A man in Sydney is facing fraud charges.
It is alleged that he had a large number of slightly damaged Australian two dollar coins. It is alleged that he was feeding the coins into a vending machine and then pressing the 'refund' button to retrieve undamaged coins. What exactly is the fraud that would have been committed?
Well it seems that damaged Australian coins are sent overseas for disposal and no longer regarded as legal tender. Seemingly this man is alleged to have brought the damaged coins back into Australia and regardless of their status as 'damaged' they apparently were in sufficiently good enough state to be accepted by the vending machine as legal. It is alleged he had 9,000 of the coins.
I find this all quite curious.
How the hell do you determine if a coin in your possession is damaged to the point of illegality? I've handled plenty of mangled coins and damaged notes in the past which have been handed on to me in good faith and spent the same way, can I be charged with the same thing? I guess the difference is that I didn't knowingly buy decomissioned coins at any stage.
ReplyDelete@ Mutant - nor I presume do you have 9,000 of them in your possession.
ReplyDeleteNor did mutant buy them at a discounted rate (or possibly stole them) knowing that he could get them swapped over.
ReplyDeleteIt amazes me how people can come up with these schemes.
I had a boss steal $68,000 from out pokies... all in 1 dollar coins.
Interesting that they are sent out of the country for disposal. Why not melt them down for molding and stamping again?
ReplyDelete