The Royal Mint Horror Stories 😱

[James32]

On 09/10/2021 at 13:52, Richiesilver said:

Recieved a 2020 sovereign straight from the mint like this, assuming grease in the die. St George's horse looks appalled.

😅😅😅 enjoyed that

[Rll1288]

1 hour ago, Dan12345 said:

Royal mint are beyond useless one of the worst company's I've dealt with. I will never give a penny to them again

You have never dealt with BP then... try waiting nine months for a Pulse Charging unit to be installed... I will challenge you worst company I've ever dealt with... 🙂

[paulmerton]

After another week of waiting for them to respond, The Royal Mint eventually said that I could return my coin to have it re-packaged (presumably the correct way round!)

Just getting this far has taken up a couple of hours of my time, but they haven't offered to do anything to make up for that. Do you think they should? 

[Dan12345]

1 hour ago, paulmerton said:

After another week of waiting for them to respond, The Royal Mint eventually said that I could return my coin to have it re-packaged (presumably the correct way round!)

Just getting this far has taken up a couple of hours of my time, but they haven't offered to do anything to make up for that. Do you think they should? 

I'd say so yes if they value your custom and want your business in the future.

RM wasted so much of my time and ended up compensating me with about £200 of coins 

[Pete]

Arrived today and mentioned in the 'received today' section for more blurb.

Two brand new 2022 silver Britannia's - near horizontal runway track letter D to eye on the left and multiple small pits everywhere on the right coin with fine scuff on cheek. Anyone who asks - I generally wear white cotton gloves handling all my coins but when you handle c**p coins there is no need.

   

Edited November 6, 2021 by Pete
additional text

[Dan12345]

10 minutes ago, Pete said:

Arrived today and mentioned in the 'received today' section for more blurb.

Two brand new 2022 silver Britannia's - near horizontal runway track letter D to eye on the left and multiple small pits everywhere on the right coin with fine scuff on cheek. Anyone who asks - I generally wear white cotton gloves handling all my coins but when you handle c**p coins there is no need.

   

Terrible

[MaxeBaumann]

Is there already a statement on the bad experiences of the Royal Mint?
Scratches and milk stains are standard at the moment.
Simply terrible. Greetings Maxe.
 

[Dan12345]

Not only do the RM have loads of faults they also sell historic sovereigns at £600 and half sovereigns at £330 😳

[paulmerton]

Oh man, the latest event in this nightmare adventure that's been going on since 14 October is just INCREDIBLE....

To recap:

• 14 Oct: My "Year of the Pig" coin from the Trial of the Pyx turns out to be missing from its sealed brochure. After half an hour on the phone, I find it loose, wedged in the corner of the cardboard mailer envelope it arrived in, but there's still a tangible problem: The coin has been installed wrong-face-up in its tamper-evident packaging!
• 20 Oct: Yes, 6 days later, RM finally reply to my email to say they can't offer me a replacement so I can only return it for a refund.
• 20 Oct: I ask them to resolve it properly, i.e. by repackaging the coin. I'm disappointed that it arrived the wrong way round in the first place, let alone having to wait nearly a week for a response that doesn't actually solve the problem.
• 27 Oct: A full week later, I'm eventually told they can indeed repackage the coin. Yay! I return the coin using a supplied pre-paid label and mark it for the attention of an individual as instructed.
• 8 Nov: I get another email confirming that my coin has been received and passed onto the relevant department to be re-packaged and sent back to me. I was told I would get a confirmation email when it has been re-dispatched.

And today:

• 22 Nov: The coin arrived out of the blue, with no email confirmation of dispatch. Guess what? It's still the wrong way up! Worse still, there is a distinctive mark on the tamper-evident packaging that matches the one on the detailed photos I took before returning it. This shows they haven't accidentally packaged it the wrong way up again, rather they have literally done nothing to it at all! They have just kept my coin for a few weeks and returned it in the exact same packaging it was in when I sent it to them.

What should I do now?! This is so frustrating and it's taken up hours of my time and I am firmly back at square one again. 

[Dan12345]

5 hours ago, paulmerton said:

Oh man, the latest event in this nightmare adventure that's been going on since 14 October is just INCREDIBLE....

