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The US Mint is now offering free shipping on the new 2010 $1.00 Presidential Coins to promote the circulation of these new coins.

These Presidential Dollar coins are sold in rolls of 250 for their exact face value of $250.00 along with free standard shipping.

There are 7 different types of 2010 Direct Ship $1.00 Coins, namely 2010 Native American, 2010 Sacagawea, 2010 John Adams, 2010 Thomas Jefferson, 2010 James Madison, 2010 George Washington, and 2010 Andrew Jackson.  They allow you to purchase up to two $250.00 rolls of each type of coin.  This would allow you to purchase a maximum of up to $3,500 per order. 

Initially during “Step 1″ of the check out process it will show an Estimated Standard Shipping & Handling charge of $4.95, however on ”Step 4″ this shipping charge will be reduced to $0.00 as seen below.

Since these coins are being sold by the US Mint at face value without any additional shipping costs you can purchase these coins using a 0% APR Credit Card and convert them to cash for free.  You could also deposit these coins into your checking account and then use the money to pay off higher interest credit cards.

Some Credit Cards offer travel, cash, or other reward for purchases made using the credit card.  You can use your reward card to purchase these coins. When you receive the coins you can simply store them in a high yield savings account until your monthly credit card bill arrives and then pay off your bill to get the full rewards from this credit card purchase.

If you want to really rack up the rewards you can even pay off the bill immediately online or using a photocopy of your bill to pay off the balance before your monthly bill arrives.  This way you can repeat this purchase several times over the course of a single month.

How to Get Started

1) Go to the US Mint’s 2010 Coin Promotion Direct Shipment program page.  There are 7 different types of coins for purchase and you are allowed to purchase up to 2 boxes of each type of coins for $250.00 each box.  You can purchase up to $3,500 in coins if you buy the 2 box maximum for all 7 types of coins.  You can also make multiple orders if you want to purchase even more.   Be sure to select “Standard Shipping”, it will say that this shipping and handling will cost $4.95 on the first page, but you will notice that on step 4 of the checkout process that this shipping charge is reduced to $0.00 and you are only charged the actual face value of the coins.

2) You should receive your coins in the mail within 1-2 weeks.

3) Take these coins to the bank and cash them in for paper money or deposit them into your checking account.  Since these coins are in regular circulation, they are as good as cash.

4) You can use this money as a free cash advance, pay off higher interest credit cards, or collect the rewards off your rewards credit card.  These credit card rewards will not cost your anything if you pay your credit card off by the end of the month.  

Many rewards cards give you 1-3% cash back which is better than most high yield savings accounts these days.  Also, you are not taxed on money made from cash back rewards cards because this cash back is considered a rebate on purchases that you have already made!

You could also use this trick to rack up your airlines rewards on certain rewards credit cards. 

For example, with Citibank’s AA Advantage credit card it offers you 25,000 miles once you make $1000 in purchases. This is a total of 26,000 miles and is enough for a round trip US domestic flight to anywhere in the United States. 

You are effectively getting a round trip airline ticket for free, saving you hundreds of dollars and getting a free cash advance from your credit card at the same time!

Recently there has been an increasing number of ATM scams surfacing.  Scammers are installing equipment on legitimate bank ATMs to steal both the ATM card number and the PIN from customers. 

These ATM scams are highly effective and have accounted for millions of dollars worth of money scammed.

The equipment that these scammers use to capture your ATM card number and PIN is carefully disguised to look like normal ATM equipment.

A credit card “skimmer” is mounted to the front of the normal ATM card slot which reads the ATM card number and either stores or transmits the number to the scammers.  This card reader “skimmer” is designed to fit into the ATM and be relatively undetectable.

Once in place it’s very difficult to tell that a skimmer is attached to the ATM machine.  Any cards used in this machine will have their magnetic strip recorded and the scammers will be able to use this information to create a “clone” of this card using a magnetic strip writer.

The scammers can take things even further and install a pamplet box containing a concealed camera to record the user’s PIN number.  The camera installed in this pamplet box is relatively undetectable and can be used to record the users PIN number.  Once the scammer has the magnetic card info and the PIN number they can encode a blank card and use this card and PIN number to withdraw money from this person’s account.

This setup is virtually undetectable even with both the pamplet box and magnetic strip skimmer in place.

Look at the picture above, there is only one subtle difference between the regular ATM on the left and the ATM on the right with the skimmer installed.  Notice that the card slot where you insert your ATM card no longer dents inward, instead it bulges out?  This is because there is a skimmer in place which will read your ATM card. 

