Culver City man charged in World War II nickel scam

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lan...-man-charged-in-world-war-ii-nickel-scam.html

Can't say I really understand what the heck is going on here, but it made the LA Times.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

i dont get it either.

 

I think they are saying that the "Nickels" were pure silver or 90% or whatever. They had no idea what they were writing. it is a summer intern's fault.

 

Well, the bottom line is the guy never came through on the deal and ebay/paypal was out some funds so I guess they called in the cavalry.....

 

I can't figure out if the coins were coppernickel instead of silver, were fakes, or he just didn't ship anything at all. From the third paragragh it almost makes it sound like they think the problem was he called them nickels and they didn't have any nickel in them!

But on the other hand when was the last time you EVER saw a non-numismatic writer get a numismatic story right.

 

That was what I concluded they were saying. Can you imagine. The arrested an 80 year old man because he called the War Nickels "Nickels" despite being silver.

 

If that was the case it would be rather funny to see someone arrested for calling war nickels "war nickels" like EVERYONE does. Of Paypal refunding over $60,000 because the silver war nickels he delivered didn't have any nickel in them, as they SHOULDN'T.

I suspect he actually didn't ship anything and they just can't figure out how to clearly explain nondelivery.

 

Whoa -- I was very close to buying one of those bags. It was a tempting offer, but I wasn't quite ready to take the plunge. More to the point, there was some verbiage about needing time to retrieve the bags from their secure storage, and arranging armored shipment -- I remember looking at that and thinking, "hmm, that might make it complicated to file for Buyer Protection if this isn't legit."

Once again, though, eBay Buyer Protection appears to have come through -- despite their inability to recover from the seller.

 

He received payment, but didn't deliver the goods:

 

The bags were sealed in an underground vault in Nigeria, originally from the President Taylor Horde, famous throughout the nations of Africa and Asia...blink blink

Jeff, I do not recommend you shop on ebay...

 

The story wasn't quite that elaborate...

...but you're right, I'm really, really naive. So when you see me start listing lots of "unsearched" coins on eBay, you can be really, really sure that I haven't gone through them looking for keys and high-grade coins, never mind varieties. Honest!

 

they say: "but eight people bought the fake coins — for $5,750 each — without knowing it and paid Berlin through his PayPal account, according to a complaint filed July 25 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. When customers didn't get their purchased items after trying to contact Berlin several times, proseuctors said, they filed claims with eBay."



I'll bet any amount that they were NOT fake.



But then:
Abraham Lew Berlin, 63, is accused of listing 13 sealed bags containing World War II-era "silver war nickels" for sale on the website in September and October 2011, prosecutors said.

The only problem? The 5-cent coin used during World War II was made of copper alloy, manganese and silver, the U.S. Mint said. Nickel was saved for the war effort.


So, his problem was calling them "nickels" not five cent pieces?

Ya morons.
[the newspaper reporters and the DA. Not youse guys.]

 

Trying to read through the confusion in the article, it doesn't sound like the seller provided fakes -- it sounds like he never provided anything at all. You know, the bit about "When customers didn't get their purchased items".

Without being privy to the details, I'm guessing that the seller strung his buyers along for a while with stories like "It's going to be another week or so before I can make the trip to retrieve the bags", "The armored-car company is being picky about scheduling pick-up", etc, etc. I'd love to be able to talk to one of the buyers involved.

 

Hey, I've still got the message he sent a few weeks after the auctions:

How many red flags do you see in this message?

 

Maybe they were Vietnam war nickels...

 

Lets make it simple

Coins never existed
Bags never existed
Seller was liar/conman
He got busted since he swindled paypal for $87000

Ps
These bags caused a huge stir.
Just a single bag is superbly rare, nonetheless a full date set, for below melt.

 

Too good to be true, and red flags galore. I especially like how he says he wouldn't sell at any price except for his medical needs. One of the number one things conmen will do is to give you reasons to think he is in need of quick cash and to create sympathy and/or greed (taking advantage of this guy).

Instead he took the money and ran and then also Paypal could not get money back from him. Paypal loses, so he gets charged. Would have been different, IMO, if several people lost the money and Paypal was not out. Then I doubt he would have been charged.

Call me skeptical.

 

I count eight seperate items that would put me off of buying from that person.

 

8x5750 = 46000

So how did eBay lose 60,000. I can't believe they would of made 14,000 in fees

 

Since "one of his clients had a death in the family", he "still had 2 bags to sell". Of course, only a cad would use that excuse multiple times...