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Here’s how the deal works: Buy coins from the US mint at face value online using your credit card. The mint is quite generous, and is offering free shipping on direct ship orders. Since these coins are actual currency, they can then be turned in at your bank. Pay off the credit card with the coins, and repeat. There are some credit cards offering 2% cash back on purchases, which on a $5,000 would net you $100 in credit card cash back (Charles Schwab, Fidelity Retirement Rewards cards). Rinse and repeat for a nice income stream.

All good things must come to an end. For those of you who made money on this deal, congratulations. However, be careful. Some credit card issuers are now classifying this as a “cash equivalent” transaction, in which cash advance fees and rates apply. The fees and lack of a grace period are likely a deal breaker. Don’t call the credit card company to find out how the purchase will be categorized. Test the waters with a small initial purchase, where any possible fees will be small. Then, look at your account ledger to see if the transaction posted as a purchase or cash advance.

David Bach was on the today show this morning. He was touted as a financial expert. What?!? He is proof that financial advice on TV is a disaster waiting to happen. This guy published a book in 2006 titled “The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner.” In 2006! Anyone remember anything about 2006? It was a turning point for the housing market. He was a cheerleader – encouraging folks to purchase a home at the height of the housing bubble.

David Bach is probably the last person you should be taking advice from – unless you’re trying to sell a book.

Transunion is charging to place a credit freeze on your file. The charges to add, lift, or remove a credit freeze vary by state and can be found here. Some states even have differing charges based on your age. Here’s an idea. Make them free…But if they were free, it would hurt TransUnion’s business model.  We wouldn’t want to hurt a credit reporting agency’s business model in an effort to help consumers against fraud, would we?

Okay, so this doesn’t improve your score directly, but there are benefits. Freezing your credit report with Experian will keep your Experian score from going down due to hard inquiries when applying for credit.

So, you want to apply for some credit cards, or otherwise initiate a bunch of hard pulls on your credit report, but are worried about the consequences of hard inquiries staying on your credit report or a dip on your FICO score. You already know about bumpage, accelerated bumpage, and choppage, so you’re not too worried about your Equifax or Transunion scores being hurt. What about your Experian score? (Remember, bumpage doesn’t work with Experian.) Just freeze your credit report with Experian. The hard pull that would otherwise be on Experian will likely redirected to a different credit reporting agency (CRA) – either Transunion or Equifax. The risk being run is that the institution trying to pull the Experian report will decide not to pull from a CRA, and a denial letter will be sent. I’m not too worried about getting denied credit – if my score stays in tact. Don’t forget, if you really want to, you can “thaw” your credit report temporarily, or remove the freeze altogether.

Clark Howard has a good guide on freezing your credit report with links to the various CRA’s websites. The cost is $3-$10 per bureau to freeze, and a cost to thaw per bureau of $0-$10.

I’ve been using App-o-Ramas and Bumpage along with credit card churning and selective credit freezes to turn a profit – and I have profited significantly from these practices. There are a small group of folks who know about these tactics and use them to their advantage. These ‘credit hackers’ take on the big banks with their legalese and beat them at their own game. These ‘credit hackers’ have done a good job prying profit from the giant monster mega-banks, but thanks to a recent paper (which I refuse to link ) and a speech at the Defcon hacker conference, banks might decide now is a good time to change the rules of the game.

A (creepy looking) Harvard student fellow, Christopher Soghoian, thinks these practices should be eliminated. Why? Because they might be a tool in the hands of identity thieves and it costs the banks money. I believe he wanted to publish a paper about ‘credit hacking’ (Which isnt hacking at all. It’s using the rules of the game against those who wrote them), then earn big bucks doing consulting work.

Guess what Chris… The banks already know. They’ve known for quite some time. They’ve made a deliberate decision not to do anything about it because the costs of eliminating the loopholes are greater than the benefits. Don’t you know anything about cost/benefit analysis? Or, are you too busy printing fake boarding passes to learn anything finance related?

The good thing about the nature of the community of ‘credit hackers’  is if their current methods no longer work, they’ll find a new way to beat the system. Thats what hackers do.

