Spotting Precious Metal Scams

[dicker]

Hi All,

I thought it would be useful for to add a thread on gold / precious metal scams.  

There have been a few questions posted over the last year that indicate that some new forum members might be being scammed or are thinking about taking part in a "venture" that is is a scam....or worse being used to launder money.  This post can be used as a 'lookup' for new members and also for forum members to flag any scams that they have seen.

Forum members, please do flag up scams or any other advice that would be helpful to people.

Best

Dicker

 

The "Hook"

A gold scam is the same as any other scam - someone is trying to entice you into parting with your money for a product that does not exist and you will never receive.The 'hook' to catch your interest is often the prospect of making significant money by buying gold at a discount.  Margins on PM's are tight and you will find that even miners in remote regions of third world countries know the price of gold!

 

Types of Scams

• Financing the importation of gold - Where there is a spurious source i.e. Gold looted from from Saddam, Gadaffi, ISIS, a corrupt mine manager etc 
• Financing the purchase and sale of gold in another country  - You are invited to fund the purchase and sale of gold using a bogus tax scheme - you are supposed to get the profits when the deal is completed
• Buying gold dust - "left over" from a mine crusher, smelting plant etc
• Buying from an fraudulent online dealer - Who has just setup shop and is selling gold at a deep discount
• Buying from a corrupt politician / government employee - Who just happens to have access to a load of gold
• Tax avoidance - Funding the purchase and sale of PM's across different tax jurisdictions with you taking a cut of the profits
• My client wants to buy a lot of gold - Or a bullion dealer, or a refinery.  This is essentially where a victim has been "won over" by a scammer and is then being used to scam others.  We had an example on this forum a while ago where a member was enquiring about buying vast quantities of gold (central bank quantities) or a large refinery...  I think in the end the forum member left, still thinking that we were wrong and she was had a client who wanted that quantity of gold.....
• Money laundering - You are used to move money around using your bank account (private or company), on the premise you are dealing gold, whereas you are moving money that comes from the proceeds of crime (mostly drugs)

 

No one would fall for that right?

Sadly people do, and more frequently than people think - especially senior citizens.  Many scams are extremely elaborate, well planned and well financed, with months or years in the making.

• Sending a sample as a 'convincer' - To convince a victim that they are genuine, it is not unknown (but not common) for a scammer to send a sample of gold to a victim for testing.  "Keep the 1/10th ounce sample, we have lots more......"
• More common is a video or documentary evidence of gold being tested with a piece of paper with your name on.  The gold may be real or may be totally fake, but you won't know
• Most frequently, stock photos of gold seem to be used as part of scam - using Google Image Search or Tineye is good for searching for the picture to see if it has been used elsewhere
• Pushy People - Frequently scammers are pushy, with a time frame and deadline put in place to pressurise you to handover cash
• Scammers are not necessarily pushy, and are willing to play the long game - for example selling a victim 2oz gold at 30% under spot, then waiting for the victim to say - lets do it again with 30oz's
• Documentation and Websites - Are sometimes surprisingly well put together, and enough to fool a non-expert
• Wire Transfer - Having a BIC Code and asking for payment by SWIFT MT103 dent mean the recipient is genuine

 

Spotting Scams

• Stranger danger - The majority of fraud against an individual is carried out by someone not known to them (but there are of course exceptions)
• Too good to be true - buying PM's significantly under spot doesn't happen - the market is too 'tight' with margins and pricing to match.  (Check the Forum Sale section - you are lucky if you can buy gold for Spot!)
• Dubious legality - Some scams purport to be close to the law, or in breach or it in order to make money, or someone says they have found a 'loophole'.  Example smuggling gold to avoid tax, claiming tax rebates on gold in another country
• Urban Legends - Were you hear of gold discovered and belonging to Gadaffi, Hitler, Saddam, that was left in a bank or looted only to be found by the scammer
• Government Involvement - The person you are dealing with purports to be a government minister, judge, central bank officer - they will not be, even in very non-democratic countries
• Payment by Western Union, Moneygram - these are immediate red flags.  Both of these companies have implemented checks for 419 scams (sending cash to West Africa and elsewhere) but it remains essentially an anonymous way to receive funds 
• Cash - To date, all of the scams that I have seen have involved the victim sending cash (physical or by wire) rather than precious metals, but this may not always be the case
• Google is your friend - Google the name of the company and the person you are dealing with - it doesn't take long to find that (or example) Judge Thomas Mensa of Ghana is in fact deceased, and not in possession of $USD20 million of gold he wants to sell to you at a discount (Mail I received last week...)
• Your personal information - Scammers often want your personal details ASAP
• The location of the scammer - From what I have seen (and I appreciate this is anecdotal) a large proportion of the gold scams originate from West Africa, and particularly from countries where 419 Fraud is common

 

The following is a good watch and explains why people get caught out and then cannot stop funding a gold scam.   