The skimmer will still allow the ATM to function normally, but it will read the information off the card and the scammer will be able to swipe the magnetic strip encoding when the card is placed into the slot and then create a clone of your ATM card.

The Lebanese Loop Trick

Another trick that Scammer’s use to physically steal your ATM card is known as the Lebanese Loop Trick. 

The Lebanese Loop consist of a strip or sleeve of metal or plastic (such as x-ray film or VCR tape) that is inserted into the ATM’s card slot. When the victim inserts their ATM card, the loop prevents the card being drawn into the machine, fooling the user into believing the machine has malfunctioned or retained their card.

These Lebanese Loops tend to be made out of thin, black material that can easily blend into the ATM card slot.

The Lebanese Loop is carefully inserted into the ATM card slot.  The ends of the strip are folded upwards.

The foldered ends are glued to the outer surface of the ATM card slot, making the Lebanese Loop virtually impossible to detect.

Slits are cut on both sides of the Lebanese Loop to prevent the card from being returned at the end of the transaction.  This causes the card to remain in the machine.

Once the ATM user leaves the scammer can now return to the machine and pull down the ends of the loop to retrieve the ATM card and remove it from the slot.

The scammer now has the ATM card and is free to use it provided he was able to record or view the user entering in their PIN number.

The latest Gift Card scam involves people going to grocery stores, pharmacies, and other retail outlets, finding the Gift Card section, peeling the packaging aside and writing down the card number, the security code, and expiration date to use once they find out that card has been activated.   Here we will explain how this scam works.

Gift Cards work in a manner similar to regular Credit Cards.   These gift Credit Cards have a 16-digit card number, an expiration date, and a 3-digit security code (CVN).  The balance of the card is maintained by the credit card company’s authorization system and referenced by the card number which is printed on the card and stored on the magnetic strip.

Therefore you can make purchases using these Gift Cards either by swiping the card’s magnetic strip through a checkout machine or by providing the card number, expiration date, and security code directly to a retailer either on online or over the phone. 

Since there is no name associated with a gift card they could be used by anyone with the card number, expiration date, and security code.  There is no way of validating a Gift Card transaction against a person’s name or identity.

Now imagine that a scam artist walks into your local grocery store, grabs a stack of gift cards off the rack, and then one-by-one peels the packaging aside to reveal the gift card number, expiration date, and security code.  He writes this information down and leaves with a list containing info on over 30 Gift Cards.

Most gift cards are worthless and contain no value until they are sold.  Some Gift Cards require activation which involves scratching off an activation code from the back of the Gift Card and calling a 1-800 number to activate the card using this code.

Since this code needs to be scratched off it is relatively protected from people getting the number before the card is purchased. 

However, this scam artist can simply wait a few days after writing down the card information and then go to a website like GiftCards.com and use their Gift Card Balance Checker to see if the card has been activated yet.

Once they see that this card has an active balance.  They are able to use the card to make online or over the phone purchases using this card information.  They will also be able to know the balance on the card and are able to return to this site to check the balance in the future.

Since most gift cards aren’t given to the recipients until their birthday or Christmas, the scam artist will have plenty of time to use these cards.  Most gift cards are not used until at least 30 days after they are purchased.  This gives the scam artist a large window of opportunity to spend the money before the recipient. 

There is no name associated with the gift card so the credit card companies cannot treat this type of theft in the same manner as they would treat regular Credit Card theft.  The receipient usually is not the same person as the one who purchased the card so there is no way of associating an identity to the card and the receipient (since they didn’t purchase this card) is also less likely to complain about their balance disappearing.

To protect yourself from this kind of theft, you may want to purchase your card from a customer service person, where they do not have the gift cards viewable to the public and  always keep track of your gift card balances.

A new Credit Card Processing loophole has recently surfaced which has allowed some people to use Gift Cards to get Free Gas.  This trick only works at a few Gas Stations and will no longer work once the Gas Stations and the Credit Card companies correct this loophole.

With rising and falling Gas Prices, getting Free Gas can really help out in reducing your expenses.  So basically what you need to do is purchase one of those Gift Credit Cards from your local supermarket or drug store.

It will either need to be a Visa, Mastercard, or American Express Gift Card which can be used at a Gas Station just like a Credit Card.  Try to find the Gift Card with the smallest cash value possible.  I know that American Express and Visa both have a $5 Gift Card and that will work perfect for this trick.