To recap:

• 14 Oct: My "Year of the Pig" coin from the Trial of the Pyx turns out to be missing from its sealed brochure. After half an hour on the phone, I find it loose, wedged in the corner of the cardboard mailer envelope it arrived in, but there's still a tangible problem: The coin has been installed wrong-face-up in its tamper-evident packaging!
• 20 Oct: Yes, 6 days later, RM finally reply to my email to say they can't offer me a replacement so I can only return it for a refund.
• 20 Oct: I ask them to resolve it properly, i.e. by repackaging the coin. I'm disappointed that it arrived the wrong way round in the first place, let alone having to wait nearly a week for a response that doesn't actually solve the problem.
• 27 Oct: A full week later, I'm eventually told they can indeed repackage the coin. Yay! I return the coin using a supplied pre-paid label and mark it for the attention of an individual as instructed.
• 8 Nov: I get another email confirming that my coin has been received and passed onto the relevant department to be re-packaged and sent back to me. I was told I would get a confirmation email when it has been re-dispatched.

And today:

• 22 Nov: The coin arrived out of the blue, with no email confirmation of dispatch. Guess what? It's still the wrong way up! Worse still, there is a distinctive mark on the tamper-evident packaging that matches the one on the detailed photos I took before returning it. This shows they haven't accidentally packaged it the wrong way up again, rather they have literally done nothing to it at all! They have just kept my coin for a few weeks and returned it in the exact same packaging it was in when I sent it to them.

What should I do now?! This is so frustrating and it's taken up hours of my time and I am firmly back at square one again. 

That's so bad, I'd ring the up and ask to speak to a manager and kick off. They messed me about so much they compensated me in nearly £200 worth of coins.

 

[paulmerton]

On 22/11/2021 at 17:30, Dan12345 said:

That's so bad, I'd ring the up and ask to speak to a manager and kick off. They messed me about so much they compensated me in nearly £200 worth of coins.

 

Thanks for that suggestion - after a few more phone calls and callbacks trying to get hold of a manager, it sounds like things are finally on track - or at least, it sounds a bit more promising this time!

I will be returning it again and a manager has taken proper ownership of it this time, saying she will even repackage the coin herself if she has to!

I was also asked if there were any silver proof coins I was looking for next (I assumed they were then going to offer to send me one for free to make up for this mess), but the only ones I have on my radar aren't released until next year.

So I was offered the choice of "any silver proof coin" for free. I said I'd have a think about it, but without any further qualification I was starting to daydream a little....   

[Oddjob]

Interesting thread this.

When I saw a Aussie bullion dealer do a "unboxing" of silver Brits not long ago, I noticed that the quality wasn't that flash on some. Going by comments here, production and post production QC don't seem to be a strong suit for RM.

The same Aussie bullion dealer did a Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale of new 1oz silver coins (from all well known world mints) of bullion silver coins they had pulled out of the stock they received and refused to sell to customers at full retail price cos of the defects...thus the box of 220 odd silver coins was sold off (1 per punter) at I think AUD2.00 over spot....didn't last long at that price and buyers knew what they were getting......

Back to the RM. I had a hellva time setting up an account with them the other month. Took multiple emails, late night calls to RM customer service to sought that out, then it was a struggle to fund the a/c, then another IT issue saw my a/c balance disappear....by this time I think my emails were going straight to the round file and they just didn't respond...All seem to be sorted now...but I await to see what my initial purchases are like when they front up eventually. Mmmmmmmmmmm

[daca]

1 hour ago, Oddjob said:

Interesting thread this.

When I saw a Aussie bullion dealer do a "unboxing" of silver Brits not long ago, I noticed that the quality wasn't that flash on some. Going by comments here, production and post production QC don't seem to be a strong suit for RM.

The same Aussie bullion dealer did a Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale of new 1oz silver coins (from all well known world mints) of bullion silver coins they had pulled out of the stock they received and refused to sell to customers at full retail price cos of the defects...thus the box of 220 odd silver coins was sold off (1 per punter) at I think AUD2.00 over spot....didn't last long at that price and buyers knew what they were getting......

BN has my respect for the way they conduct the business.

I get up on fridays at 5am to catch the live stream

[goldhunter]

I think the RM has morphed into British Leyland of the 70's, and we know what happened to them.

[Oddjob]

2 minutes ago, daca said:

BN has my respect for the way they conduct the business.