Many credit unions and banks offer “rewards checking.” This essentially means if you meet basic qualifications with your checking account, you’ll earn a high interest rate. Most of these institutions are for locals only, but some are available nationwide. Currently, the best natinally available interest rate for rewards checking is Founder’s Bank at 5.01%. That’s significantly better than the current interest rate of ING direct.

To earn the high interest rate for a given month,  you must meet monthly qualifications. The qualifications are 12 debit card transations, sign in online at least once a month, and one direct deposit. The direct deposit requirement is easy, especially if money is pushed from your ING, HSBC, etc. online accounts into your Founder’s Bank account. Signing in is a no brainer. But, the 12 debit card transactions means you actually have to use your checking account as the bank intends, instead of your intent to use it as a savings account. I make small purchases on a regular basis in convenient stores, so I can use the debit card there. Another method would be to schedule small payments to yourself via paypal.

So, its not really easy to earn the high interest rate if you don’t intend to use the account, but the dangling carrot of 5% APY is enough to make me jump through some hoops.

Use coupon code “napkin” for 80% off at restaurant.com. Don’t forget fatwallet.com cash back. Try to find a restaurant that gives $25 off a minimum purchase of $35 for the best deal.

Restaurant.com coupon code napkin expires 7/28/09.

As my daily spender, I use the Chase Freedom credit card. It earns me 3% on many of the things I buy most. Without warning, I received two shiny new cards in the mail stating now I have the Chase Exclusives Freedom card. Upon further investigation, I found there is almost no difference between my old chase freedom card and my new one…except the chase exclusives does not report a credit limit – which may hurt your FICO score.

Not all cardholders got the same deal. It seems because I had a Chase checking account, I received the exclusives card. Those that didn’t have a chase checking account got “upgraded” to a version of the card with an annual fee. If people were smart enough to use this card as their daily spender because it offered just about the best benefits around, they’re probably smart enough to change their card or cancel it all together before the annual fee is charged. They have a while to decide to keep the card, however. The annual fee is waived for the first year.

Bank of America is offering $100 to new checking customers. With a minimum opening deposit of $250, you get $75. Then, if you pay two bills within the first 30 days, you get an extra $25. Payment to your account will post within 90 days. Of course, this is a gimmick to get people to sign up, and fall for all their traps to assess fees to your account. For example, the MyAccess Checking Account has a $8.95 monthly maintenance fee unless you use direct deposit into that account (one direct deposit per billing cycle).

So, use ING Direct or Paypal to deposit money into your Bank of America MyAccess checking account once each billing cycle to avoid the fees. a few months later, cancel the account. Next time they offer a similar promotion (you’ll be eligible in another 6 months), repeat the process. With ING Direct, you will need to push the money (initite the deposit from ING’s website) to the Bank of America account. The amount can be quite small, like $1.

Bank bonuses are a wonderful thing for those that know the rules and avoid fees. Everyone that doesn’t understand the rules of the game ends up paying for your bonus. Enjoy your $100 bonus from Bank of America and don’t forget to enter code WIWGASINT. This will likely result in a pull on your credit report. Is the $100 worth it? I think so.

If you’re already using the ‘bumping‘ strategy of pulling your credit report regularly to eliminate hard inquiries, then you may have noticed this process takes a LONG time. It can take three months to see any results from pulling your credit report once a day.

Why not pull several times a day? All it takes is using multiple services to pull your credit score daily, and you can bump your hard inquiries in a fraction of the time. Here is a list of credit monitoring services that allow daily pulls:

• Service…………………………………………………..Pulls from………………………….Cost
• National City Identity Protect ………………..(Pulls all 3 bureaus)……………..$9/month
• Credit Karma ………………………………………(Pulls Trans Union only)………..Free
• Privacy Matters 123 …………………………….(Pulls all 3 bureaus)………………$30/year
• Truecredit ………………………………………….(Pulls all 3 bureaus)……………..$15/month

This list is not comprehensive, and is subject to change, but you get the idea, for about $55, you can remove hard inquiries from your credit report in 30 days or less.  Again, this does not work with Experian, but does work with Trans Union and Equifax.

Viva la bumpage.