sharing your worst experience

[CazLikesCoins]

11 hours ago, n1k0s said:

Hello to all gold stackers,

I was wondering if i could ask the collective knowledge in this forum to share some of their best and worst experiences in dealing with shops and purchases. 

It would be nice (for us, the younger stackers) to consume some of the lessons-learned of the veterans in here. 

You could share: 

- some of your regrets

- some of the scams

- some of the best decisions

- coins you don't want anymore

- trades that went wrong

From my side, I regret not buying a nice victoria shield that I saw at just 4% premium because it weighted 7.65gr and I had thought it was too underweighted compared to the official 7.9gr.

Now i know this is to expected for such an old coin and it wouldn't matter.

thanks in advance for sharing

 

Regrets: Buying a load of coin capsules I'll never be able to fill haha.

Scams: I had a few Facebook related issues with randoms offering to sell me gold at 'mates rates' even though they didn't know me from Adam. Yeah, thanks. No thanks.

Trades that went wrong: I sold a coin on the promise of payment immediately upon receipt of the coin being delivered. The buyer kept me waiting for payment days after delivery. Mailed them each day, kept it polite but they were all 'Chill, it's in hand' I though yeah but my friggin' money isn't in mine lol. Once burned, well, once burned. My terrible list is tiny but they're on it haha. Put me off selling anything lol.

Coins I don't want anymore: None, Because I didn't buy any ridiculous coins like that Azazi that can't find a permanent home with any member both foreign or domestic lol.

Best decisions: Not going completely mad on gold and seeing it as a bit of a hobby rather than selling the carpets, pets and furniture to buy some decades old one of a kind proof set that'll be locked away and not see the light of day until the kids cash it in after I'm dead.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2023 by CazLikesCoins

[Upsidedown]

12 minutes ago, CazLikesCoins said:

Best decisions: Not going completely mad on gold and seeing it as a bit of a hobby rather than selling the carpets, pets and furniture to buy some decades old one of a kind proof set that'll be locked away and not see the light of day until the kids cash it in after I'm dead.

You're not going to make many friends on here by talking sense like that

[CazLikesCoins]

5 minutes ago, Upsidedown said:

You're not going to make many friends on here by talking sense like that

Sense lol. It won't last long. Just bought another half sov lol.

Edited July 19, 2023 by CazLikesCoins

[ant1882]

I regret buying anything other than sovereigns 🤣... I figured it out eventually.

Got a slight addiction of buying a half sovereign proof each year, which with all the special releases recently has been rather expensive! 

Missing out on the 2022 Jubilee release proof, I have some bullion but no proof coins.

 

[theman73]

1 hour ago, Spyder said:

I guess that is when you realised, there is money to be made selling silver.

Well, this was coming after I bought here on the forum 2021 Dragon bars for £26.5 and sold them on eBay for £24, around 100 of them, so I decided to prove to myself that it was just a beginner mistake and there is money to be made.

The best financial decision I ever made. 

[Spyder]

4 minutes ago, theman73 said:

Well, this was coming after I bought here on the forum 2021 Dragon bars for £26.5 and sold them on eBay for £24, around 100 of them, so I decided to prove to myself that it was just a beginner mistake and there is money to be made.

The best financial decision I ever made. 

Exactly what I was saying, best and cheapest  lesson. You will never learn that in college.

Now you are selling £15k coins and monster boxes.

[theman73]

8 minutes ago, Spyder said:

Now you are selling £15k coins and monster boxes.

Never dreamed to go so big and this is just the beginning... hopefully 

Edited July 19, 2023 by theman73

[Bigmarc]

I regret selling 10 sovereigns and throwing it all on crypto when bitcoin was at 48000. I will have to wait a long time to buy them back I think.

[Spyder]

Just now, Bigmarc said:

I regret selling 10 sovereigns and throwing it all on crypto when bitcoin was at 48000. I will have to wait a long time to buy them back I think.

Next year you be able to 40+ sovereigns if the prediction are correct

[n1k0s]

8 minutes ago, Bigmarc said:

I regret selling 10 sovereigns and throwing it all on crypto when bitcoin was at 48000. I will have to wait a long time to buy them back I think.

Did you buy bitcoin or some other coin? 
i think with bitcoin you will get your money back if wait 1-2 years, with alts maybe or maybe not

Edited July 19, 2023 by n1k0s

[Groundup]

Best decision I ever made when buying precious metals was singing up to kinesis.money.... thankyou @sixgun.

[Bigmarc]

6 minutes ago, Spyder said:

Next year you be able to 40+ sovereigns if the prediction are correct

That was the plan but what's actually happening is anyone's guess.

 

6 minutes ago, n1k0s said:

Did you buy bitcoin or some other coin? 

50% BTC 50% solana. I bought the cost average down a little now but my main regret was using my gold in the first place. Should have just allocated a small amount per month. 