I get up on fridays at 5am to catch the live stream

 

I've been buying from BN for a couple of years now. I rate them.

The live stream is good for a giggle. Some muppet at work arranged a lunch this Friday so won't be watching live this week.

[paulmerton]

3 minutes ago, daca said:

BN has my respect for the way they conduct the business.

I get up on fridays at 5am to catch the live stream

Agreed, their videos are fun and lively. I subscribed even though I am very unlikely to ever buy anything from them!

[daca]

21 hours ago, paulmerton said:

Agreed, their videos are fun and lively. I subscribed even though I am very unlikely to ever buy anything from them!

Me too

21 hours ago, Oddjob said:

The live stream is good for a giggle.

Agree.

I also enjoy the fact they let us peak a bit under the veil to the inner working of a bullion dealer

 

[dicker]

When you run a business you have to make decisions around quality versus costs. This is the same whether you are manufacturing nails or running a bank.

Some CEO’s use KPI’s (key performance indicators) that accurately represent financial performance as well as measures of customer satisfaction.

I suspect that the RM uses surveys and client responses rather than looking at returns and QC issues.  Surveys and client responses are not always the best way to identify what is really going on and often make “happier” reading for a CEO.

Best

Dicker

 

[Fivepoundfred]

The Royal Mint has it's KPI's listed on page 28 of their 2021 anuual report which is quite a long winded document and i have not read it in detail. There is mention of them trying to achieve objectives based on delivery time but i can't see any mention of quality of product, quality control or production based issues.

There are one or two other interesting facts stated in the report including a reference to one of their UK partners.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Fivepoundfred

[paulmerton]

2 hours ago, dicker said:

I suspect that the RM uses surveys and client responses rather than looking at returns and QC issues.  Surveys and client responses are not always the best way to identify what is really going on and often make “happier” reading for a CEO.

I've had quite a few emails lately from the RM, asking me to fill in a feedback survey.

But I haven't done so, because I'm still waiting for certain issues to be resolved before I can even attempt to give meaningful feedback. You can't give accurate feedback on something before you find out whether it's going to be concluded satisfactorily or not.

By the time the issues are resolved, maybe I'll either forget to give that feedback or the opportunity to do so will have expired.

Wait... maybe that's what they're counting on!

[paulmerton]

18 minutes ago, paulmerton said:

I've had quite a few emails lately from the RM, asking me to fill in a feedback survey.

But I haven't done so, because I'm still waiting for certain issues to be resolved before I can even attempt to give meaningful feedback. You can't give accurate feedback on something before you find out whether it's going to be concluded satisfactorily or not.

By the time the issues are resolved, maybe I'll either forget to give that feedback or the opportunity to do so will have expired.

Wait... maybe that's what they're counting on!

Unsure if they're following this thread, but 10 minutes after I posted that, I got an email to say my repackaged coins have been dispatched, and that a free coin is on its way to make up for things. Spooky!

I will certainly be happy if it all goes as planned from now on!  But I'm torn about the feedback.  I'd still rather everything just went correctly in the first place, but I feel the free coin does goes a long way towards making up for wasting hours of my time, their additional mistakes along the way, and making me wait so long.  Another positive is that I now know a better person to contact if anything ever goes wrong in the future.

Excited again!  

[paulmerton]

Both of my Trial of the Pyx coins have been returned, correctly packaged at last!

[Dan12345]

On 02/12/2021 at 11:16, paulmerton said:

Unsure if they're following this thread, but 10 minutes after I posted that, I got an email to say my repackaged coins have been dispatched, and that a free coin is on its way to make up for things. Spooky!

I will certainly be happy if it all goes as planned from now on!  But I'm torn about the feedback.  I'd still rather everything just went correctly in the first place, but I feel the free coin does goes a long way towards making up for wasting hours of my time, their additional mistakes along the way, and making me wait so long.  Another positive is that I now know a better person to contact if anything ever goes wrong in the future.

Excited again!  

Least they remembered to send you the free coin I had to chance mine up. 

[paulmerton]

1 minute ago, Dan12345 said:

Least they remembered to send you the free coin I had to chance mine up. 

I haven't got it yet, but I think it's on its way from a separate department.

[SilverDrum]

19 minutes ago, paulmerton said:

I haven't got it yet, but I think it's on its way from a separate department.

Let's hope it's not made of chocolate 🤣