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~ ~ ~ A Message from Mint Director Ryder 11/18/20 - ### Added Coin World Editorial 11-21 ###

KudbegudKudbegud Posts: 4,735 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited November 21, 2020 5:09PM in U.S. Coin Forum

https://usmint.gov/news/press-releases/message-from-united-states-mint-director-david-ryder

A paragraph addressing the mess experienced with the recent new offerings from the Mint.

As many of you are aware, a slowdown of the Mint’s online sales website caused frustration for many of our loyal customers, who were unable to purchase their desired product. One contributing factor is that there were 390,000 users attempting to access the website during one time frame, which is more than triple the capacity we had planned for. I can also tell you that our solutions to prevent automated purchases by “bots” also put an immense strain on our website and can lead to unintended issues for other legitimate purchasers. The overwhelming demand for these products outpaced our website capacity in ways that we are still trying to better understand and remedy. That said, more than 75 percent of 75th Anniversary End of World War II products were purchased by the Mint’s registered customers. I have asked my team to do a thorough analysis of what went wrong, and, by balancing capacity versus cost, come up with long-term, lasting solutions that will provide our customers with a vastly improved buying experience.

Sounds like a typical explanation, semi apology, from an experienced Washington bureaucrat in response to a HUGE FAILURE. To me, unless there is a follow up with the findings and a permeant solution, this is so much "words saying nothing". The Mint needs to take this situation seriously and FIX IT.


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Comments

  • MgarmyMgarmy Posts: 2,296 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 18, 2020 12:23PM

    They said the same thing last year and let me post something they replied to my question on why do a dual release for a popular low mintage items. I asked them this weeks before the release, I posted their response

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  • MgarmyMgarmy Posts: 2,296 ✭✭✭✭✭


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  • Hope they can continue to improve. I have a little knowledge in this area & this is an issue for a lot of other businesses right now too with limited quantity releases such as sneakers or new video game consoles. The botting, even if combatted somewhat well, leads to a ton of traffic into the site that has to be filtered out and can cause huge slowdowns. It's not a simple fix but I am glad they are trying.

  • KudbegudKudbegud Posts: 4,735 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 18, 2020 12:32PM

    As I posted in another thread, the Mint needs to as for help in fixing the ordering system overload. I suggested they contact Amazon and ask how the handle Black Friday crush of orders. I have made orders with them when this annual event comes along and have not had any "Oops" moments. Amazon seems to have solved overload problem. Swallow your pride and ask them for help.

    The Mint needs a variable load system the automatically adds capacity then revert to normal order load when the crush subsides. It's a real thing. The Mint needs this.


  • Dollar2007Dollar2007 Posts: 759 ✭✭✭

    It’s kind of unrealistic to expect a website not to crash under this kind of load. That’s a huge number of visitors. Even Walmart’s site crashed when they were selling the PS5 last week and I have a feeling it was probably less people than were on the mints site.

  • MgarmyMgarmy Posts: 2,296 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Would the load have been the same if they had spaced out the offerings vice same time? I don’t know

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  • TurtleCatTurtleCat Posts: 4,589 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Dollar2007 said:
    It’s kind of unrealistic to expect a website not to crash under this kind of load. That’s a huge number of visitors. Even Walmart’s site crashed when they were selling the PS5 last week and I have a feeling it was probably less people than were on the mints site.

    Probably not given the PS5 is more popular as a product. Their capacity is still far, far higher at 8-12 million/day. https://www.statista.com/statistics/714568/web-visits-to-walmartcom/

  • Dollar2007Dollar2007 Posts: 759 ✭✭✭

    @TurtleCat said:

    @Dollar2007 said:
    It’s kind of unrealistic to expect a website not to crash under this kind of load. That’s a huge number of visitors. Even Walmart’s site crashed when they were selling the PS5 last week and I have a feeling it was probably less people than were on the mints site.

    Probably not given the PS5 is more popular as a product. Their capacity is still far, far higher at 8-12 million/day. https://www.statista.com/statistics/714568/web-visits-to-walmartcom/

    True. Maybe traffic was higher. But if Walmart’s site crashes not sure we can expect the mints to not. It happens to the best of sites during peak times.

  • bearcavebearcave Posts: 3,993 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @TurtleCat said:
    It is a typical government apology. But the interesting point is the 75% of the purchasers were registered US mint customers. First thing that comes to mind is who are the remaining 25%?

    I wonder if it was the "bots"? Some people got 3 to 4 of the coins instead of just the one "per" like the website says. And I am not counting the ones where they had their wife or family do it.

