Is it legal to commercially sell U.S. currency for LESS than its face value While wasting time on Facebook I ran across this advertisement: &quot;Get your hands on a $2 Bill in uncirculated condition for only $1&quot; In the back of my head, something's telling me it isn't legal to do what the sponsor is advertising: I think it is illegal to sell currently circulating U.S. currency for less than its face value. Is my memory right or wrong?
18 USC Ch. 17 contains the laws against doing things to US currency and coins, and sale of currency is not included. So it is legal to set currency for an amount above or below face value, the former being more common. There might be some illegal aspect to the particular offer (money laundering, fraud – implying that they are real money, counterfeiting) but no law regulates the &quot;sale&quot; of US currency.
Let’s say I go to a cash machine, ask for £100, and the machine gives me £10,000. I use my banking app and see that £100 left my account, not £10,000. At this point I haven’t done anything illegal. If I asked for another £100 and got £10,000 again, that might be illegal. But the extra £9,900 are not mine. They are the bank’s money. If I try to keep it, that is simply theft.
Yup, it's illegal. You want something, they have something you want. They let you have the thing provided that you do certain things, otherwise they won't give it to you. So providing a credit card is material to the contract. You know that the credit card number is false, you are representing that it is true, the card is a material fact, you intend to get them to allow you in using this false representation, they don't know it is false and they rightfully rely on your truthfulness. They have been harmed by your false representation (maybe: it would cost you a lot in attorney fees to try to challenge on this point). This is fraud.
If the ability to get a Pannini is conditioned on buying paper towels for money, then he isn't really selling paper towels for $2 and the Pannini for free, he is really selling a package consisting of paper towels and a Pannini for $2, so it would probably still be illegal. The phrase lawyers and judges use to talk about attempts to create loopholes like this one is "too clever by half", which means: "Shrewd but flawed by overthinking or excessive complexity, with a resulting tendency to be unreliable or unsuccessful."
In general, you cannot contract to do anything illegal. However, ... An argument could be made that permission has been granted to, for example, enter property and remove the item. If permission has been granted, entering property and taking an item is not a crime.
If you have a license, it is legal. See the Precious Metals Act, 2005 in particular §4 which says that no person may acquire, possess or dispose of, either as principal or as agent, any unwrought precious metal, unless (a) he or she is the holder of a refining licence and acts in accordance with the terms and conditions of his or her licence; (b) he or she is an authorised dealer; (c) he or she is a producer who has won or recovered such unwrought precious metal; (4 he or she has obtained a certificate from the Regulator authorising him or her to acquire or to dispose of such unwrought precious metal; (e) such unwrought precious metal does not exceed a prescribed mass and is acquired in accordance with a special permit issued by the Regulator for scientific or beneficiation purposes or to make jewellery; or he or she is the holder of a precious metal beneficiation licence and acts in accordance with the terms and conditions of his or her licence Subsection (e) still requires a permit or license.
No, this isn't legal. Had you authorized the purchase, then it would have been legal; this is similar to a store credit for returns without a receipt. But since you claim they charged you in error and you did not authorize the transaction, then they must refund the money directly to you (unless you agree to another method of compensation). In fact, a direct refund should have been the default unless they gained your permission to receive it in a different form. Why are you unable to contact the company? That seems like the simplest resolution so this.
You tag the question with "criminal law", suggesting that by "illegal" you mean "is it a crime" -- that would depend on jurisdiction, but in the US or my state, it is not a crime. There are crimes that you could commit with such an account, but violating the TOS is not itself a crime. However, it is illegal, a breach of contract, as you can see from the TOS "You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission".