Devon & Cornwall Police Forced To Pay The Price For Coin Fiasco

[ChardsCoinandBullionDealer]

https://iaingould.co.uk/2021/10/15/devon-cornwall-police-forced-to-pay-the-price-for-coin-fiasco/

[MJCOIN]

This doesn't suprise me.  

[Cornishfarmer]

One of those toss pots who went intending to cause problems.   Should be charged with wasting police time also.   

[James32]

Well that's the biggest ROI on any coin that I know of modern day lol.

[sovereignsteve]

1 hour ago, Cornishfarmer said:

One of those toss pots who went intending to cause problems.   Should be charged with wasting police time also.   

I agree with your first point but the police should not have been called, not his fault.

[paulmerton]

I had a feeling this case would go in his favour, simply by virtue of how a petrol station transaction typically works (i.e. get product and become indebted to pay for it, as opposed to how it works in a conventional retail transaction). Even without Tesco confirming beforehand that they would accept these coins, I think he still would have "won".

While this was pretty obviously done for the youtube value, I've seen some people claim that it's stupid to try and spend commemorative coins like this because they cost far more than their face value, but that's not true - I suspect it was one of these £100 coins, which were actually sold for their face value (£100) https://www.royalmint.com/our-coins/ranges/denomination/trafalgar-square-2016-uk-100-pound-fine-silver-coin/

Those coins also led this this unfortunate situation  https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-3390519/I-buy-Royal-Mint-commemorative-coins-bulk-credit-card-gain-airmiles-cash-bank-s-refusing-accept-them.html

 

[Gordy]

2 hours ago, Cornishfarmer said:

One of those toss pots who went intending to cause problems.   Should be charged with wasting police time also.   

agreed, he was out to cause trouble and gained from it quite well, but he is still a d!ck

[silversky]

Actually it's the Royal Mint who should be in the dock for wasting everyone's time with these face value, legal tender (but of a non legal tier) "commemorative" coins.  They've confused the whole bullion vs circulating vs legal tender system by adding the new high face value commemorative definition.  A useless halfway house that's grossly overvalued if it were described as bullion, and worth absolutely zero as legal tender whilst pretending to be legal tender.  Nice one RM!

I looked into the £50 Britannia coin a couple of years ago, which I thought was a jolly nice design.  It was an ounce of silver but on digging it became clear that it was completely un-spendable anywhere.  Why refer to it as face value in that case??  The mint has massively confused the previously perfectly workable system, where the value in the open market of bullion or special edition coins was always much higher than their face values.  Artificially slapping a £50 or £100 price tag on to something that is non returnable is a deliberate con that's being used to milk the vulnerable through adverts in the back of glossy magazines.  I see it as little more than stealing from those who don't realise that they're just buying an expensive supermarket trolley token.  It might be made by the Royal Mint but it's still a trolley token being presented as if it was something else.

Now, if the mint were forced (through the regular banks) to accept back their commemorative edition coins at face value, it would be a completely different story.  The mint would rarely, if ever, see a single one of them back but if some fool wanted to spend a rare and valuable (mint backed, BU) commemorative coin in tescos, for far less than it was worth, the local manager would no doubt be more than happy to accept them; swapping them out of the till to sell for himself at a profit.  But in this case of course, because the coin is nothing more than a token with a deceptive name, it's never going to be accepted by anyone other than more vulnerable people.  The entire problem is the Royal Mint's making and no nation's mint should be allowed to do such a thing to it's currency.

[paulmerton]

19 minutes ago, silversky said:

worth absolutely zero as legal tender whilst pretending to be legal tender

But they aren't pretending to be legal tender - they are legal tender!

[Roy]

£5000, of taxpayers money?

Which charity will he be donating it to?

[Gordy]

1 minute ago, Roy said:

£5000, of taxpayers money?

Which charity will he be donating it to?

the charity of 'i'm getting the drinks in boys and then i'm shouting a curry later'

[HerefordBullyun]

22 minutes ago, Roy said:

£5000, of taxpayers money?

Which charity will he be donating it to?

The HairyfordBullyun Bulls Pizzle foundation trust... I'm just setting it up now!

[sovereignsteve]

The main problem was the Mint advertising these coins as "£100 for £100" or "£50 for £50" or whatever it was, implying this was a no loss situation.

[silversky]

43 minutes ago, paulmerton said:

But they aren't pretending to be legal tender - they are legal tender!

Yes this is correct.  They're technically legal tender but that actually means very little other than that they can be used to pay debts in court.

It's the discrepancy between their face value and their intrinsic value where the problem lies.  Essentially "face value" is a state guaranteed minimum value on a coin or note.  For uncirculating bullion (which is legal tender), it's a nominal figure which is always far lower than the actual value of the bullion, so it never becomes an issue where someone might wish to pay a debt to the court in bullion.  The whole process endows bullion with the status of being legal tender, which then has legal implications around tax etc, without it ever having to be in circulation.

On circulating base coins, the guaranteed minimum face value is its value, and this works fine.   If the price of the base metal rises above the face value, it's a crime to melt down circulating currency.  That's not been much of an issue because most of the base coinage is now steel anyway.