    Ken
  • TurtleCatTurtleCat Posts: 4,589 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @bearcave said:

    @TurtleCat said:
    It is a typical government apology. But the interesting point is the 75% of the purchasers were registered US mint customers. First thing that comes to mind is who are the remaining 25%?

    I wonder if it was the "bots"? Some people got 3 to 4 of the coins instead of just the one "per" like the website says. And I am not counting the ones where they had their wife or family do it.

    That’s what I was wondering as well. He left the percent dangling out there. I’m sure plenty were bought for other people as well. Nothing new about that, though. People always find a way around a limit.

  • foraiurforaiur Posts: 134 ✭✭✭

    Certainly 25%+ of the people on here who got were also either getting additional using family & friends directly or were helping family and friends do so. I seriously doubt all these wives, brothers, friends mentioned by board members were regular mint customers. Of course, since people do this every time at some point the accounts who only buy limited ed. become regular customers.

  • KudbegudKudbegud Posts: 4,735 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Dollar2007 said:

    @TurtleCat said:

    @Dollar2007 said:
    It’s kind of unrealistic to expect a website not to crash under this kind of load. That’s a huge number of visitors. Even Walmart’s site crashed when they were selling the PS5 last week and I have a feeling it was probably less people than were on the mints site.

    Probably not given the PS5 is more popular as a product. Their capacity is still far, far higher at 8-12 million/day. https://www.statista.com/statistics/714568/web-visits-to-walmartcom/

    True. Maybe traffic was higher. But if Walmart’s site crashes not sure we can expect the mints to not. It happens to the best of sites during peak times.

    I can't remember Amazon crashing on it's highest load days. Would have made at least a mention on the broadcast news / newspaper news feeds.

    I'm suggesting the Mint should ask those who have seemed to master customer load for help.


  • Dollar2007Dollar2007 Posts: 759 ✭✭✭

    @Kudbegud said:
    I can't remember Amazon crashing on it's highest load days. Would have made at least a mention on the broadcast news / newspaper news feeds.

    I'm suggesting the Mint should ask those who have seemed to master customer load for help.

    Amazons site has had issues before. Not sure if due to load or just technical difficulties. But to expect the mints site to act like Amazon’s is just ridiculous for the one or two releases a year that generate this kind of attention. And if the site didn’t crash it would probably be the same outcome for most people, not getting the item. Instead of taking 10 minutes to know that though it would take 10 seconds.

  • cagcrispcagcrisp Posts: 1,057 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Kudbegud said:
    As I posted in another thread, the Mint needs to as for help in fixing the ordering system overload. I suggested they contact Amazon and ask how the handle Black Friday crush of orders. I have made orders with them when this annual event comes along and have not had any "Oops" moments. Amazon seems to have solved overload problem. Swallow your pride and ask them for help.

    The Mint needs a variable load system the automatically adds capacity then revert to normal order load when the crush subsides. It's a real thing. The Mint needs this.

    Walmart's website crashed almost immediately after it opened orders for the PlayStation 5 on launch day...

  • MsMorrisineMsMorrisine Posts: 32,123 ✭✭✭✭✭

    not buying it

    Current maintainer of Stone's Master List of Favorite Websites // My BST transactions
  • RichieURichRichieURich Posts: 8,359 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Same problem as many times before, and same apology.
    I hear what the Mint Director is saying, but actions speak louder than words.

    An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.

  • bolivarshagnastybolivarshagnasty Posts: 7,348 ✭✭✭✭✭

    They need to offer a pre-release request and then enter those in a random drawing. IMO, the only way to do it fairly.

  • MsMorrisineMsMorrisine Posts: 32,123 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 18, 2020 5:52PM

    those with large networks can get better odds in a pre-sale lottery than someone with no friends and no family in the us like me

    Current maintainer of Stone's Master List of Favorite Websites // My BST transactions
  • bolivarshagnastybolivarshagnasty Posts: 7,348 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Just received an email from L&C offering two gold privy’s priced at 17.5k and 18.5k.

  • MsMorrisineMsMorrisine Posts: 32,123 ✭✭✭✭✭

    .... I think they received some letters ...

    Current maintainer of Stone's Master List of Favorite Websites // My BST transactions
  • AlongAlong Posts: 466 ✭✭✭✭

    Does the mint phone number and chat not work anymore?

  • fathomfathom Posts: 1,513 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The technology/marketing/production is a mess.

    They need new consultants.

    Would this scenario work?:

    Announce the product (Limited production or no Limit)
    Take the order AND the payment
    Analyze market demand and production
    Cut production or cut dies according to intent of product scarcity

    Do not announce a ridiculously low mintage that will only anger prospective buyers who will never get a shot at the product.

    So customers will have to wait a bit more for the product, that stokes demand for the next rollout.

