Time to Act

March 13, 2020 2:35PM
If you have an order that has not arrived when promised (or a refund not received when promised, etc.), I suggest:

• Write a review at TrustPilot: it is a top hit in search engines for AHB.
• File a complaint with the BBB.
• Write a review at Verified-Reviews and/or complain to them about the scam. NOTE: It looks like AHB has been writing fake reviews since around May, 2019. Nearly all the reviews since that time come from customers who has the initial "a" for their last name(!).
• Complain to shopify.com, the platform AHB uses.
• Complain to the NGC, PCGS, and ANA -- AHB uses their logos at https://americanheritagebullion.com/pages/contact.
• Contact the Beverly Hills police department, as they use a mailing address in Beverly Hills.
• Contact the FBI to report the crime.

AHB Dead?

March 13, 2020 2:05PM
In October, I was communicating via email with a "Jonathan" from AHB (which I do not believe to be his real name). He seemed concerned, and acknowledged some issues, but promised to get back to me if there were issues with any specific customers.

However, I contacted AHB again on February 24 about a customer who never received their (large) order, and did not hear back. I emailed again on March 9, explaining that I was going to post about it. They did not respond.

While companies have no legal obligation to respond to me, and are perfectly entitled not to respond to media inquiries, I get the sense that AHB is now essentially dead. The Better Business Bureau has given them a F rating; they have 19 complaints in the past year, most of which AHB never responded to (one of my major red flags for fraud). Worse, it looks like they lied to the BBB: the BBB shows them as having 21 employees, which is nearly impossible given their level of business and spread.

Customer Refund

November 14, 2019 8:25AM
I have heard from a customer that was having problems getting their order that they finally received a refund.

The check was cashed a few weeks ago, and presumably cleared.

If anyone is having troubles getting their order delivered or a refund, please contact me (email address above), and I will see if I can help.

Dominic Riccitello's ByDominic

October 3, 2019 5:05PM
One key item that I noticed about the AHB website is that they claim that they "own or license all copyright rights in the text, images..." of the website. In other words, if I find any text or images from AHB on other websites, either they should be licensed by AHB, or illegal. I did a lot of searching, and found that a website by a company ESN Direct (owner of American Collectors Mint) was very, very similar: about 90% of the FAQ page was the same as AHB. Wow! Like AHB, ESN Direct had many BBB complaints about coins not being delivered.

Research on ESN Direct leads to a man by the name of Dominic Riccitello, who runs a website/business "By Dominic" (using Shopify, like AHB/hMint). He was involved with ESN Direct for many years, and closely related to the owner. Further research shows that someone last year registered a domain 2019goldeagle.com that has a website sending people to AHB, but has a mailing address and phone number that was used by ESN Direct. Dominic used to live about 7 miles away from the AHB mailing address, runs his current business in the same city, and used to be involved with this website selling coins online. Adding to the coincidences, one customer reported that an AHB email was signed "Brian Ricci".

What does this mean? The obvious possibility is that Dominic runs or is in some other way involved with AHB. He denies this, however. That would leave the other possibility: that AHB stole the text from a website that Dominic used to use, entered hard-to-find information about Dominic into WHOIS, and chose to run their business in the same city as Dominic. That would suggest someone going to great lengths to intentionally try to destroy Dominic's credibility.

Origins: Mountain High Coins

September 26, 2019 3:45PM
I keep getting closer and closer to the source.

The American Heritage Bullion site claims to have "numismatic expertise of over 30 years." I've traced that claim back, and found that American Heritage Bullion started off as American Heritage Mint (explaining the "Mint and Bullion" references). American Heritage Mint was originally owned by Mountain High Coins of Bend, OR. Mountain High Coins told a newspaper that they "[supply]" companies like the Bradford Coin Exchange, the HSN-TV coin show and projects for clearing and catalogue houses". It looks like American Heritage Bullion bought American Heritage Mint around September, 2017.

