Remember the £20 ; £50 and £100 Royal Mint Coins sold as Legal Tender ?

[Pete]

Some of us were caught out by our Royal Mint to purchase silver £20 and higher denomination coins initially sold and publicised as legal tender etc.
Seemed a decent enough offer - buy a pure silver £20 denomination face value coin for £20 cash and free shipping included.
These coins were supplied on a postcard but fairly soon after their release the RM backtracked and wrote to banks etc stating that they should not be exchanged for normal money and all shops didn't have to accept them either. They changed their blurb to "commemorative" coins and although they were still "legal tender" they could only ever be exchanged in a court to pay a debt or fine.

I came across this article today where a holder of the £100 coin attempted to pay Tesco for fuel and ended up winning £5,000 compensation etc.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10133751/Man-arrested-using-100-coin-pay-fuel-awarded-5-000-damages-police.html

The compensation was from the police who apparently ( what I read elsewhere ) handled this very poorly and had nothing to do with Tesco.
From what I gather, these coins, despite their legal tender status, cannot be used to pay for goods in shops, so if accepted in some supermarkets etc. then that's very lucky but I am not testing my local shops.

 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Pete

[arcticfox]

Think he was charges for leaving without payinf even though he attempted to pay i.e the police involvement. 

[kimchi]

There was an interesting thread about this last week @Pete I think

 

 

[LawrenceChard]

12 hours ago, Pete said:

Some of us were caught out by our Royal Mint to purchase silver £20 and higher denomination coins initially sold and publicised as legal tender etc.
Seemed a decent enough offer - buy a pure silver £20 denomination face value coin for £20 cash and free shipping included.
These coins were supplied on a postcard but fairly soon after their release the RM backtracked and wrote to banks etc stating that they should not be exchanged for normal money and all shops didn't have to accept them either. They changed their blurb to "commemorative" coins and although they were still "legal tender" they could only ever be exchanged in a court to pay a debt or fine.

I came across this article today where a holder of the £100 coin attempted to pay Tesco for fuel and ended up winning £5,000 compensation etc.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10133751/Man-arrested-using-100-coin-pay-fuel-awarded-5-000-damages-police.html

The compensation was from the police who apparently ( what I read elsewhere ) handled this very poorly and had nothing to do with Tesco.
From what I gather, these coins, despite their legal tender status, cannot be used to pay for goods in shops, so if accepted in some supermarkets etc. then that's very lucky but I am not testing my local shops.

 

 

3 hours ago, arcticfox said:

Think he was charges for leaving without payinf even though he attempted to pay i.e the police involvement. 

 

2 hours ago, kimchi said:

There was an interesting thread about this last week @Pete I think

 

 

There are quite a number of existing threads about Brett Chamberlain and the silver £100, £50, an £20 Legal Tender Commemorative coins, including:

There was also another case widely reported in the media at the time about someone called "James", who complained that he had been left with £29,000 of them after his bank refused to accept a second tranche of them after the RM wrote to banks to say it would not accept them back. James had bought them using card which awarded Aveos air miles to get a "free" holiday. I don't know if he ever manage to get rid of them, which would ha made an interesting conclusion to his story.

I believe the resultant adverse publicity influenced the Royal Mint to stop producing and promoting those and similar coins.

[noddycoder]

16 hours ago, Pete said:

Some of us were caught out by our Royal Mint to purchase silver £20 and higher denomination coins initially sold and publicised as legal tender etc.
Seemed a decent enough offer - buy a pure silver £20 denomination face value coin for £20 cash and free shipping included.
These coins were supplied on a postcard but fairly soon after their release the RM backtracked and wrote to banks etc stating that they should not be exchanged for normal money and all shops didn't have to accept them either. They changed their blurb to "commemorative" coins and although they were still "legal tender" they could only ever be exchanged in a court to pay a debt or fine.

I came across this article today where a holder of the £100 coin attempted to pay Tesco for fuel and ended up winning £5,000 compensation etc.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10133751/Man-arrested-using-100-coin-pay-fuel-awarded-5-000-damages-police.html

The compensation was from the police who apparently ( what I read elsewhere ) handled this very poorly and had nothing to do with Tesco.
From what I gather, these coins, despite their legal tender status, cannot be used to pay for goods in shops, so if accepted in some supermarkets etc. then that's very lucky but I am not testing my local shops.

 

I bought a few of the £50 face value silver coins from RM, thinking they were a bargain as I was exchanging £50 of legal tender paper currency for £50 of legal tender fine silver coinage, so a no-brainer!

They got quite a bit of negative press (misleading the public etc) and in the end I sent them all back and they refunded me 

<embarrassed>lesson learned</embarrassed>

 

 

[sovereignsteve]

5 hours ago, kimchi said:

There was an interesting thread about this last week @Pete I think

yes come on @Petekeep up😉

[Agaumac]

7 minutes ago, noddycoder said:

I bought a few of the £50 face value silver coins from RM, thinking they were a bargain as I was exchanging £50 of legal tender paper currency for £50 of legal tender fine silver coinage, so a no-brainer!

They got quite a bit of negative press (misleading the public etc) and in the end I sent them all back and they refunded me 

<embarrassed>lesson learned</embarrassed>

 

 

Yeah, I got mugged by RM too. Do you know if they are still taking them back? I’ve got enough for a good few sovs. There was also a half hour slot on Jezza Vine yesterday discussing this and may be on iplayer.

[noddycoder]

13 minutes ago, Agaumac said:

Yeah, I got mugged by RM too. Do you know if they are still taking them back? I’ve got enough for a good few sovs. There was also a half hour slot on Jezza Vine yesterday discussing this and may be on iplayer.

