sixgun

Things have changed in England a lot over recent decades. i remember going into HFC bank with my wife to withdraw some money or maybe it was deposit cash. This would have been in the late 1980's or very early 1990's. We had to provide ID. Neither of us had ever been asked for this before. It was some BS about money laundering - the terrorism stunt hadn't come in yet. A few years later we saw the terrorism canard. i have asked more than once, do i look like a terrorist? (It would seem some of the content i post online has classified me as a terrorist in some parts of the world - according to the real terrorists and assorted criminals).

It seems that as more and more shysters appear in our land, more and more fraud is taking place, so businesses are obliged to disbelieve their customers. 
i mean take RM, i could claim i sent proof coins when they were bullion, i could claim anything and plenty of people will have done so. They see it as an opportunity to inflate their claims - the world is full of chancers. 
If you send valuables by RM, as i mentioned on an ebay thread, i think you have to video it all. To show what went into the package, to show the package, to show the address label. Video the package being handed over at the post office - showing it is the same package. Describe on video what you are putting into the package and the value. 
i went to this website to create a legal Bill of Sale. https://www.lawdepot.co.uk/contracts/bill-of-sale/?webuser_data_id=150432302
It is a legal document in England and Wales. You can put all the details into the document as you follow the steps. How many members would want to do this is debatable. You could show this Bill of Sale document as you packed the sale item - i am sending the 20 x 1 oz silver Britiannias to Jack Jones - here is his name and address on the package label - this is the price. This is the bank transfer online / paypal payment - you can fake a pdf bank statement but not a real time video of the computer screen. Maybe you even show your passport (photo ID) and then turn the camera on yourself to prove it is you, John Smith.
This is all way OTT and 99% of the time with sales to TSF members it won't be needed - it might be needed more often with ebay scammers who claim you never sent the item advertised. What more could we do for those unfortunate incidences?

Once upon a time you would get to deal with people - more often than not, this was face-to-face. They saw who they were dealing with and you looked them in the eye. As local branches closed down and more and more went online, we no longer dealt with a human being - we dealt with a flow chart and AI. We dealt with people in a call centre 10 thousand miles away, we dealt with people who had metamorphosed into something nearer a robot. We should boycott these companies but where else is there to go? Nowhere.
The only way to deal with this is to record and document everything - record all conversations, such as where the guy says the Royal Mail doesn't have to put conditions in the terms and conditions. This is a lie or at best someone else lied to him.
Keep all the evidence and documents - then if necessary you take it to the small claims court. They will fold at that point b/c it becomes too expensive to defend the case and if you have all the evidence and everything is documented you would win the case anyway. The issue is of course there is only a £1000 annual turnover for online sales before you should be declaring what you have been selling. i suspect many members breach the £1000 and want to keep their private business, private.

I transferred 100 Euros to top up my Croatian Kuna's and they charged me a small fee. Saves paying the exchange rate at the till, which usually is higher. 

If nothing goes wrong with your sale it would seem like an unnecessary waste of time but if you got a scammer on the other end then the more evidence you have the better.
i would get the buyer to confirm the name and address via ebay messages. They cannot claim it went to the wrong place. Get them to confirm there are no special delivery requirements. Ideally i would have the parcel delivered to a post office near them - then they cannot claim it never arrived b/c it is tracked to the post office and they have to pick it up. The post office is very lax about parcels since COVID - now the postman signs and then anyone could have taken it or not as the case may be.
I would have a video of the item going into the packaging - clearly showing the item(s) as they go in - show the address label from Royal Mail with tracking code. i would show the parcel being handed over at the post office. Showing the label and that it was the same package the items went into. Then it is tracked and the tracking code is put into ebay as well.
Anything else?

Fed talk bolsters the notion of a pivot. The USD weakened and metals rose. Then we saw the Powell presser and they talked it back along with the usual intervention. 

If these were UK silver they would be hallmarked. If they are silver and sold as silver, which they would be, then by law they must be hallmarked by an assay office.
They do not bear any hallmarks - so if this fork and spoon were silver they don't originate from the UK.
The quality and general look of them along with the crude 'hallmarks' make me think they are plated.

@LawrenceChard - the HMRC webpage says
You must take reasonable steps to make sure that your customer has given you correct information. In order to do this, you must ask for and examine at least one document from each of the following lists: - [List of ID documents.]
This is in section 7 of the webpage - this section does not make mention of the thresholds of £5000 for a single purchase - £10000 total of all purchases in the year, however section 7 talks about invoices and since elsewhere it states there is no obligation to issue an invoice if a purchase(s) do not breach the thresholds, then section 7 only applies to these larger purchases.
It appears to me that there is no obligation on dealers to ask for ID for purchases under the thresholds. Perhaps Bairds are capturing all customers for their convenience in preparation for if they go over the annual limit. 

If there were any legal requirement for ID then all dealers would be demanding ID - they aren't, so it isn't a requirement.
It is just Baird asking for ID b/c they have decided to do that.
Baird can ask for whatever they like before selling gold and silver - there is no obligation on you to show ID but then they won't sell you anything.
Do they take a copy of the ID - how do they store it? Do they comply with the Data Protection Act if they store it digitally?
Providing ID isn't a British thing other than if a copper stops you in your car and asks for your driving licence. In Spain for example you are supposed to carry ID when in public. It is an offence not to do so. When i recently bought a new SIM card in Spain i showed by national ID and the woman photocopied it. You have to provide passport / NIE number or you national ID even if it is pay as you go. ID is asked for quite often. If you want a receipt from some websites they won't give you it unless you provide your NIE / tax number. 
Baird lost some business - well that's their decision to do that b/c they will know some people won't have any ID with them. The real concern is if this spreads further.

i call it a draw and will leave it there. 

If these were UK silver they would be hallmarked. If they are silver and sold as silver, which they would be, then by law they must be hallmarked by an assay office.
They do not bear any hallmarks - so if this fork and spoon were silver they don't originate from the UK.
The quality and general look of them along with the crude 'hallmarks' make me think they are plated.

This is most of an email sent today to a friend of mine who is in the metals business.
Why would Betts contact its customers to say they aren't charging them to refine their scrap (precious) metal?
Are they short of business or are they desperate for metal?

This is most of an email sent today to a friend of mine who is in the metals business.
Why would Betts contact its customers to say they aren't charging them to refine their scrap (precious) metal?
Are they short of business or are they desperate for metal?

This is most of an email sent today to a friend of mine who is in the metals business.
Why would Betts contact its customers to say they aren't charging them to refine their scrap (precious) metal?
Are they short of business or are they desperate for metal?

i call it a draw and will leave it there. 

i see claims there were $50 trillion in gold in Iraq. This is clearly nonsense. i see claims there were $20 trillion in gold. This is also nonsense. $50 trillion would be about 1.7 million tonnes of in 2003.  All the gold ever mined is nowhere near that amount and unless Bix Weir is right with the Grand Canyon full of gold, there probably isn't that much gold on the planet.
It is claimed there was 6 tonnes gold which was sent to Kuwait for analysis and then returned to the Iraqi treasury. But they would say that wouldn't they. 
A good delivery bar of gold is 400 oz of gold - 12.5kg. These bars look a bit rough, to me they look bigger than a 400 oz bar. But if we say the bars in the photos weighed 12.5kg, then 6 tonnes would be 480 bars. 
Looks like there are a good deal more that 480 bars.

1.Learn to walk before running
2.Knowledge and understanding
3.History
4.Dont F*ck with the Silver Forum old boys...
 
 

i call it a draw and will leave it there. 

i call it a draw and will leave it there. 

I came across this 10 ounce bar, sterling. I think it might have some historical significance, value.  The engraving looks to be superb. Anybody come across one of these or have thoughts on value.  I did send an email to the Park City historical folks. They liked it and felt it had historical value but had no history. They thought I might have somebody date it by the engraving work and then they could look deeper into the city records. 
 