 

Edited October 21, 2020 by dicker
Add web link

[Fishface220]

Hmmm..... are they any other kind then?? 

[Mox]

Stranger danger, this doesn’t just apply to online. Meeting up with someone you don’t know to sell PM’s can be dodgy.

[dicker]

Yesterday, I received this gem in my heavily “spam defended” inbox.

Typical type of scam....

I received another but stupidly deleted it - much more clever and offered me the opportunity to become an agent importing gold “sourced direct from the mine in South Africa”

Don’t get duped!

Best

Dicker

 

“I am a civil servant with the Government of the Republic of Ghana, here is the business deal.
A group of Political figures have some funds totaling, One Hundred  and Eighty Million USD Only  and 300kg Gold Bars, they need someone with experience and capability to represent them legally as their foreign associate so as to  move the Funds out for further investment outside Ghana, or an associate  that can legally be their representative for further investment.

If you are interested, get back with your telephone contact for further details. Your percentage is assured.”

[RedDragon77]

I understand [FLE]EBay has had a lot of fake PMs and numismatics this year. Haven't bought anything obvious but waiting on some obscure items from Estonia I figured were unlikely to be faked, but could very well just not exist.

[dicker]

Hi All

A non-TSF friend was apparently offered a number of Krugs for cash....swap in a carpark in London....Brixton to be precise.  
 

How many of you would take that?   Not me!

Best

Dicker

[Paul]

Not gold but high end watches scam, same thing could easily be replicated for gold coins 

Buyer agrees to buy items, arrives to do deal, counts out cash in £50s, puts cash back in envelope with clear window with £50 note still visible 

diversion is made to do a swap for another envelope with x1 £50 note and a bunch of paper to pad/bulk the envelope out with.

they swap watch for dodgy envelope and then are away 

Good chap to listen to Paul Thorpe

[RedDragon77]

6 hours ago, dicker said:

Hi All

A non-TSF friend was apparently offered a number of Krugs for cash....swap in a carpark in London....Brixton to be precise.  
 

How many of you would take that?   Not me!

Best

Dicker

I'd only agree if it's scheduled late at night; I don't want any witnesses when I rob them blind. 😉

[Arganto]

Using a mail server that puts privacy as a priority (Protonmail or similar) and a decent VPN (PIA, EXPRESSVPN etc) will help stop scammy c**p from grabbing your details and trying to dupe you with one thing or another. Not full proof obviously. Tunnel in through the onion network for added shadowy-ness. This also allows you to witness some real questionable behaviour, makes the normie net stuff seem sterile 🤪

If you don't solicit something that is sent to you it's likely a fishhook dangling into your private lagoon...

[KaleB]

Yes .. Fraud is common these days. Especially in such a case as precious metals. There is a lot of fake now. I used to very often come across the fact that I was deceived ...I'm interested in numismatics, and in order to protect myself during the transactions, I bought a great tool, calls X-ray analyzer . You can new more on https://elvatech.com/applications/precious-metals/. It scans the item and immediately determines its content. It is very convenient and fast.

Edited March 22, 2021 by KaleB
Made some mistakes in message

[Mox]

On 18/11/2020 at 14:28, Mox said:

Stranger danger, this doesn’t just apply to online. Meeting up with someone you don’t know to sell PM’s can be dodgy.

Sold some of my gold and silver recently through eBay, had two requests to buy, what for me, was quite a lot of money from people within collecting distance. They agreed to meet me at my local bank, paid cash and didn’t get the goods until the money had been deposited. If they hadn’t agreed, like the three cases who wanted to meet me at my house, I wouldn’t have sold.

 

Edit: Spent an hour+ chatting to both and they were decent chaps.

Edited July 15, 2021 by Mox

[kimchi]

14 minutes ago, Mox said:

If they hadn’t agreed, like the three cases who wanted to meet me at my house, I wouldn’t have sold.

Three people would only have come to your house to buy?

[dicker]

That would be a big no no for me

[Dan12345]

On 19/12/2020 at 20:21, dicker said:

Hi All

A non-TSF friend was apparently offered a number of Krugs for cash....swap in a carpark in London....Brixton to be precise.  
 

How many of you would take that?   Not me!

Best

Dicker

Brixton can be a Dodge place, don't think I'd be taking alot of cash there. Seen people get mugged in day light in the high street

[LawrenceChard]

On 21/10/2020 at 15:05, dicker said:

Hi All,

I thought it would be useful for to add a thread on gold / precious metal scams.  

