The discussions on these sites can be technical to the point of incomprehensibility. Consider — or, rather, try to decode — this post from Credit Boards from March 2008: “I just couldn’t resist it after reading someone’s post that said no hard was pulled for the AMEX pre­approved application for existing card members. I swore before that I wouldn’t get another card till 2009. So guess what? A HARD on EX and a toy line of $2,000. Currently at $20k on HH and $12.5k on Optima Plat. This is obviously the AMEX’s way of saying, ‘You’re pretty much on the borderline of the maximum credit we can extend to you. So we gave you this card with the minimum limit. Get ready for F/R.’ I really regret it now.”

HH? F/R? As a general rule, a sure giveaway that online posters are living in a fantasy world is the density of abbreviations and jargon in their writing. The credit boards have that part down. Speaking in a sci-fi dialect, the posters fantasize not about what money can buy or even about money itself but about the badges and emblems of ample credit — the symbols that convey that, in some abstract and evidently emotional way, Citibank or Macy’s is willing to take a chance on them.

Of course, credit lovers also sulk when a creditor won’t take that chance. That’s how you end up with punitive concepts like the “sock drawer,” which a poster named Richard612 defined in an idiosyncratic glossary of his on CreditNet: “Sock drawer — Credit card purgatory. Where you place the CC’s” — credit cards — “from companies that just won’t play ball with you” — meaning, presumably, the companies that won’t raise your credit limit or lower your interest rate. “The idea,” Richard explained, “is to have them come begging for your business again.”

Posters on these forums often use elaborate “sigs,” or signatures, which serve as virtual bumper stickers announcing their creeds to the rest of the board. One sig runs through a kind of mash-up of the slogans for some beloved creditors: “Welcome to American Express! What’s in your wallet? Alliant, Kroger, Target, Simmons, Nordstrom, Macy’s or Wal-Mart? Chase what matters, because Citi never sleeps. Discover your world and enter Bank of America. Like a good neighbor, PenFed is there and Nationwide is on your side. Fico EQ 730 TU 771 EX Plus Score 742. (Physically and Financially Fit) I Want Me Gold.”

Communicating in code is one way message-board habitués put themselves at odds with ordinary offline existence. On the credit boards, even serious debt is morally acceptable, while credit-reporting agencies are vilified and “BK7” — Chapter 7 bankruptcy — is deemed “the Mark of the Beast.” At the same time, posters praise shady tricks like the “Citi Backdoor Double,” a complex and bygone ruse for raising your credit limit.