News

Yet another WTC coin scam? NY1 profits from it?

Print

I was watching NY1, and there was a "1 on 1" interview with Larry Silverstein. Immediately afterwards (and seemingly part of the program content), there was an ad by the National Collector's Mint for a "2001-2006 World Trade Center Commemorative" coin.

These coins (allegedly) contain silver from a vault recovered from the World Trade Center. Five dollars of each purchase (allegedly) goes to "official" 9/11 families and charities.

The same National Collector's Mint was prosecuted by Eliot Spitzer (in 2004) over deceptive ads for a "Freedom Tower Silver Dollar," also allegedly made from silver recovered from a vault at the World Trade Center site.

Does NY1 do no fact-checking? Is there still no NY1 ombudsman I can write to? (I tried unsuccessfuly writing to NY1 last year, when I didn't receive equal time as Scott Stringer or even Carlos Manzano.) Is NY1 this shameless to accept any ad? 

Can someone tell our state attorney general? Is Spitzer going to allow National Collector's Mint to continue to do this?

From this website:

The World Trade Center skyline is lavishly clad in gleaming silver miraculously recovered from a bank vault found under tons of debris at Ground Zero. (...)

To mark the fifth anniversary, $5 of every 2001-2006 World Trade Center Commemorative order is donated to official 9/11 family charities and memorials.

"Freedom Tower Silver Doller" wiki:

In October 2004 the attorney general of New York, Eliot Spitzer, obtained a court order against National Collectors Mint (a Port Chester, New York company) to halt sales of the "Freedom Tower Silver Dollar" coin, citing it as fraudulently advertised. Spitzer also alleged that the company's sales contacts had asserted that the coin is legal tender. On October 13, 2004, Spitzer obtained a temporary order halting the company from advertising or selling the coin. On November 9, State Supreme Court Justice Joseph R. Cannizzaro ruled that the company had engaged in deceptive and fraudulent marketing practices, and ordered the company to terminate its misleading advertising of the coin.

An investigation as to the silver content and the origin of the silver in the coins was started. The attorney general's office easily determined that the coin was only silver clad, but as of 2005 the veracity of the claim that this silver came from a World Trade Center bank vault had not been determined.

From the Office of the Attorney General:

In September 2004 National Collector's Mint began an extensive advertising campaign for the "2004 Freedom Tower Silver Dollar" on television, in magazines and on its website. The ads depicted the medallion as a "legally authorized government issue silver dollar" and as a "U.S. territorial minting" from the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. In fact, the medallion is not a government issued silver dollar, but was manufactured and issued by a private company. The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands uses U.S. currency and is not authorized to mint legal tender.

The ads also claimed that the coin was made of pure silver from silver bars recovered at Ground Zero during recovery operations. Spitzer's lawsuit showed, however, that the medallion is not made of pure or solid silver, but is an inexpensive metal alloy plated with approximately one ten-thousandth of an inch of silver valued at approximately 1.4 cents. The question of whether the silver used in the medallions is actually from Ground Zero is still under investigation, Spitzer said.

 

Source: http://www.r8ny.com/blog/barry_popik/yet_another_wtc_coin_scam_ny1_profits_from_it.html