[n1k0s]

A regret i have is that i didn't start stacking earlier. I only started in the last 18 months. For some time i thought gold is too old fashioned. 
now i've changed my mind. i hope i will have enough to pass to my boys when my time is done

[dicker]

16 hours ago, paulmerton said:

My worst experience is a crazy story, all of which is sadly true and I have never mentioned it until now because it was something I just wanted to forget about at the time after worrying that some nutjob was going to turn up on my doorstep and do something silly. 

So...

I bought a mint condition, special year proof sovereign on eBay.

Things started to look a bit worrying when the tracking info I was following showed it had been delivered to someone else, hundreds of miles away, so I asked the seller what's going on. He admitted sending two special delivery items that day, that he may have got them muddled up, and gave me a different number. Hopefully just a mistake then, good good.

Thankfully the parcel addressed to me arrived a few hours later. 

However, when I opened the parcel, it contained a completely different year with the standard pistrucci design. It was also in appalling condition.

The other sovereign in his eBay sold items was not the right year either, so I assumes it can't just be due to the parcel mix up.

I explained to the seller what happened, and if he still has the correct coin, could he please send it to me.

He said the coin he sent me was the correct year and in mint condition, and immediately starts acting a bit odd.

I pointed out that I had (thankfully!) taken a continuous video of the entire process of receiving the parcel and opening it, so he had definitely sent me the wrong coin, and asked again if he still had the correct one or had mistakenly sent it to the wrong person.

He said he didn't have any other sovereigns and started being abusive.

Worryingly, he then sent me another message saying he knows he has been scammed and repeatedly called me a lying thieving scumbag and invited me to sue him for slander! I was called all sorts of other things too (all via eBay messaging)

I reiterated that he sent me the wrong coin, that I have indisputable proof of it, and that he should be careful about making completely false accusations.

He called me a professional hustler, a scammer, and a sh*tbag in response.

I contacted eBay for advice on how to proceed and how to protect myself. eBay were useless and also did absolutely nothing about the abusive messages being hurled at me via their platform.

At this point, I also contacted my local police force for advice on how to proceed, as I genuinely couldn't work out whether I was dealing with a scammer or just someone who was very confused or just an idiot. I was obviously concerned that he was going to try and say I returned the wrong coin, or worse, nothing at all.

Reassured by the police's advice, I opened the eBay return.

The seller sent some more abusive messages and some weird insinuations that made no sense.

I also reported the seller to eBay for breaking their policies (absolutely nothing happened again)

Then things started to take a sinister turn....

I received an email from the seller, out of the blue and to my personal email address (i.e. not within eBay)

The email just said Hi and contained a large photo of me.

That really shook me up and I felt pretty helpless - eBay wasn't doing anything and this delusional idiot seemed convinced that I was a scammer and was now intimidating me by cyberstalking me.

I called the local police again, this time to report what had just happened. They asserted that no crime had taken place so couldn't do anything. Bizarrely, they advised that the content of the eBay messages would have constituted a crime if they had been sent to my personal email address, but because they were sent via eBay it was eBay's problem and not theirs.

After I posted the coin back (videoing the whole process again, from packaging to post office in one take!), the seller tells me the tracking number doesn't work and asks if this is part of my scam. (I have literally no idea how he couldn't get it to work!)

As per the police's advice, I ignore the message and let eBay's case handlers do their thing.

I then get another abusive message from the seller, calling me a scammer and all sorts of other names and threatening to call the police if I don't return the sovereign. The sovereign was already on its way, and the tracking number was valid, but the seller wrongly asserts once again that RM tracking numbers must be 14 characters long and the one I've given only has 13 (it should be 13!)

The seller sends another email directly to me (outside of eBay) and threatens that he is on my trail and has images of me. I was by this stage very worried as I didn't know what his intentions were from this threat.

The police advised that I reply, to ask only that he stops further contact.

I did that, and the response I got was "Get f**ked you c**t"

I eventually got my refund from ebay rather than the seller, and the seller got a visit from the police for two separate crimes: harassment and malicious communications.

After their visit, the police told me he was just an old and confused gentleman, and that's probably why I got sent the wrong coin in the first place.

I was given the choice of having it resolved with a community resolution, or to prosecute for the offences of harassment and malicious communications and potentially have to go to court as a witness. I chose the former option as it felt like that's what the police would prefer (less work) and I didn't really want to have to relive the whole experience again.

Reading through all of this now makes it sound far less worse that it felt at the time and I regret not prosecuting now for the impact it had on me.

That is a shocker.  The guy must have been a proper nut job.  

[Bratnia]

22 hours ago, paulmerton said:

After their visit, the police told me he was just an old and confused gentleman, and that's probably why I got sent the wrong coin in the first place.

I was given the choice of having it resolved with a community resolution, or to prosecute for the offences of harassment and malicious communications and potentially have to go to court as a witness. I chose the former option as it felt like that's what the police would prefer (less work) and I didn't really want to have to relive the whole experience again.

