorable rates to students yet alone international students.

In fact if anything because international students get the worst tuition rates and few to no scholarships, then if OP’s story was real they would have spent minimum $20k a year just in tuition over four years, not even counting room and board. So if they did try to abscond with a more realistic credit card debt of like $10k they’d still be way underwater.

The only way this would maybe work is if they had a full ride scholarship, but only top schools like Stanford/Harvard give substantial scholarships to international students and at that point the student would be throwing away 4 years of a top top education for a relatively trivial amount of money, keeping in mind that again they’re never getting six figures in credit.

[-] TrippyFocus@lemmy.ml 20 points 5 months ago

Really depends on the country you’d be going to.

If it has these same financial companies in them or any credit bureaus that factor in debt from here then you could run into issues.

If not then from what I remember reading this would actually work if you’re not planning on coming back since typically unpaid debt isn’t a crime and definitely not one a country would extradite over.

[-] veroxii@aussie.zone 12 points 5 months ago

I had an American house mate here in Australia. He maxed out a bunch of credit and got into trouble. Eventually he just left Australia and went back to the States and defaulted on everything.

As far as I know nothing happened to him and the Australian banks couldn't do anything. I mean from their perspective he just dropped off the map with no contact details valid anymore.

This was around 2010.

[-] Frozengyro@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

Also if it starts happening regularly, they will stop giving CC to Chinese nationals

[-] Addv4@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago

Wouldn't they just be able to come after him when he gets to China? Plus I don't think they have bankruptcy as a real option, so....

[-] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 30 points 5 months ago

That would depend entirely on the Chinese judiciary's level of cooperation. Which probably will be very low unless China somehow stands to gain from it.

[-] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 5 months ago

Yeah, if it were a random European country it would not fly. China, who knows. They might just donate half to the state, willingly or not and its all good from their end.

[-] Addv4@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

"Looks at guy suddenly with $140k."

Life, uh, finds a way?

[-] underwire212@lemm.ee 8 points 5 months ago

Depends whether 140k would be pursued. Honestly, probably not. Would cost hell of a lot more for the banks, legal, government agencies to try and get them to pay.

[-] dessalines@lemmy.ml 9 points 5 months ago

Outstanding move!

[-] casmael@lemm.ee 7 points 5 months ago

Can someone straighten this pls thnx x

[-] Aquila@sh.itjust.works 31 points 5 months ago

[-] casmael@lemm.ee 7 points 5 months ago

Thanx babe x

[-] Sotuanduso@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago

Same braincell.

[-] Sotuanduso@lemm.ee 18 points 5 months ago

[-] casmael@lemm.ee 7 points 5 months ago

Perf x

[-] fubarx@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 months ago

Can all those people the UK is threatening to deport to Rwanda not do this? Or will they be extradited back to UK?

What a conundrum.

[-] stoy@lemmy.zip 4 points 5 months ago

Strong blow....

[-] RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

From an unsecured loan, this is barely a rounding error for a big bank.

Jokes on him, he likely spent hundreds of thousands living and finishing University in the US. If anything he barely breaks even in the eyes of the government, and is bringing 140k of the banks money to china, which isn't a big deal.

[-] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Pulling up the ladder for everyone behind you is not being a freedom fighter, it's just being an asshole.

[-] Confidant6198@lemmy.ml 9 points 5 months ago

How are they kicking away the ladder?

[-] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

How are they not?

[-] Confidant6198@lemmy.ml 9 points 5 months ago

The burden of proof goes to the one making the statement.

[-] Fidel_Cashflow@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Won't someone think of the poor JP Morgan and Citigroup board members 🥺