There have been a few questions posted over the last year that indicate that some new forum members might be being scammed or are thinking about taking part in a "venture" that is is a scam....or worse being used to launder money.  This post can be used as a 'lookup' for new members and also for forum members to flag any scams that they have seen.

Forum members, please do flag up scams or any other advice that would be helpful to people.

Best

Dicker

 

I am late to the party here, but came across this 2020 topic / thread  when doing some research into the "Cash for Gold" Scam which occurred about 10  to 15 years ago, but is still relevant:

I just started a new topic thread about it:

A Google "News" search returned "About 281,000 results", which is just a little scary!

 

[stefffana]

On 15/07/2021 at 21:23, kimchi said:

Three people would only have come to your house to buy?

Yep, good friendly guys a big Luton Van.

[stefffana]

On 27/11/2020 at 17:15, dicker said:

Yesterday, I received this gem in my heavily “spam defended” inbox.

Typical type of scam....

I received another but stupidly deleted it - much more clever and offered me the opportunity to become an agent importing gold “sourced direct from the mine in South Africa”

Don’t get duped!

Best

Dicker

 

“I am a civil servant with the Government of the Republic of Ghana, here is the business deal.
A group of Political figures have some funds totaling, One Hundred  and Eighty Million USD Only  and 300kg Gold Bars, they need someone with experience and capability to represent them legally as their foreign associate so as to  move the Funds out for further investment outside Ghana, or an associate  that can legally be their representative for further investment.

If you are interested, get back with your telephone contact for further details. Your percentage is assured.”

 

On 21/10/2020 at 15:05, dicker said:

Hi All,

I thought it would be useful for to add a thread on gold / precious metal scams.  

There have been a few questions posted over the last year that indicate that some new forum members might be being scammed or are thinking about taking part in a "venture" that is is a scam....or worse being used to launder money.  This post can be used as a 'lookup' for new members and also for forum members to flag any scams that they have seen.

Forum members, please do flag up scams or any other advice that would be helpful to people.

Best

Dicker

 

The "Hook"

A gold scam is the same as any other scam - someone is trying to entice you into parting with your money for a product that does not exist and you will never receive.The 'hook' to catch your interest is often the prospect of making significant money by buying gold at a discount.  Margins on PM's are tight and you will find that even miners in remote regions of third world countries know the price of gold!

 

Types of Scams

• Financing the importation of gold - Where there is a spurious source i.e. Gold looted from from Saddam, Gadaffi, ISIS, a corrupt mine manager etc 
• Financing the purchase and sale of gold in another country  - You are invited to fund the purchase and sale of gold using a bogus tax scheme - you are supposed to get the profits when the deal is completed
• Buying gold dust - "left over" from a mine crusher, smelting plant etc
• Buying from an fraudulent online dealer - Who has just setup shop and is selling gold at a deep discount
• Buying from a corrupt politician / government employee - Who just happens to have access to a load of gold
• Tax avoidance - Funding the purchase and sale of PM's across different tax jurisdictions with you taking a cut of the profits
• My client wants to buy a lot of gold - Or a bullion dealer, or a refinery.  This is essentially where a victim has been "won over" by a scammer and is then being used to scam others.  We had an example on this forum a while ago where a member was enquiring about buying vast quantities of gold (central bank quantities) or a large refinery...  I think in the end the forum member left, still thinking that we were wrong and she was had a client who wanted that quantity of gold.....
• Money laundering - You are used to move money around using your bank account (private or company), on the premise you are dealing gold, whereas you are moving money that comes from the proceeds of crime (mostly drugs)

 

No one would fall for that right?

Sadly people do, and more frequently than people think - especially senior citizens.  Many scams are extremely elaborate, well planned and well financed, with months or years in the making.

• Sending a sample as a 'convincer' - To convince a victim that they are genuine, it is not unknown (but not common) for a scammer to send a sample of gold to a victim for testing.  "Keep the 1/10th ounce sample, we have lots more......"
• More common is a video or documentary evidence of gold being tested with a piece of paper with your name on.  The gold may be real or may be totally fake, but you won't know
• Most frequently, stock photos of gold seem to be used as part of scam - using Google Image Search or Tineye is good for searching for the picture to see if it has been used elsewhere
• Pushy People - Frequently scammers are pushy, with a time frame and deadline put in place to pressurise you to handover cash
• Scammers are not necessarily pushy, and are willing to play the long game - for example selling a victim 2oz gold at 30% under spot, then waiting for the victim to say - lets do it again with 30oz's
• Documentation and Websites - Are sometimes surprisingly well put together, and enough to fool a non-expert
• Wire Transfer - Having a BIC Code and asking for payment by SWIFT MT103 dent mean the recipient is genuine

