![]() The system was set up to promote the use of dollar coins and we are simply trying to do the right thing here."Īround this time, people buying dollar coins to get frequent-flier miles drew national attention in outlets such as the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal.Īfter the Mint acted, orders for Native American dollar coins, which are only available directly from the Mint, dropped – from 88.7 million in 2009, to 52 million last year and 19 million so far this year. That's not what the system was set up to do. "It's not illegal," he said, "But it's an abuse of the system. Jurkowsky said the Mint sent letters to the top abusers and imposed a limit of 1,000 coins every ten days. "Do we feel a little bit violated? Yes, and that's why we aggressively sought measures to eliminate what we called an abuse," says Jurkowsky. The top 20 customers bought between $219,000 and $696,000 worth, says Mint spokesman Tom Jurkowsky.Īnother clue the hackers left was that dollar coins were arriving in banks still clad in their U.S. Officials there first noticed something amiss in summer 2008, when they saw that a small number of customers were repeatedly ordering large numbers of one dollar coins. The Mint's direct-ship program is aimed at getting the coins into everyday circulation. ![]() (For more, see our story " $1 Billion That Nobody Wants.") The law requires that more and more coins be minted, despite a lack of demand by the public. The mountain of coins is the unintended result of a 2005 act of Congress. The problem is that even if so-called "travel hackers" like Liaw put some of the coins in circulation, their purchases from the Mint contribute to a huge and growing buildup of one-dollar coins in Federal Reserve vaults. Liaw says she spends some of the coins at the local farmer's market and stores. ![]() Liaw says she and her husband, who use a variety of tricks for earning miles, are planning trips to Greece and Turkey, "all on miles and points." ![]() "We've used them to go on trips around the world," says Jane Liaw, a 35-year-old public health researcher and science writer in San Francisco. Once in possession of the coins - shipped to them by the government for free - they can deposit them into their bank accounts and pay off the credit card bills. We recently reported on the the government's failed effort to persuade Americans to use dollar coins.īut the coins have found at least one group of fans: Travel enthusiasts who buy thousands of dollar coins with credit cards that award frequent-flier miles for purchases. Jane Liaw Liaw orders coins from the U.S. ![]()
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