Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;satootoko, post: 171304, member: 669&quot;]It already is my friend, it already is.</p><p><br /></p><p>However, sad to say, like so many other laws attempting to regulate social behaviour, the designation of fraud as a crime doesn&#039;t acheive its goals.</p><p><br /></p><p>Criminal fraud consists of obtaining something of value by means of misrepresentation.&nbsp; Misrepresentation involves making a statement of fact - not opinion - which is (1) false and (2) known to be false when made <u>or</u> made without a reasonable ground for believing it to be true.</p><p><br /></p><p>In orther words, if a given coin has a market value of $100 with natural toning, and a market value of $10 with artificial toning, then getting someone to pay $15 for it by telling them that they are getting a $100 coin for that price would be fraud whether the seller knew it was AT, or didn&#039;t know whether it was AT or NT and didn&#039;t have the expertise to tell the difference, and wasn&#039;t relying of the advice of such an expert.&nbsp; Of course, that presupposes that an NT coin <u>does</u> have a greater value than the same coin, in the same grade, which has been artificially toned.</p><p><br /></p><p>Besides, I&#039;m not aware of any fixed and universally accepted rule on exactly where the dividing line is between AT and NT.&nbsp; Without such a standard, how does a prosecutor convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that a particular coin was in fact artificially toned?</p><p><br /></p><p>Another problem is that simply stating &quot;In my opinion this coin has natural toning&quot; would insulate everyone in the world selling that coin except for the person who personally toned it, since you could never prove that anyone else was lying about what their opinion was.</p><p><br /></p><p>Criminal fraud is one of the most unprosecuted crimes on the books for the simple reason that pvoving it beyond a reasonable doubt is a herculean task and prosecutors generally focus their resources on violent crime and slam dunk cases.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in