US Challenge Coins, LLC: A fraud exposed.


A few months ago, I ordered 135 custom challenge coins through a company that came highly reccommended through the Better Business Bureau.  After paying the company around $1200 at the end of September 2011, it soon became difficult to contact them.  Some of the only communications I recieved from them was regarding ordering more coins, which I was prepared to do for my Base's Petty Officer Association.  When the promised 30 business day turnaround time came and went, I contacted them and was told that the coins hadn't been made yet, and that they were in the process of being minted.  Another month went by.  Still no coins, they became even more difficult to contact at this point.  After the holiday season, Mr Patrick Summy, the owner and proprieter of USChallengeCoins told me that my coins had been made and were being shipped from the factory directly to my house.
At this point I was relieved that my coins were on their way.  Unfortunately I did not have a tracking number.  Mr Summy quickly remedied that fear by sending me this USPS number: 9101 7850 9140 1474 8887 19. You can go ahead and check it out yourself, it still says the same thing it did in January,
"The U.S. Postal Service was electronically notified by the shipper on January 18, 2012 to expect your package for mailing. This does not indicate receipt by the USPS or the actual mailing date. Delivery status information will be provided if / when available. No further information is available for this item."
It was on January 30th that I recieved a call from Erick Richards, who was my original point of contact for the coins, I thought that it was regarding my coins, I was so excited!! 
What Erick told me was dis-heartening.  The basic jist of the conversation was that USCC was insolvent, and that they have been using new order money to pay off old debts.  Basically they were going to try to "unload enough inventory to keep themselves out of jail."  I tried to contact USCC at their primary and secondary numbers to confirm, having no contact, I finally filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.  I also tried to dispute through PayPal to get a refund, but since they had dragged me on for more than 45 days, that was out of the scope of PayPal's dispute resolution service.
Patrick finally contacted me and told me that due to the apparent shipping order, my coins were re-minted; which if they ever really were minted at all, would have been, in my mind, for the first time.
Mr Summy is still feeding me lines about my coins being ready, and he will send me a picture of them by the end of the day, and a tracking number will be coming soon, but the only thing that Patrick Summy seems to be able to produce is promises and excuses.  Never coins.


Through my digging I have discovered a few things about USChallengeCoins.com.
Mr. Adam Mullholland was the original owner, and although he still is listed as a contact on their webpage, he has been transferred overseas and gave up the business to Mr. Summy.  Since then it is apparent that USChallengeCoins has been run into the ground.  Their Facebook account USChallengeCoins Facebook, has been deleted after recieving numerous complaints in their "reccommended" section.  The Better Business Bureau has finally updated their page for USChallengeCoins to remove their accreditation and to warn consumers.  Sure wish they would have done that in September.  USChallengeCoins is still operating their Ebay and Amazon stores, while I am still sitting here with a $1200 debt.  As of yet, I have no coins and no money.