Take your $5 Gift Credit Card (or higher amount) and spend all but $2 of the balance so that only $2 is left available on the card.  Go to your local Gas Station and use the Gift Card to pay at the pump. 

Start pumping your Gas.  See if the Gas stops pumping at $2 or continues to add gas to your car until your tank is full. 

With some Gas Stations their Credit Card authorization system only checks to see if the Credit Card is valid, it does not check the available credit left on the card.  Therefore, the pump will allow you to fill your tank and will not realize that the funds are not available until it finalizes your transaction with the total purchase amount.

By this time your gas has already been pumped into your vehicle.  Since these Gift Credit Cards are not associated with any particular name the Credit Card company will not be able to charge you any additional funds over available Credit Limit.

I just discovered a new way to make money off of those Cash Rebate Credit Cards which give you 1-5% cash back on purchases made using your card at the end of the month.  This trick involves using this credit card to purchase travelers cheques or other liquid assets that can be converted back into cash which can be used to pay off your balance, leaving you with the 1-5% cash rebate reward and the opportunity to repeat the process. 

First of all you need to get a Cash Rebate Credit Card which has no limit on the cash back rewards.

The following cards offer between 1-5% Cash Back Rebates on all purchases made using their credit cards and have no limits on the amount of rewards that you can receive:

Discover More Card

Discover Motiva

Chase PerfectCard Mastercard or Visa

Chase Freedom Card

Blue Cash from American Express

SimplyCash from American Express

Once you have an active Cash Rebate Credit Card you will need to open a free checking account with a bank like Washington Mutual which not only offers free checking with no minimum balance, preferably one that also offers free checks.  So basically you have a free checking account which costs you nothing and doesn’t require you to keep a minimum balance.

Using your Cash Rebate Credit Card go and purchase items that can easily be converted back into cash without losing their value.

Traveler’s Cheques work the best.  So find a place that offers free traveler’s cheques.  My bank, Citibank, offers free Visa travelers cheques to anyone that keeps a balance of over $25,000. Wells Fargo has the same type of deal on free traveler’s cheques. You can also get free traveler’s cheques from AAA if you have a AAA membership.

So purchase the maximum number of travelers cheques that your card will allow you to purchase. For my card it was $10,000 with a 2% rebate on all purchases. Make sure that they ring up this charge as a POS (point of sale) transaction and not a cash advance.  This is important because if they treat the transaction as a cash advance then you will not get rebate credit for this transaction.  So find a place that will ring up the purchase as a Point of Sale transaction.

Deposit these traveler’s cheques into your checking account and they will take approximately 24-48 hours to clear and post into your bank account. 

Immediately write a check to your credit card company from your checking account for the full amount charged for the traveler’s cheques. So if you bought $10,000 of travelers cheques then mail them a check for $10,000 to immediately pay off your balance.  It will take them 24-48 hours to credit your credit card back to a $0 balance and this is about the same time it will take the traveler’s cheques to post into your checking account.

So now your credit card balance is back down to $0 on your Rebate Credit Card and you will also have a 2% reward accrued on your credit card.  For me it was $200 for the $10,000 purchase.

As soon as the balance is paid off you will be able to repeat this process and make another $200 for every $10,000 that you charge onto your card.

If you do the timing right you can run two of these transactions a week making an additional $400 per week. That’s $1,600 per month.

If you are really good, then you can apply for five of the card above and do this trick on all five of them, which would mean that you would be making around $8,000 a month, if you were able to charge a maximum of $10,000 twice a week on each of these five cards.

Over time they will increase your available credit which will enable you to do this with even larger amounts of money.

The money received from these rewards are completely tax free because this money is from a rebate on purchases that you have already made, so you won’t have to worry about paying taxes on this money at the end of the year.

If you are unable to purchase traveler’s cheques. You could purchase some other item that can be easily turned into cash without losing any value such as Gold Bullion Bars or Coins, stocks, or even post office money orders.  Can you think of anything else that could be purchased using a credit card and then converted back into cash? 

Last year alone, MasterCard and Visa generated a sales volume of more than $1.735 Trillion, from the circulation of approximately 1.3 Billion credit cards across the United States. With the average American having four credit cards which combined give them an average line of credit of $19,000.

The credit card industry is enormous. There are an average of 50.1 million credit card transactions per day totalling $4.75 Billion. So this industry leaves tons of opportunity for various types of fraud activity. In fact it is estimated that over $150 Billion of the total $1.735 Trillion dollars charged on credit cards was fradulent in one form or another. According to this statistic this fraud approximately accounts for approximately 9% of all credit card activity! This is totally shocking!

