@MFeld said:
People don’t normally - note, I didn’t say “never” 😉 - try to buy items on Amazon, which they plan to sell for a hefty profit.
I'd agree. People regularly buy on Amazon for their own personal use. So- what happens when demand exceeds supply on Amazon?
Frustrated Amazon shoppers vent at record levels
The crush of coronavirus-fueled demand for online shopping clogged Amazon’s operations, flooding it with orders from homebound customers that it was ill-prepared to handle.
Shoppers, who can register opinions about the service received from third-party merchants as negative, neutral or positive, are clicking “negative” at the highest levels ever recorded.
OK, I hear you. True, Amazon garners lots of complaints. I give you that. Their volume of orders is huge. I haven't heard of a disaster on there web site like happened to the Mint. Never heard of registered customers being banned with out explanation. Never heard of freezes and OOPS! moments like the Mint had.
@MFeld said:
Maybe we should invite the shoppers to post here about their experiences, and then hopefully, those who got shut out by the Mint won’t feel so bad?😉
Either that, or have the mint do whatever it is that Amazon does that makes people less unhappy about not being able to buy what they want. Or not- that's up to the mint, I guess.
Regardless of how it's set up, if the same number of people show up to buy the next New Thing coming down the pike with the same amount available as before, the results won't be any different. The same number of people will not get what they want. Personally, it doesn't matter to me one way or the other- either I get the thing or I don't- but I understand other people feel differently.
simply - my experiences with amazon and the mint have been vastly different with high demand items. i am satisfied with amazon's performance but not with the mint's.
further, the mint has shown it learned nothing from the erp from last year. (i did not partake in the erp, btw.)
I've now read all of the comments and can state my conclusion: The Mint website is not capable of handling the traffic and therefore a lot of people got logged out, or in a permanent state of "refresh" that did nothing. This has been the case for low mintage high demand items since the Mint started accepting orders on the Internet. Nothing has changed. My conclusion is that the Mint doesn't care at all about the complaints and will continue with an inadequate website. After all, if they did care about this problem which has existed for several years, wouldn't they have fixed it by now?
An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.
It is a shame that the mint doesn't mint these special coins to demand. I lost out on the last collector eagle and now to this one. This has caused me to reconsider part of my collection, along with the price increases. I will no longer be collecting SAE's and will probably just sell them down the road and find a series that doesn't get mixed up in the modern stuff the mint is making. Plus, most of these special coins are bought by flippers trying to make a buck off real collectors. I have no place for flippers in these situations. To me, they are just a bunch of low lifes!! I have never taken advantage of anyone and I just don't trust people who do!!
@RichieURich said:
I've now read all of the comments and can state my conclusion: The Mint website is not capable of handling the traffic and therefore a lot of people got logged out, or in a permanent state of "refresh" that did nothing. This has been the case for low mintage high demand items since the Mint started accepting orders on the Internet. Nothing has changed. My conclusion is that the Mint doesn't care at all about the complaints and will continue with an inadequate website. After all, if they did care about this problem which has existed for several years, wouldn't they have fixed it by now?
Agreed. And it's the first time in all my Mint ordering years that such a ridiculous condition caused me to stop collecting a series. Some people collect only wheat ear reverse Lincoln's and not the Memorial and Shield reverses, so I can do something similar. For ASE's, I'm ending my collecting with the heraldic eagle reverse. It used to be fun to collect ASE's, not any more. What a relief to be rid of this!
@bsshog40 said:
It is a shame that the mint doesn't mint these special coins to demand. I lost out on the last collector eagle and now to this one. This has caused me to reconsider part of my collection, along with the price increases. I will no longer be collecting SAE's and will probably just sell them down the road and find a series that doesn't get mixed up in the modern stuff the mint is making. Plus, most of these special coins are bought by flippers trying to make a buck off real collectors. I have no place for flippers in these situations. To me, they are just a bunch of low lifes!! I have never taken advantage of anyone and I just don't trust people who do!!
Stick to classic coins, except the 2009 UHR, unless you're looking for a flip.
To those of you who were fortunate enough to successfully wind through the labyrinth to purchase either one of these coins, Congratulations!
The dissatisfaction being expressed here isn't about failing to purchase this issuance, as some above suggested earlier, or whether they should mint to demand or not.