I was lucky to get refunded by the RM in March 2016, around the height of the bad press, don't know if they're still offering buy-backs. I had around £1.5K's worth, so a not-inconsiderable sum 

[Agaumac]

I’ve just written to Royal Mint customer services to see if they are still issuing refunds or if I can exchange them for any of their products. Not expecting favourable response but will let you know their response.

[arcticfox]

27 minutes ago, Agaumac said:

I’ve just written to Royal Mint customer services to see if they are still issuing refunds or if I can exchange them for any of their products. Not expecting favourable response but will let you know their response.

Good luck pal

[MikeB]

Some places do accept these coins as shown in Brett's videos. For example, if someone owed me £20 I may occasionally accept the Silver £20 coin.

I think if more people started to accept them then that would be good

[kimchi]

5 hours ago, sovereignsteve said:

yes come on @Petekeep up😉

I believe Mr @LawrenceChard is the man to blame!

[TeaTime]

I bought a couple of the £50 coins because i liked the design (probably the most sought after Britannia design in recent memory). I fell for the £50 for £50 lie too - but here's the thing, at £50 for a one ounce BU coin, it's cheaper than what the RM charge for other BU Britannias...

On the one hand it was a rip-off and on the other it was a bargain. I'm hoping it's a sleeper due to the design of the coin and the controversy around it.

[LawrenceChard]

20 hours ago, Agaumac said:

Yeah, I got mugged by RM too. Do you know if they are still taking them back? I’ve got enough for a good few sovs. There was also a half hour slot on Jezza Vine yesterday discussing this and may be on iplayer.

No, you got 30 days to return them. I mentioned the BBC Radio 2 spot with Jeremy Vine, in the other, original thread. 

I didn't mention but JV twice informed listeners that Brett used them to pay for petrol. It is not important, but actually it was diesel. If JV didn't know, he could have said "fuel", and been right. Next caller was a collector, who added nothing meaningful to the conversation. A good interviewee would have been Brett's solicitor, who I am sure could have explained the whole case very concisely.

Edited October 29, 2021 by LawrenceChard

[Agaumac]

51 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

No, you got 30 days to return them. I mentioned the BBC Radio 2 spot with Jeremy Vine, in the other, original thread. 

I didn't mention but JV twice informed listeners that Brett used them to pay for petrol. It is not important, but actually it was diesel. If JV didn't know, he could have said "fuel", an been right. Next caller was a collector, who added nothing meaningful to the conversation. A good interviewee would have been Brett's solicitor, who I am sure could have explained the whole case very concisely.

I’ll just shut up then o great one and get back in my box.

[LawrenceChard]

13 hours ago, Agaumac said:

I’ll just shut up then o great one and get back in my box.

Please don't do that.🙂

Did you see the video of me in a box?

 

[Moi]

I got money back on mine, after some ag at the bank. There are options if your a legal type or charity that deals with fines to pass on savings. 

[Stuntman]

I have seven of them including two spares of the 2013 and 2014 £20 coins.  Four different £20 coins and the £50 Britannia coin.  

I am happy to retain these five different coins in my collection and would happily offload the two spares for £20 each.  Back in 2015 I sold my other two 2013 and 2014 spares for £25 each, so overall I'm up on the deal 😀

Edited October 29, 2021 by Stuntman
£25 each not £30 each. I wish!

[Abyss]

Forget the coins the shop/post office near today refused to accept a brand new £50 note...... In the end had to pay for my items with card payment.

[kimchi]

9 minutes ago, Abyss said:

Forget the coins the shop/post office near today refused to accept a brand new £50 note...... In the end had to pay for my items with card payment.

What?

What was their excuse for that?!!

[Abyss]

15 hours ago, kimchi said:

What?

What was their excuse for that?!!

No excuse cashier simply told me she will not accept it. Reading between the lines assume owner of the establishment put in a rule any of staff accept forged notes then the staff will need to compensate owner via wages.

Cashier simply did not want to take on the risk.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Abyss

[MikeB]

On 06/11/2021 at 10:19, Abyss said:

No excuse cashier simply told me she will not accept it. Reading between the lines assume owner of the establishment put in a rule any of staff accept forged notes then the staff will need to compensate owner via wages.

Cashier simply did not want to take on the risk.

Is that allowed to take it from employees salary?

[Abyss]

7 hours ago, MikeB said:

Is that allowed to take it from employees salary?

I am unsure about the legality of doing this but I am certain employers that abuse there positions. I recently visited a solicitor for legal advice and wanted to pay for the service with £50 notes and the receptionist refused to accept. I quoted these are newly minted £50 note by the bank of England and it is legal tender but she still refused to accept. Left no other option but to pay via debit card. I now have in my possession four £50 given to me and my family and tried twice to spend them to no avail. Looks like no other option than to visit the bank.

[frugalman]

On 10/11/2021 at 07:43, Abyss said:

I am unsure about the legality of doing this but I am certain employers that abuse there positions. I recently visited a solicitor for legal advice and wanted to pay for the service with £50 notes and the receptionist refused to accept. I quoted these are newly minted £50 note by the bank of England and it is legal tender but she still refused to accept. Left no other option but to pay via debit card. I now have in my possession four £50 given to me and my family and tried twice to spend them to no avail. Looks like no other option than to visit the bank.

Do you write the serial numbers down? They all look the same that way round.

I accept them lol 

Edited November 11, 2021 by frugalman

[Abyss]

Went to cineworld yesterday and they accepted £50 note after some debate. One down three to go.