Pay out London Mint Office debt with their own coins?

izzylaif

Hi,

Unfortunately, my family member felt for London Mint Office very misleading TV ad, and ordered a coin from them. Judging by the company over 200 million annual profits, the ads are really working well. Have to admit, the authors are skilled psychologists.

This and other forums have seen a lot of indications LMO is fraud or scam. In any case, they are a legit company with a shady business practice, operating on the very edge of the law or may be breaking it. I'm surprised the operation is still going for over 16 yeas in the UK alone. LMO has nothing to do with the Royal Mint, it is a privately owned company, subsidiary of a Norwegian company with similar practice. There is also a Dublin Mint Office, with identical ways of conducting business.

Please refrain from repeating that LMO is a scam, this has been said before and is not why this topic has been created.

No one would deal with LMO if they knew it beforehand.

The question is, what to do AFTER you already signed up for any offering from LMO?

In our case, the family member paid the 2.5 p&p fee of the "free coin" with a bank card (debit, prepaid) at the LMO website.

What we did now, is cancelled the order and the LMO confirmed cancellation in a email. Since the entire LMO website and the customer service seem to be con artists, I have doubts these emails can be a proof of anything later on.

We also called the bank to stop the transaction. Surprisingly, the bank operator could not see the transaction. Neither can we in the card statement. Perhaps, it will be visible later on. There also is no direct debit set up for LMO. Nevertheless, we still blocked the card and were very careful to keep "scam, fraud" as reason to block the card, and issued another one with a different number and code.

If there is indeed no real transaction, then the whole purchase form of the LMO website is phishing to get your post address, name, and perhaps bank card details. Alternatively, this form may collect data not for a payment, but rather for a recurrent payment authorization. Basically, this is giving your banking card to LMO and saying "take how much you want, whenever you want". CPA is more complicated to turn off if the retailer (i.e. LMO) actively refuses to do so, but still possible via your bank.

Currently, I'm worried about the avalanche of coins LMO will send "for review" as part of the "subscription", followed by gigantic bills.

I'm even more concerned about those "red" (I said they are good psychologists) envelopes from "debt collector" agency, originated from another company, not LMO.

As this operation has been going on for decades, has anyone received the debt collector letter? Is this a legit thing, or just another "gotcha" trick to siphon money from law-abiding and generally honest folk like the LMO target demographics (elderly, foreigners, etc) are?

Can anyone tell the complete story of his/her experience getting off the LMO hook?

knightstyle

I am not an expert but I think this is not a bank  payment as we are used to it is a CPA see:
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/recurring-payments/

izzylaif

knightstyle said:

I am not an expert but I think this is not a bank  payment as we are used to it is a CPA see:

That answers the question about the phishing form.

Sorting out card payments may be (relatively) the easiest part. Especially that the card is now blocked.

But what about the bills coming in the snail mail?

Ectophile

It's a long-established company that sells over-priced collectables.  Lots of companies sell over-priced collectables.  It's not illegal.  Even the real Royal Mint does it.

You placed an order, which was then cancelled.  They have confirmed the cancellation, before they even got around to billing the card.  You haven't received any bills, or presumably anything else from them yet.

Chill out until something actually happens.

Investigator2020

Can someone please advise how to get out of this once you receive the coin? How do you prevent them from sending more and what's the best way to put a stop to this? 

izzylaif

So far I got an email confirmation from LMO that nothing will be sent and no subscription installed. Nothing arrived in the mail. I will update this thread in a couple weeks or months for the final resolution.

DCFC79

Its definitely not a scam nor fraud, what they sell are collectibles, people collect them.

DCFC79

Investigator2020 said:

Can someone please advise how to get out of this once you receive the coin? How do you prevent them from sending more and what's the best way to put a stop to this? 

Have you considered contacting them ?

sirjasper_2

I have had quite a few of their "offer"coins and then cancelled any future coins.As yet no problems.They are a legit company using tried and tested marketing techniques,Just play them at their own game

izzylaif

Ok, the relative did not receive any coins, and there seems to be no subscription, no did she receive any scammy red notices to pay up.

For me, I consider this settled and forgotten.

For everyone else, be safe. These scammers will evaporate by themselves if the target confiding naive people are generally more aware and use their brains more often before doing anything stupid.

IvanOpinion

I have purchased several 'special offer' coins from London Mint over the years - usually for nephew and nieces 18ths and 21sts (just as something to have).  No hint of a scam (or at least no more so than my local gym).