Every limited mintage AGE/ASE has access problems, and every time the Mint issues lame statements run by their public relations team about their "commitment" to improve going forward.
The U.S.Mint has had decades to upgrade their process. They've likely had multiple meetings discussing how to prevent large wholesalers from dominating orders on this release, thus the introduction of CAPTCHA. Their I.T. staff and senior officials had to have known their systems would be overwhelmed but signed off on its use anyway.
But what made this release stand out though was how incredibly debasing it was for many, many of their best customers--repeatedly rushing through to input identification photos of boats, cars, bikes, etc., only to be given error message after error message. Then, as if that wasn't frustrating enough, they compounded customers' humiliation posting a message of being temporarily being banned. How afrontive!
What kind of managers approved this? I'll tell you; just like all the other government bureaucrats that are safely ensconced in their careers, none of them are ever held accountable; they couldn't care less. So the Mint throws out yet another, "My bad", and moves on.
@53BKid said:
To those of you who were fortunate enough to successfully wind through the labyrinth to purchase either one of these coins, Congratulations!
The dissatisfaction being expressed here isn't about failing to purchase this issuance, as some above suggested earlier, or whether they should mint to demand or not.
Every limited mintage AGE/ASE has access problems, and every time the Mint issues lame statements run by their public relations team about their "commitment" to improve going forward.
The U.S.Mint has had decades to upgrade their process. They've likely had multiple meetings discussing how to prevent large wholesalers from dominating orders on this release, thus the introduction of CAPTCHA. Their I.T. staff and senior officials had to have known their systems would be overwhelmed but signed off on its use anyway.
But what made this release stand out though was how incredibly debasing it was for many, many of their best customers--repeatedly rushing through to input identification photos of boats, cars, bikes, etc., only to be given error message after error message. Then, as if that wasn't frustrating enough, they compounded customers' humiliation posting a message of being temporarily being banned. How afrontive!
What kind of managers approved this? I'll tell you; just like all the other government bureaucrats that are safely ensconced in their careers, none of them are ever held accountable; they couldn't care less. So the Mint throws out yet another, "My bad", and moves on.
A couple of choice letters come to mind.
BRAVO...
~HABE FIDUCIAM IN DOMINO III V VI / III XVI~ POST NUBILA PHOEBUS / AFTER CLOUDS, SUN Love for Music / Collector of Dreck
@53BKid said:
To those of you who were fortunate enough to successfully wind through the labyrinth to purchase either one of these coins, Congratulations!
The dissatisfaction being expressed here isn't about failing to purchase this issuance, as some above suggested earlier, or whether they should mint to demand or not.
Every limited mintage AGE/ASE has access problems, and every time the Mint issues lame statements run by their public relations team about their "commitment" to improve going forward.
The U.S.Mint has had decades to upgrade their process. They've likely had multiple meetings discussing how to prevent large wholesalers from dominating orders on this release, thus the introduction of CAPTCHA. Their I.T. staff and senior officials had to have known their systems would be overwhelmed but signed off on its use anyway.
But what made this release stand out though was how incredibly debasing it was for many, many of their best customers--repeatedly rushing through to input identification photos of boats, cars, bikes, etc., only to be given error message after error message. Then, as if that wasn't frustrating enough, they compounded customers' humiliation posting a message of being temporarily being banned. How afrontive!
What kind of managers approved this? I'll tell you; just like all the other government bureaucrats that are safely ensconced in their careers, none of them are ever held accountable; they couldn't care less. So the Mint throws out yet another, "My bad", and moves on.
A couple of choice letters come to mind.
Spot on. I get the CAPTCHA. Even if you're human it can be hard to get right. If that keeps the bots out thats fine. It's getting locked out that's infuriating and absurd. Once u show you're human why would anyone at the Mint think locking people out when they try again after a near certain crash makes sense? Such profound incompetence.
Further, as was just noted by another member in the main thread on these, the add to cart button does indeed freeze and becomes totally unresponsive. Not slow (i.e., arrows turning trying to connect) but totally locked and totally unresponsive.
I've been chasing high demand issues since 2006. This was, by far, the most maddening, exasperating and time wasting experience of them all. What a terrible way to treat customers, what a total hose job to series collectors right at the end to enrich the flippers on ebay who got them while so many collectors were shut out. Infuriating.