Credit Card fraud has skyrocketed now that more and more people are using the internet to make credit card purchases. The most common form of fraud occurs when the card is not present and only a number, expiration date, and authentication code are provided for the transaction. These types of transactions are usually online purchases, over-the-phone transactions, and through mail order.

In fact these forms of credit card fraud have become so common that an entire new language of terms has been developed to describe this activity. Words such as “skimming”, “shoulder surfing”, and “phishing” are all new terms which describe ways in which money can be stolen off your credit card.

Skimming describes the process in which a device is used to copy the magnetic stripe encoding off of a card. This is one reason card holders are cautioned against using ATM machines that look unusual. However all it takes is a couple of seconds to read the magnetic strip off of a card, so a waiter or a store clerk could easily steal your credit card magnetic strip code with an additional two-second swipe.

All they need to do is read the magnetic strip on the credit card with a magnetic strip encoder and then rewrite this information onto either a blank magnetic strip card or onto a gift credit card using a writable encoder.  This type of  skimmed card can be used at gas station pumps or even at grocery store checkout line scanners when transactions take place without the clerk even looking at the card.

The information stored on the magnetic strips of credit cards is as follows:

• Start sentinel — 1 character
• Format code=”A” or “B” — 1 character (alpha only)
• Primary account number — up to 19 characters
• Separator — 1 character
• Country code — 3 characters
• Name — 2-26 characters
• Separator — 1 character
• Expiration date or separator — 4 characters or 1 character
• Discretionary data — enough characters to fill out maximum record length (79 characters total)
• End sentinel — 1 character
• Longitudinal Redundancy Check (LRC), a form of computed check character — 1 character

Shoulder surfing refers to the method in which a fraudster obtains a PIN number by standing near a cardholder at an ATM machine. In some cases, the scam will occur after the PIN has been entered, with the thief distracting the person withdrawing money with a free newspaper. When the cardholder turns away, an accomplice quickly withdraws money.

Phishing refers to e-mail messages randomly sent out to trick customers into disclosing credit card numbers, account passwords or banking information. It is this type of theft that is causing the most problems. These fraudulent e-mail messages pretend to be from well-known companies. A recent study by Gartner of 5,000 adults in the United States estimated that 24.4 million Americans were tricked by phishing e-mail messages in 2006. Statistics from Phishtank, an antiphishing network, found that last month alone some 77,709 phishes were sent out, with 19 percent originating in the United States, 15 percent in France, 14 percent in Turkey and 10 percent from South Korea.

Carding is a term used for a process to verify the validity of stolen card data. The thief presents the card information on a website that has real-time transaction processing. If the card is processed successfully, the thief knows that the card is still good. The specific item purchased is immaterial, and the thief does not need to purchase an actual product; a Web site subscription or charitable donation would be sufficient. The purchase is usually for a small monetary amount, both to avoid using the card’s credit limit, and also to avoid attracting the bank’s attention. A website known to be susceptible to carding is known as a cardable website.

Credit fraud can fall into one of five categories:

Counterfeit credit card
Lost or Stolen Cards
No-Card Fraud
Non-Receipt Fraud
Identity Theft Fraud

The percentage that each type of credit card fraud represents is described below:

Counterfeit credit card: Makes up for 37% of all funds lost through credit card frauds. To make fake cards criminals use the newest technology to “skim” information contained on magnetic stripes of cards and to pass security features such as holograms.

Lost or Stolen Cards: Cards stolen from their cardholders or lost by them account for 23% of all card frauds. Often, cards are stolen from the workplace, gym, and unattended vehicles.

No-Card Fraud: Comprises 10% of all the losses and is completed without the physical card in hand. This can happen by giving your credit card information on the phone to shady telemarketers and deceptive Internet sites that are promoting the sales of their non-existent goods and services.

Non-Receipt Fraud: Is responsible for 7% of all losses. It occurs when new or replaced cards mailed by your card company are stolen during the process of being mailed. However, this type of fraud is on the decline with the card-activation process that most companies use. In 1992, non-receipt fraud represented 16 % of the losses.

It is still possible to get one of these mailed credit card offers and change the address on them to have a credit card that can be activated mailed to a different address.

Identity-Theft Fraud: Accounts for 4% of all losses, and occurs when criminals apply for a card using someone else’ identity and information.