I have already posted this link in a response to you earlier this year but I can post it again: http://anysoldier.com/brian/iraq/92.html.
In that article, finds of gold in two trucks are mentioned, 1000 and 1183 bars in each, value of which is given at around $350 million per find, which based on approximate price at that time $350/oz means bars could have been 1000 oz. That would seem right given that a 400 oz bar size is cca. 27×10×5 cm and these indeed seem bigger. So just based on that article cca. 67 tonnes were discovered by 'Gozy' plus another 2000 bars are refered to in the CNN report. BTW all allegedly returned to the new Iraqi government.
As a side note, a standard truck can carry around 25 tonnes so over 30 tonnes would seem on the upper side of the load (but not impossible).

If nothing goes wrong with your sale it would seem like an unnecessary waste of time but if you got a scammer on the other end then the more evidence you have the better.
i would get the buyer to confirm the name and address via ebay messages. They cannot claim it went to the wrong place. Get them to confirm there are no special delivery requirements. Ideally i would have the parcel delivered to a post office near them - then they cannot claim it never arrived b/c it is tracked to the post office and they have to pick it up. The post office is very lax about parcels since COVID - now the postman signs and then anyone could have taken it or not as the case may be.
I would have a video of the item going into the packaging - clearly showing the item(s) as they go in - show the address label from Royal Mail with tracking code. i would show the parcel being handed over at the post office. Showing the label and that it was the same package the items went into. Then it is tracked and the tracking code is put into ebay as well.
Anything else?

This video is repeating controlled financial media news - it is better not to watch it. The US quite probably has no gold. Russia isn't exporting to the West but what about the rest of the world? Many Americans have little idea about the rest of the world, so if Russia isn't exporting to the West they think Russia isn't exporting.

Russia and China have massive gold reserves. He says there is no way of knowing how much gold China has. Agreed not exactly but China has been the largest gold producer for years but doesn't export it. When you look at the exports of gold from London/ US to Switzerland and then on to China we can see the West is being drained of gold. Maguire has said China has around 40 000 tonnes. i think this guy wants to believe the US has the most gold. The US will have had more gold than it should have b/c significant amounts have been stolen from the countries the US has invaded. This might go someway to explain where the gold is coming from that leaves the West. It is stolen gold.

If nothing goes wrong with your sale it would seem like an unnecessary waste of time but if you got a scammer on the other end then the more evidence you have the better.
i would get the buyer to confirm the name and address via ebay messages. They cannot claim it went to the wrong place. Get them to confirm there are no special delivery requirements. Ideally i would have the parcel delivered to a post office near them - then they cannot claim it never arrived b/c it is tracked to the post office and they have to pick it up. The post office is very lax about parcels since COVID - now the postman signs and then anyone could have taken it or not as the case may be.
I would have a video of the item going into the packaging - clearly showing the item(s) as they go in - show the address label from Royal Mail with tracking code. i would show the parcel being handed over at the post office. Showing the label and that it was the same package the items went into. Then it is tracked and the tracking code is put into ebay as well.
Anything else?

There are shortages all over the place. i am still waiting for an order to complete at Goldsilver.be which i placed on 19th September - i see a banner on the site saying products won't ship for 6 - 8 weeks. Lots of the coins on their site are sold out or pre-order (most of the time code for sold out). 
i just checked some of the prices on sites well known to us, they are simply stratospheric. A single Philharmonic on Atkinsons is £30.71 - granted delivery will be included so this bumps up the price but if you bought several different single coins you would be stung. Chards is cheaper +delivery but nevertheless retail silver coins dropping through your letter box are now expensive. The spot price bears little to no relation to what you have to pay - and people are paying accepting demand is very strong.

As Laurence quite rightly says, the average member of TSF is not buying 'Good Delivery' silver bars. You are talking about 1000 oz bars. The question is irrelevant to the situation the vast majority of silver stackers find themselves. It is like looking at the list of approved truck manufacturers when you want to buy a family saloon car - it doesn't really help.
You are buying in the retail market - so get to know the manufacturers in that area.
i have vintage bars where the makers don't exist anymore, some of them i don't fully know who the maker was. i see Geiger is not on the list of good delivery bar makers but is very highly respected in the silver bar world.