This is going to hurt them long term. The constant churn of faux "rarities" will kill demand and those who might have interest will increasingly move towards not fighting all of the chaos. Flippers and speculators can inflate prices, but this system will collapse if there is no end buyer base.
I'm thinking part of the problem is the Mint Director is a political appointee. From Wikipedia: The Director of the United States Mint is a presidential appointment that requires a Senate confirmation.
Which , to me, means pay back for previous political support. (read possible large monetary campaign donations not competence at a government mint operation)
With a new administration coming on board in January, though a relatively minor concern compared to other national issues, I can only hope a new director with at least a modicum of understanding mint issues is appointed. The present one, again to me, is a total failure.
@Kudbegud said:
I'm thinking part of the problem is the Mint Director is a political appointee. From Wikipedia: The Director of the United States Mint is a presidential appointment that requires a Senate confirmation.
Which , to me, means pay back for previous political support. (read possible large monetary campaign donations not competence at a government mint operation)
With a new administration coming on board in January, though a relatively minor concern compared to other national issues, I can only hope a new director with at least a modicum of understanding mint issues is appointed. The present one, again to me, is a total failure.
He has certainly exceeded my expectations in terms of generating hype for the hobby with stuff like the W-mint quarters. This kind of outside-the-box thinking is direly needed at the US Mint.
I just hope that whomever replaces him has a similarly creative mindset but understands that low mintages = flippers galore and works with larger hosting services to mitigate the issues that come with extremely high traffic.
I personally would favor a lottery system going forward attached to your street address.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
When the current Director served in the same capacity there was no internet. If I remember correctly Mint purchases were by US Mail. And new offerings were a lot less then now.
Comments
on my high demand items, amazon provided very conservative dates. I have no complaints with that. they are in high demand.
Maybe we should invite the shoppers to post here about their experiences, and then hopefully, those who got shut out by the Mint won’t feel so bad?😉
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
OK, I hear you. True, Amazon garners lots of complaints. I give you that. Their volume of orders is huge. I haven't heard of a disaster on there web site like happened to the Mint. Never heard of registered customers being banned with out explanation. Never heard of freezes and OOPS! moments like the Mint had.
I'm saying it's time the Mint asks for help.
Either that, or have the mint do whatever it is that Amazon does that makes people less unhappy about not being able to buy what they want. Or not- that's up to the mint, I guess.
Regardless of how it's set up, if the same number of people show up to buy the next New Thing coming down the pike with the same amount available as before, the results won't be any different. The same number of people will not get what they want. Personally, it doesn't matter to me one way or the other- either I get the thing or I don't- but I understand other people feel differently.
simply - my experiences with amazon and the mint have been vastly different with high demand items. i am satisfied with amazon's performance but not with the mint's.
further, the mint has shown it learned nothing from the erp from last year. (i did not partake in the erp, btw.)
I've now read all of the comments and can state my conclusion: The Mint website is not capable of handling the traffic and therefore a lot of people got logged out, or in a permanent state of "refresh" that did nothing. This has been the case for low mintage high demand items since the Mint started accepting orders on the Internet. Nothing has changed. My conclusion is that the Mint doesn't care at all about the complaints and will continue with an inadequate website. After all, if they did care about this problem which has existed for several years, wouldn't they have fixed it by now?
An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.
and more perspective --
complaints about amazon? what about those amazon employees getting sick at work? they are taking huge hits for us so we can get high demand items.
It is a shame that the mint doesn't mint these special coins to demand. I lost out on the last collector eagle and now to this one. This has caused me to reconsider part of my collection, along with the price increases. I will no longer be collecting SAE's and will probably just sell them down the road and find a series that doesn't get mixed up in the modern stuff the mint is making. Plus, most of these special coins are bought by flippers trying to make a buck off real collectors. I have no place for flippers in these situations. To me, they are just a bunch of low lifes!! I have never taken advantage of anyone and I just don't trust people who do!!
My Original Song Written to my late wife-"Plus other original music by me"
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8A11CC8CC6093D80
https://n1m.com/bobbysmith1
Agreed. And it's the first time in all my Mint ordering years that such a ridiculous condition caused me to stop collecting a series. Some people collect only wheat ear reverse Lincoln's and not the Memorial and Shield reverses, so I can do something similar. For ASE's, I'm ending my collecting with the heraldic eagle reverse. It used to be fun to collect ASE's, not any more. What a relief to be rid of this!