  • derrybderryb Posts: 36,110 ✭✭✭✭✭

    simple fix: announce an 100,000 coin mintage and stop selling at 5,000.

    The decline from democracy to tyranny is both a natural and inevitable one.

  • MsMorrisineMsMorrisine Posts: 32,123 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @fathom said:
    The technology/marketing/production is a mess.

    They need new consultants.

    Would this scenario work?:

    Announce the product (Limited production or no Limit)
    Take the order AND the payment
    Analyze market demand and production
    Cut production or cut dies according to intent of product scarcity

    Do not announce a ridiculously low mintage that will only anger prospective buyers who will never get a shot at the product.

    So customers will have to wait a bit more for the product, that stokes demand for the next rollout.

    they did take orders for an item for maybe 30 days once.

    they have not done it since. I think there were a lot of cancellations, but that is a guess. the item was definitely not flippable but it was a collectible item.

    Current maintainer of Stone's Master List of Favorite Websites // My BST transactions
  • derrybderryb Posts: 36,110 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @CoinMeister said:
    The director wants us to believe this wasn’t expected? Their site was overwhelmed? They sold two highly popular coins at the same time. One with only a 1,945 mintage which they felt was a proper amount? Not buying the excuses.

    1945 mintage was symbolic of the year the war ended.

    The decline from democracy to tyranny is both a natural and inevitable one.

  • CoinMeisterCoinMeister Posts: 642 ✭✭✭✭

    @derryb said:

    @CoinMeister said:
    The director wants us to believe this wasn’t expected? Their site was overwhelmed? They sold two highly popular coins at the same time. One with only a 1,945 mintage which they felt was a proper amount? Not buying the excuses.

    1945 mintage was symbolic of the year the war ended.

    I am aware of the symbolism of the mintage. My point is with such an extraordinary low mintage, they chose that based on whether or not there would be enough demand or if they would have too much inventory after the fact. Please... just not buying any of it.

    "What we are never changes, but who we are ... never stops changing."
  • SenateSaloonSenateSaloon Posts: 114 ✭✭✭

    Some comments.
    I like low mintage opportunities like this because it raises interest in coins and it gives an opportunity to buy something that will actually be worth more than I pay. But the server delays and other problems hurt.

    Let’s assume for the moment that the Mint’s servers didn’t get overloaded. Well, the same number of people would have been denied the AGE (I was denied). Then, instead of complaining about jammed servers, would we be complaining about “servers too fast”? I think probably yes.

    Proposal for the Mint; the Mint would generate less anger and be less likely to alienate long term collectors if they implemented a lottery system that was weighted towards long term purchasers from the Mint. This would still create plenty of disappointment, but the anger and emotions would be minimized. And it would encourage long term patronage (because people who buy each year from the Mint would be given a higher chance in the lottery).

    I’m not saying a lottery is a perfect solution(it’s not) and it won’t satisfy many, but it would remove the server issues and create positive incentives for long term collectors. It also would be relatively easy to administer. I also think it would minimize the alienation created by their current system.

  • illini420illini420 Posts: 11,466 ✭✭✭✭✭

    B.S. statement by the Director... didn't expect the demand... whatever...

    If it was about trying to match demand to the market they could do so very easily... mint them to demand!

    Take preorders for a certain time... as many as people want to buy. Then mint them to demand... and do NOT allow returns for any reason. Problem solved.

  • if they increase the mintage limit for future coins, does this automatically increase the value of lower mintage coins put out recently?

  • CoinscratchCoinscratch Posts: 7,807 ✭✭✭✭✭

    With today’s technology, I don’t understand. Even if a million click at the same time that the computer couldn’t just throw all of the inquiries into a large matrix and then randomly select the 1945 winners. I might be having a blonde moment😂

  • MgarmyMgarmy Posts: 2,296 ✭✭✭✭✭

    That is not crazy. Every verified individual account, no P.O. Box, verified address etc who applies is given a number. Random number generator, 1st 1945 drawn are given 24 hours to purchase. Rinse repeat until they are all gone. (Assumes not everybody who was selected in the initial pull decided to buy which would leave inventory). Could work. Dismantles the bot problem

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  • KudbegudKudbegud Posts: 4,735 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @CoinMeister - I agree with the concept. Details like how the actual customer ranking would be calculated. Yes, this would reward customer loyalty and longevity. Not sure if purchase total spent is considered. Automatically calculated for all Mint customers or an application needed? Re-apply for every commemorative offered or recalculated yearly? Or... just PM coins?

    This can be boiled down to a few simple rules.