That brings us to ESN Direct (Electronic Shopping Network). ESN Direct sold coins through cable TV shows. After dozens of complaints to the BBB, it shut down around September, 2017. And guess what? American Heritage Mint's site copied a lot of text from ESN Direct that ESN Direct claimed ownership to (meaning American Heritage Bullion likely either got permission from ESN Direct, or is violating copyright law).

I also found out that Coin Collectibles, LLC, the business name that American Heritage Mint uses, is a Delaware corporation. Unfortunately, Delaware makes it more difficult than most states to find the people behind a corporation.

Magick Planet

September 21, 2019 9:55AM
It has been reported to me that the same person behind American Heritage Mint is behind Magick Planet.

I cannot find any contact information for Magick Planet (phone, address).

a/k/a HMint a/k/a The Honor Mint

September 20, 2019 3:20PM
I have been told that The Honor Mint (hmint.com) may be related to American Heritage Mint.

Although I cannot definitively confirm it, it definitely appears to be the case. Both have a mailing address in Beverly Hills, CA; both use a private mailbox company (a UPS Store and a Postal Place) within 1 mile of each other; both use GoDaddy for their domain registration; both use GoDaddy's private registration service; both have the same hours of operation; both use Shopify. Also, HMint originally had "American Heritage Mint Bullion" in product descriptions. Both appear to be sole proprietorships (although none of the names appear as either a California corporation/LLC or Los Angeles County sole proprietorship or Los Angeles County ficticious name). Finally, HMint appears to infringe on the purported copyright rights of American Heritage Bullion.

I'm Treating as a Scam

July 26, 2019 3:20PM
Like the law does, I assume that all individuals and business are innocent. However, I follow a "trust, but verify" philosophy here: just because I assume someone is innocent doesn't mean that I won't investigate.

In this case, after my initial research, I have decided to treating this as a scam for purposes of my investigating (in other words, I am going to keep digging). Reasons include:

• I cannot find a legal business name for this company (such as an LLC)
• They have complaints filed with the BBB, none of which they have responded to
• The business does not appear to have a business license Beverly Hills, as required by the city
• They have not responded to my email inquiry after about 10 days
• They show a fake Google Seller Rating (4.9, it is significantly lower)
• They show a McAfee Secure logo, but their subscription expired
• They list NGC, PCGS, and ANA logos, but those organizations do not list American Heritage Bullion
• They show about 1,000 orders per month from January 1, 2019 through May 14, 2019: but only 7 orders in the 2+ months since then.
• They have not posted on their Facebook page since December 18, 2018 (despite nearly daily posts before that)
• They have not posted on their Twitter page since December 18, 2018 (despite nearly daily posts before that)
• They have reported recent (presumably bad) reviews at TrustPilot as not being their customers. I see this as meaning [1] people are creating fake reviews all of a sudden (why?), or [2] AHB is lying, or [3] AHB's TrustPilot account has been hacked. TrustPilot has verified at least one of the reviews as valid, strongly suggesting that AHB is lying.

There could be a valid explanation: for example, the site is operated by an individual, and he died. Or a bunch of customers have complained about orders they didn't receive, when in fact they did receive them.

Information Wanted

July 26, 2019 10:45AM
As I am getting up to speed with American Heritage Bullion, I am having troubles finding out much information -- I would like to find out the legal name they are using (e.g. LLC), physical address, owner names, etc.

You can contact me using the 'Tips' page.

Page Started

July 26, 2019 10:05AM
I am starting this page to track American Heritage Bullion.

They are in business, but I am strongly discouraging anyone to place an order with them (if you do, please use a credit card).

I believe that they either have serious financial problems, or are overwhelmed: in either case, they would not need more business. They did not respond to my inquiries about a customer that told me he did not receive his order.

Sources of information showing issues include:

• A Reddit post from a customer who claims to have lost $3,300.
• A website called americanheritagebullion-scam.com
• An 'F' rating at the BBB, with 9 unanswered complaints.
• 3 negative reviews at FindCoinOnline.com

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