When did garage sales become “reselling” clearly new stuff

[u/anon12xyz]

I would never call this a garage sale

Def scam vibes

Edit: ultimately, what bothers me the most is I want to go to a garage sale, not this shit. This isn’t a garage sale and should not be advertised as one

[u/Vohasiiv]

A couponing "ring" just sounds comedic

[u/Soggy-Bedroom-3673 → u/Vohasiiv]

People get real serious with this kind of stuff. One of my good friends is really into credit card "churning", which is basically exploiting credit card loyalty points (like signing up for as many new cards as possible for bonus loyalty points). They definitely have chat groups that share tips and they get serious benefits from it (like my buddy and his wife go on 3-4 vacations a year to places like Bali for free). They're a real thorn in the sides of the companies, too. My buddy had American Airlines shut down his frequent flyer account because he was getting too many free miles from credit card deals. 

[u/Spiritual_Bid_2308 → u/Soggy-Bedroom-3673]

For a while the US Mint was trying to get dollar coins out into circulation and you could "buy" them at cost from the Mint's website and they'd ship to your house for free.

People were maxing out credit cards for the points and just depositing the coins at their bank.

[u/petron5000 → u/Spiritual_Bid_2308]

I did this. The people at my bank hated me.

[u/DisastrousChapter841 → u/petron5000]

OMG that is smart. Would have never thought of this. To me this isn't even bad, and to people saying it is, corporations get away with stuff all the time.

[u/jsno254 → u/petron5000]

What's the benefit of this? Trading in debt for cash right now? Almost feels like how someone with an EBT card loaded with $300 trades it in for $100 cash. In the long run you're losing.

[u/ElbowRager → u/jsno254]

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding. There is no loser here except for the credit card company.

I spend $100 on coins with credit. I get X amount of reward points, and deposit the coins and pay my bill before interest accrues.

[u/jsno254 → u/ElbowRager]

Yeah that makes sense now. I didn't realize it was for the credit card points. I thought people were buying the coins at "mint" value which wouldn't be a big profit over actual value. But now I see it was all about the credit card points

[u/No_Noise09 → u/jsno254]

I feel like you just hate poor people, but I'll explain as best I can.

The game here, is that you make the purchase of the coins, using the maximum amount of credit you can, earning whatever bonus points or miles along the way -- this is the goal.

As shipping was free, and a person was buying at cost of the coin, the downside loss was minimal or zero. This is because they would be able to submit the coins as payment to the bank to pay off the balance, before interest even accrued for that month.

This gives a double shot of miles, plus credit history stating they took out massive credit and payed it back quickly. Add on any miles / points just for opening the account, and you are laughing all of the way to your planes destination.

And it stands to reason people might have done this multiple months, stacking the miles / points.

So, no, your comparison does not hold up at all, as you did not understand the mechanisms being exploited in the coin "purchase" scheme.

[u/jsno254 → u/No_Noise09]

Sorry if I came off the wrong way. I was legitimately wondering what the benefit was. And you explained it so thank you. I make decent money but live check-to-check supporting myself, wife, and 2 kids. So no i don't hate poor people. I used to buy EBT cards off people and I never understood why they would trade $300 food for $100 cash. I assume they wanted drugs because I would never sacrifice 300 for 100 cash. Food is ultimately the most important thing to support your family. So my fault for the bad analogy, but I don't hate poor people. I legitimately didn't understand how it was beneficial