But in the case of these special low value, high "face value", "commemorative coins", the mint cleverly used some word salad to imply that they would have their "face value" honoured.  After issues with people trying to spend the £20 versions, it was made clear that they were uncirculating, commemorative coins as opposed to circulating.  Given that they're legal tender, I'd love to see someone use these £100 coins to pay for their parking fines in court!!  The court would lose it I'm sure because where would they get rid of them???

I've no idea what they're selling for on the secondary market but I doubt it's £100.  Most people are probably too embarrassed to put them up for sale at a big loss, so I'm guessing there aren't any for sale.  I can't imagine there are any buyers who want to pay £100 for a common "commemorative" legal tender token.

If the mint had sold them for £120 each, and classed them as circulating commemoratives, I would have bought one for sure.  They would have a minimum value of £100 with the possibility of becoming a collectors item.  Instead, they're an immediate massive loss.  In 100 years time, there will be a whole bunch of them knocking around antique shops for the same price as the current £5 commemorative coins.

[Paul]

i notice how the smart arse didn't try to pay for it with a £100 gold Britannia 1oz gold coin just to prove his point -  

[James32]

2 minutes ago, Paul said:

i notice how the smart arse didn't try to pay for it with a £100 gold Britannia 1oz gold coin just to prove his point -  

Very true lol.

[sovereignsteve]

20 hours ago, Cornishfarmer said:

Should be charged with wasting police time also

The police wasted their own time. They should quickly have realised they were in the wrong instead of being pig-headed and wasting tax payers money. This is an increasing tendency of the police to act in this way, they seem to think they are unaccountable.

[4Nines7Hills]

The police were right the guy was wrong no one here ( apart from one guy in the chain ) understands what legal tender is , and a shop can accept or reject any form of payment they wish .

Edited October 19, 2021 by 4Nines7Hills

[paulmerton]

1 minute ago, 4Nines7Hills said:

The police were right the guy was wrong no one here ( apart from one guy in the chain ) understands what legal tender is , and a shop can accept or reject any form of payment they wish .

Read the article, it's good.

[TeaTime]

 

These coins have a face value (just like notes) and were issued as legal tender with no caveats (at the time) to inform people that they were 'only joking'. Why should the RM be able to arbitrarily decide that they will no longer honour the value that the coins represent ?

Would the naysayers be equally vociferous if he'd tried to pay with £5 notes and been told they don't accept them. Even the two-faced RM have stated that these coins are good for debt so i really don't see any issue here other than the fact that a retailer is ignorant of the status of these coins.

Now if all this could be directed at the RM rather than a food (and fuel) retailer then i'm sure most people would applaud his actions.

 

 

 

[ArgentSmith]

21 hours ago, 4Nines7Hills said:

The police were right the guy was wrong no one here ( apart from one guy in the chain ) understands what legal tender is , and a shop can accept or reject any form of payment they wish .

They can refuse a £50 note or £10 note coins or a credit card in the store at the till, but in this case the fuel is in the tank so the Tesco manager is no longer in a position to negotiate personal preferences when offered legal tender. That is in essence is why there is a legal tender law. The only person who understood the Law was the guy who rightfully claimed £5k damages.

[Fivepoundfred]

Yes and if the police understood the law it would have saved £5000 of taxpayers money, which they should have done.

There are also implications with legal tender regarding VAT exemptions on gold coins, that is if the coin is not on the list.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Fivepoundfred

[LawrenceChard]

On 18/10/2021 at 13:56, ChardsCoinandBullionDealer said:

https://iaingould.co.uk/2021/10/15/devon-cornwall-police-forced-to-pay-the-price-for-coin-fiasco/

I am part way through reading Iaian Gould's blog about the Brett Richardson case, and am starting to wonder if Brett and Iaian are one and the same person:

"Brett was therefore left with no remedy but a legal claim for compensation, and that was when he instructed myself in January 2021."

😎

[HerefordBullyun]

6 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

I am part way through reading Iaian Gould's blog about the Brett Richardson case, and am starting to wonder if Brett and Iaian are one and the same person:

"Brett was therefore left with no remedy but a legal claim for compensation, and that was when he instructed myself in January 2021."

😎

I See Mr C is on the case 😁 Does your dooog bite? 'no' replies Hotelier Mr C strokes dog and bites him. I thought you saaaid your dog does not bite" Hotilier "that is not my doog"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C59-wJhBpq8

Edited October 20, 2021 by HerefordBullyun

[ImperatorMatty]

I have mixed feelings about what he did. He was obviously fishing for this ideal scenario, however they did take a big, fat bite of his bait!

That being said, the Police fired the first salvo at Joe public when it comes to using legal, but underhanded tactics, particularly when fining someone £100 for going 3 mph over the speed limit by sneakily putting a speed camera at the bottom of a hill, or hiding a speed van in an odious ploy to generate revenue (using technology that has sometimes proven to be inaccurate with false readings) so if someone is also slyly operating within the confines of the law, then they too have no right to bully or criticise him.

As a general rule of thumb, I have the utmost respect for the Police, however they have recently been prioritising minor offences, bending their knees to fringe groups and allowing yobs to block roads. Oddly, they were able to muster whole squads of officers to forcibly arrest people for daring to keep their livelihood open during a lockdown, though? 

The only real crime here is that the taxpayer has been shafted due to the hubris of a bully armed with a badge, who should have brushed up on his knowledge of the law before enforcing what he ignorantly believed was correct.