 

Spotting Scams

• Stranger danger - The majority of fraud against an individual is carried out by someone not known to them (but there are of course exceptions)
• Too good to be true - buying PM's significantly under spot doesn't happen - the market is too 'tight' with margins and pricing to match.  (Check the Forum Sale section - you are lucky if you can buy gold for Spot!)
• Dubious legality - Some scams purport to be close to the law, or in breach or it in order to make money, or someone says they have found a 'loophole'.  Example smuggling gold to avoid tax, claiming tax rebates on gold in another country
• Urban Legends - Were you hear of gold discovered and belonging to Gadaffi, Hitler, Saddam, that was left in a bank or looted only to be found by the scammer
• Government Involvement - The person you are dealing with purports to be a government minister, judge, central bank officer - they will not be, even in very non-democratic countries
• Payment by Western Union, Moneygram - these are immediate red flags.  Both of these companies have implemented checks for 419 scams (sending cash to West Africa and elsewhere) but it remains essentially an anonymous way to receive funds 
• Cash - To date, all of the scams that I have seen have involved the victim sending cash (physical or by wire) rather than precious metals, but this may not always be the case
• Google is your friend - Google the name of the company and the person you are dealing with - it doesn't take long to find that (or example) Judge Thomas Mensa of Ghana is in fact deceased, and not in possession of $USD20 million of gold he wants to sell to you at a discount (Mail I received last week...)
• Your personal information - Scammers often want your personal details ASAP
• The location of the scammer - From what I have seen (and I appreciate this is anecdotal) a large proportion of the gold scams originate from West Africa, and particularly from countries where 419 Fraud is common

 

The following is a good watch and explains why people get caught out and then cannot stop funding a gold scam.   

 

 

I'd like to scam a scammer to make him send me some samples.😁 

I think God will not be very upset on me if I can do this.

I should ask on this topic for some good golden ideas, or I should ask on the naughty page?

[Petra]

On eBay you always get to return an item and get refund or allegedly some say they they never received the item!🙁

I returned two watches to two different sellers due to them being fake before finally getting the genuine one I wanted. Probably should of gone to one of the very good specific watch sites

 

 

[jultorsk]

NGC Secures Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction Order in Coin Tampering Case

NGC initiated the legal action when it was made aware of an apparent scheme to sell coins misrepresented as being NGC-certified. The defendant in the case, a man named Richard Albright, is accused of removing NGC-certified coins from their holders and replacing them with coins of inferior grade and value. The lesser coins, which Mr. Albright encased in holders that misrepresented their authenticity and condition, were allegedly sold by him to unsuspecting collectors and dealers, and it appeared that he had the intention to continue with the scheme.

--

The eBay usernames that Mr. Albright may have used to sell tampered coins include:

ricalbr-40 (October 2020 – June 2022)

Walkerlvr (June 2022 – November 2022)

halfcrazy23 (November 2022 – Present)

https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/11312/coin-tampering-case/?utm_source=NGC&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=23_NGC_RestOrder_0218

[TradesExchange]

Came across a few counterfeits on eBay one time, hunting for bullion.

Some good advice posted above, and due diligence is the name of the game on that front.

If your Spidey-sense goes off, chances are more research is required on the deal, especially "cheaper" or seemingly abundant mints of particular designs, that are flooding the market place.

Here's a link that has some database on known fakes, some may find useful on that note:

https://www.fakebullion.com/

(P.S, the database may not be recently updated so bear that in mind, if comparing and researching possibly newer mints and designs).

[Fenlander1]

Just spotted this online.

[Petra]

Actually made the bbc website this morning 

[JohnA1]

BBC only says 700 squid

 

someone has got their figures wrong, according to these guys she barely got two sovs!

 

Edited June 23, 2023 by JohnA1

[davidsharpe2020]

Regal Assets got caught scamming their customers; it was all over my feed, which is when I did more research on this kind of "gold IRA" company. One of the companies I came across is named Augusta Precious Metals, which I saw on https://apexpreciousmetals.com. Most of these precious metals IRA companies offer gold and silver as a way to diversify their portfolio, which is endorsed by a few public figures but makes me wonder if they are legitimate or not after reading this exciting topic I saw on Regal Assets: 

"California DFPI and CFTC Unite to File $21 Million Lawsuit Against Regal Assets for Targeting Retirement Savings"

https://dfpi.ca.gov/2023/09/28/california-dfpi-and-cftc-unite-to-file-21-million-lawsuit-against-regal-assets-for-targeting-retirement-savings

 

 

[dicker]

And sadly this:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/new-bank-scam-sees-fraudsters-posing-as-police-and-asking-victims-to-buy-gold/ar-BB1igbuS