Neat arbitrage play (with some minor risk as noted in the article). If the Mint isn't losing any money on the credit card transactions (think PayPal fee's), th

Neat arbitrage play (with some minor risk as noted in the article). If the Mint isn't losing any money on the credit card transactions (think PayPal fee's), then he's essentially getting free money from his credit card company. Otherwise I'm curious who wrote the law to let the Mint sell $15,000 for ~$14,500 (guess) after CC fee's and shipping... ;) The poor bank definitely loses out. They have to spend all those man hours processing coins, money which they won't make back in interest as he'll clear out his savings/checking account rather quickly to pay the credit card fees. -------------------- EDIT: Per frisco's link: The Mint says it costs, on average, about $3 to ship each 250-coin box. So $10,000 in coins would be 40 boxes, or $120 in shipping. As for credit-card costs to the government, a Treasury Department agency handles all government credit-card transactions and negotiates costs. No particular credit-card expense is charged to the Mint, a spokesman says. So, $15,000 in coins would have been sold at a loss of $180 to the U.S. Mint. That doesn't take into a lot of other costs like manufacturing.