    Process needs to be administered by an outside accounting firm to avoid any hint of favoritism or slipping in friends of the Mint or other funny business. Like how they handle the Oscars. Every body accepts the impartiality and ethics of Price Waterhouse, their accounting firm.

    This is a serious proposal to fix the Mint's ordering without massive continuous ordering system upgrades.


  • Dollar2007Dollar2007 Posts: 759 ✭✭✭

    @Kudbegud said:
    @CoinMeister - I agree with the concept. Details like how the actual customer ranking would be calculated. Yes, this would reward customer loyalty and longevity. Not sure if purchase total spent is considered. Automatically calculated for all Mint customers or an application needed? Re-apply for every commemorative offered or recalculated yearly? Or... just PM coins?

    This can be boiled down to a few simple rules.

    Process needs to be administered by an outside accounting firm to avoid any hint of favoritism or slipping in friends of the Mint or other funny business. Like how they handle the Oscars. Every body accepts the impartiality and ethics of Price Waterhouse, their accounting firm.

    This is a serious proposal to fix the Mint's ordering without massive continuous ordering system upgrades.

    The privilege and self serving details of this plan are incredible. And you are worried about having any hint of favoritism in a plan that is basically all favoritism?? Come on.

    Except for the occasional bot, which I’m sure the mint can work to address, the current system is the fairest for everyone. We all have a pretty equal chance of getting a coin.

    People who think lotteries are the best, think back to how often you or someone you know has won a prize from a sweepstakes or a contest. Because unless you get yourself these ridiculous beneficial stipulations into some extravagant new ordering system, that’s how it’s going to be for most people once something like this is put in place. The outcome would be the same, except for the well off collectors who can afford to buy lots of mint products year after year, or dealers/flippers just getting them all.

  • MgarmyMgarmy Posts: 2,296 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Occasional bot...ARe you kidding? Disengenous at best

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  • MgarmyMgarmy Posts: 2,296 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 19, 2020 4:44AM

    The only way this changes is to vote with your feet. If demand drys up the seagulls go away. Without the collector you have dealers trading back and forth. It is the end buyer that drives demand. At least with the proof ASE I am thinking you might see a drop off after the last issue for the current design in 2021. Good time to end, argument can be made for good time to start...time will tell.

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  • Dollar2007Dollar2007 Posts: 759 ✭✭✭

    @Mgarmy said:
    Occasional bot...ARe you kidding? Disengenous at best

    I think we’ve only seen evidence of one instance posted and they cancelled most of their orders. Which I think probably allowed a lot people here to get a coin when the canceled orders went back up.
    Admittedly it’s going to get worse, so I think that’s what the mint needs to focus on preventing the most.

  • MgarmyMgarmy Posts: 2,296 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 19, 2020 5:02AM

    And last year ERP as another example. PlayStation, Nike etc. crowd sourcing by dealers likely nothing can be done nor likely should there be. On the bots, a case can be made that it is essentially a dos attack. This is a case where the law has not caught up with technology but as more and more retailers are effected maybe that will change

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  • ELVIS1ELVIS1 Posts: 159 ✭✭✭

    No matter what they do someone will be disappointed and feel slighted.
    It's a government op. I am amazed there was a response at all...

  • SweetpieSweetpie Posts: 465 ✭✭✭

    If they mint accordingly to demands as some of you guys suggested, wouldn't these go by the wayside ( similar to your modern proof sets)? Too much and there's no collectible value.

    Maybe this V75 AGE mintage should have been 7500?

  • MgarmyMgarmy Posts: 2,296 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 19, 2020 6:53AM

    The challenge is, if there is no reasonable hope of completing a series....will that discourage interest In that series? We are not talking like moon money only four or five in existence coins, but what should have been a relatively within reach series to complete that is now really not for the avg collector. (Strictly speaking gold AGE).

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  • derrybderryb Posts: 36,110 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 19, 2020 7:03AM

    All the changes in the world to the mint's website or to it's method of sales are not going to change the odds of any one person getting one. At best it can only reduce the frustration level.

    Just as always:
    They announced them
    They struck them
    They sold them
    They shipped them

    Just as always:
    Unhappiness from those that didn't get one.

    Fact of life:
    With mintage of 1945, not everyone that wants one is going to get one.

    Some days peanuts, Some days shells. Don't choke on the shells.

    The decline from democracy to tyranny is both a natural and inevitable one.

  • SweetpieSweetpie Posts: 465 ✭✭✭
    edited November 19, 2020 7:09AM

    "That said, more than 75 percent of 75th Anniversary End of World War II products were purchased by the Mint’s registered customers."

    Interesting statement. So who or what are the other 25% NON-registered customers?

    Friends and familes of Mint employees?

    :neutral:

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