Stick to classic coins, except the 2009 UHR, unless you're looking for a flip.
Error
Error, available only for a few seconds.
DDoS protection from being asked to refresh... and it takes up to 5 seconds? Things will be sold out in 5 seconds.
To those of you who were fortunate enough to successfully wind through the labyrinth to purchase either one of these coins, Congratulations!
The dissatisfaction being expressed here isn't about failing to purchase this issuance, as some above suggested earlier, or whether they should mint to demand or not.
Every limited mintage AGE/ASE has access problems, and every time the Mint issues lame statements run by their public relations team about their "commitment" to improve going forward.
The U.S.Mint has had decades to upgrade their process. They've likely had multiple meetings discussing how to prevent large wholesalers from dominating orders on this release, thus the introduction of CAPTCHA. Their I.T. staff and senior officials had to have known their systems would be overwhelmed but signed off on its use anyway.
But what made this release stand out though was how incredibly debasing it was for many, many of their best customers--repeatedly rushing through to input identification photos of boats, cars, bikes, etc., only to be given error message after error message. Then, as if that wasn't frustrating enough, they compounded customers' humiliation posting a message of being temporarily being banned. How afrontive!
What kind of managers approved this? I'll tell you; just like all the other government bureaucrats that are safely ensconced in their careers, none of them are ever held accountable; they couldn't care less. So the Mint throws out yet another, "My bad", and moves on.
A couple of choice letters come to mind.
BRAVO...
POST NUBILA PHOEBUS / AFTER CLOUDS, SUN
Love for Music / Collector of Dreck
Spot on. I get the CAPTCHA. Even if you're human it can be hard to get right. If that keeps the bots out thats fine. It's getting locked out that's infuriating and absurd. Once u show you're human why would anyone at the Mint think locking people out when they try again after a near certain crash makes sense? Such profound incompetence.
Further, as was just noted by another member in the main thread on these, the add to cart button does indeed freeze and becomes totally unresponsive. Not slow (i.e., arrows turning trying to connect) but totally locked and totally unresponsive.
I've been chasing high demand issues since 2006. This was, by far, the most maddening, exasperating and time wasting experience of them all. What a terrible way to treat customers, what a total hose job to series collectors right at the end to enrich the flippers on ebay who got them while so many collectors were shut out. Infuriating.
I’ve done that, not soon enough.
This is going to hurt them long term. The constant churn of faux "rarities" will kill demand and those who might have interest will increasingly move towards not fighting all of the chaos. Flippers and speculators can inflate prices, but this system will collapse if there is no end buyer base.
I'm thinking part of the problem is the Mint Director is a political appointee. From Wikipedia:
The Director of the United States Mint is a presidential appointment that requires a Senate confirmation.
Which , to me, means pay back for previous political support. (read possible large monetary campaign donations not competence at a government mint operation)
With a new administration coming on board in January, though a relatively minor concern compared to other national issues, I can only hope a new director with at least a modicum of understanding mint issues is appointed. The present one, again to me, is a total failure.
He has certainly exceeded my expectations in terms of generating hype for the hobby with stuff like the W-mint quarters. This kind of outside-the-box thinking is direly needed at the US Mint.
I just hope that whomever replaces him has a similarly creative mindset but understands that low mintages = flippers galore and works with larger hosting services to mitigate the issues that come with extremely high traffic.
I personally would favor a lottery system going forward attached to your street address.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
I googled "problem ordering from the mint". The first result:
Message to the US Mint: Your Customers Are Not Happy
MARCH 2, 2009
I'm sure a new mint director is the answer.
The Wikipedia page is an interesting read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_of_the_United_States_Mint
When the current Director served in the same capacity there was no internet. If I remember correctly Mint purchases were by US Mail. And new offerings were a lot less then now.
So did I!!
My Original Song Written to my late wife-"Plus other original music by me"
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8A11CC8CC6093D80
https://n1m.com/bobbysmith1
POST NUBILA PHOEBUS / AFTER CLOUDS, SUN
Love for Music / Collector of Dreck