National Collectors Mint Ordered To Pay $750k In Scam

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Love the "That's four nines" after stating it's clad in .9999

Basically they are admitting no wrongdoing and are paying the money to make the problem go away.

As for the WTC pieces I seriously doubt that didn't use recovered silver. Why risk getting called on not using it when so much of the stuff is available. As Carr said their advertising never claimed that the pieces were made for JUST tower recovered silver, but that they contained silver from the recovery. It is common practice for "made from" or "relic" pieces to be made from large batches of metal to which a small amount of actual metal from the relic has been added. Even if they did use JUST recovered silver, the pieces they were called on the carpet about were the ones with the little "pop-up" towers. They only contained 15 mg of silver plated on the towers. Why risk not using recovered silver when a single PCGS WTC recovery silver eagle would have provided enough silver to produce 2,000 of the tribute pieces.

As much as I dislike the company, they got the shaft here because I don't believe they did anything wrong. True their ads can be misleading if you make assumptions, but their descriptions are typically accurate. They tell you you are buying a plated coin but not in those precise words, the customer buys it and then gets upset because they got a plated coin? Well whose fault is that? Not the company's, they got exactly what they were promised. The company was then sued because their customers were unhappy because they got what they ordered and not the great windfall they wanted.

Frankly the news article is as misleading as as some of the NCM ads. They were not ordered to pay $750K in fines, they agreed to pay $750K to settle charges. It says they "failed to identify their wares as imitations, I have never seen one of their ads that had such a failure. True they never said "This is an imitation.", but they do call them tributes, replicas, commemoratives, and on the items that actually copy real coins the word COPY IS on the items and is visible. the FTC says the agreement bars the company from misrepresenting their product, so what, they didn't misrepresent them in the first place. And in the second place it is already illegal to misrepresent a product, the agreement changes nothing. (Or are there companies out there that have an OK from the FTC to misrepresent their products?) Schumer says the nation won't tolerate a "despicable scam", well that's good but this wasn't one. And apparently the nation WILL tolerate ignorance and will try to punish companies that let the ignorant cheat themselves. I'd say the real reason for this is that the NY Senator and Representative don't want competition for the WTC museum funding.

If you read the original filing, the suit had nothing to do with the content of the coins. The federal government issued WTC commemorative coins with proceeds going to the WTC park and museum . Those were officially sanctioned coins. The NCM coins advertised themselves as the only official WTC coins. This was patently false. They also made 22 million dollars off of these coins, with zero going to the families, museum , park, or in anyway, the memory of the 3000 plus people who lost their lives. Had they not falsely competed with the official commemoratives, how much of that 22 million could have gone towards a permanent memorial to the victims of this horrible attack against the U.S.

These coins also DID NOT have copy on them , in violation of the Federal Hobby Protection Act. The suit further stated that NCM sent and charged customers for additional coins they did not want and did not have a simple, logical and easy to navigate return system. Thereby making it difficult to impossible to return items and get refunds.

It was only after 8 years of lining their pockets and legal pressure from the victims families, did they finally agree to donate to any 9/11 charities. And even then, they didn't open their own wallets, they collected 2 mil from corporate customers and strong armed suppliers to donate to 9/11 charities.

They also didn't " offer up " in good faith $750,000 to settle. The state of NY was looking for $500 per coin in civil and punitive damages. They negotiated to save their skins.
Again, the suit had nothing to do with the metal content or where the silver was from, it was the the claim of the " only official " nature of these coins. And the thought by consumers that these being the only offically minted coins, that a portion was going to the 9/11 memorial. NCM lawyers called it another attempt by the State of NY to squash competition. Your darn right it is , while the officially sanctioned coins were used to fund the WTC museum and memorial to remember 3000 innocent people who lost their lives and 350 first responders who lost their lives heroically trying to save others , the proceeds from NCM fraudulently advertised " the only officially sanctioned WTC coin " were going to fund Mr. Freedberg and Mr. Goldwater's summer homes in the Hamptons. And that is a, now remedied , slap in the face to every family that lost a father, mother, daughter ,son husband or wife in this terrible tragedy.

Please take this suit for what it was and not what it wasn't

I'm ashamed not only as a NY'r but as an American that I share the same soil as these maggots. What a bunch of nimrods.

I remember when these ads came out. Two problems I had:

1. What would silver be doing in the rubble of the WTC?

2. Taking anything away from the WTC rubble is tantamount to grave robbing. And to then turn it into profit? I shudder at the thought.