Thanks for sharing. Sadly many with mental health issues do not have a common centralised support (single point of contact/monitoring) and without that even with full mental capacity things can be difficult. I care for my elderly mother who has dementia and without a child I dread to think what she would have endured. Medicines etc. often fail to be delivered, let alone administration of the medication without support. The whole NHS and SS network fails common sense. Individuals are passed between entities on the basis of 'not our job, contact xyz' where even those with full reasoning can struggle. Many that in another era may have been accommodated in a institute are nowadays more often left on their own within the general population. Within the community a district nurse may serve as a single point - for a while, but is typically time limited to at most weeks.

I suspect that had you prosecuted it wouldn't really have achieved much and that you took the right action.  The Police would have referred the matter to Social Services who would document and deal with the matter ... again for just weeks, but then the individual falls out of the system and back into old ways. Only if the individual causes actual physical harm do the Police really get involved, which for the victim is too late. My father taught me to drive (many decades ago) and I still remember his sound advice of 'treat all other drivers as idiots' - which true enough sooner or later you'll encounter one, be that whilst driving, or dealing privately with strangers.

When younger NI was 6% and district nurses were common, as would a GP visit you at home rather than you having to go to a surgery - if you can even get a appointment. Now older and NI has doubled to 12% whilst the quality of services has more than halved. It's less about money and more about lack of common sense and good management practices. The NHS is increasingly a money gravy train, as increasingly nowadays is education. Milked to the maximum, which also drives getting the most out for the least amount of 'business' spending. Ultimately its the population that suffer, such as the incident you endured, or the likes of massive river pollution due to water utilities being driven more by maximising (often foreign) shareholder benefits over that of service provision.

[Agaupl]

On 19/07/2023 at 20:35, paulmerton said:

My worst experience is a crazy story, all of which is sadly true and I have never mentioned it until now because it was something I just wanted to forget about at the time after worrying that some nutjob was going to turn up on my doorstep and do something silly. 

So...

I bought a mint condition, special year proof sovereign on eBay.

Things started to look a bit worrying when the tracking info I was following showed it had been delivered to someone else, hundreds of miles away, so I asked the seller what's going on. He admitted sending two special delivery items that day, that he may have got them muddled up, and gave me a different number. Hopefully just a mistake then, good good.

Thankfully the parcel addressed to me arrived a few hours later. 

However, when I opened the parcel, it contained a completely different year with the standard pistrucci design. It was also in appalling condition.

The other sovereign in his eBay sold items was not the right year either, so I assumes it can't just be due to the parcel mix up.

I explained to the seller what happened, and if he still has the correct coin, could he please send it to me.

He said the coin he sent me was the correct year and in mint condition, and immediately starts acting a bit odd.

I pointed out that I had (thankfully!) taken a continuous video of the entire process of receiving the parcel and opening it, so he had definitely sent me the wrong coin, and asked again if he still had the correct one or had mistakenly sent it to the wrong person.

He said he didn't have any other sovereigns and started being abusive.

Worryingly, he then sent me another message saying he knows he has been scammed and repeatedly called me a lying thieving scumbag and invited me to sue him for slander! I was called all sorts of other things too (all via eBay messaging)

I reiterated that he sent me the wrong coin, that I have indisputable proof of it, and that he should be careful about making completely false accusations.

He called me a professional hustler, a scammer, and a sh*tbag in response.

I contacted eBay for advice on how to proceed and how to protect myself. eBay were useless and also did absolutely nothing about the abusive messages being hurled at me via their platform.

At this point, I also contacted my local police force for advice on how to proceed, as I genuinely couldn't work out whether I was dealing with a scammer or just someone who was very confused or just an idiot. I was obviously concerned that he was going to try and say I returned the wrong coin, or worse, nothing at all.

Reassured by the police's advice, I opened the eBay return.

The seller sent some more abusive messages and some weird insinuations that made no sense.

I also reported the seller to eBay for breaking their policies (absolutely nothing happened again)

Then things started to take a sinister turn....

I received an email from the seller, out of the blue and to my personal email address (i.e. not within eBay)

The email just said Hi and contained a large photo of me.

That really shook me up and I felt pretty helpless - eBay wasn't doing anything and this delusional idiot seemed convinced that I was a scammer and was now intimidating me by cyberstalking me.

I called the local police again, this time to report what had just happened. They asserted that no crime had taken place so couldn't do anything. Bizarrely, they advised that the content of the eBay messages would have constituted a crime if they had been sent to my personal email address, but because they were sent via eBay it was eBay's problem and not theirs.

After I posted the coin back (videoing the whole process again, from packaging to post office in one take!), the seller tells me the tracking number doesn't work and asks if this is part of my scam. (I have literally no idea how he couldn't get it to work!)

As per the police's advice, I ignore the message and let eBay's case handlers do their thing.

I then get another abusive message from the seller, calling me a scammer and all sorts of other names and threatening to call the police if I don't return the sovereign. The sovereign was already on its way, and the tracking number was valid, but the seller wrongly asserts once again that RM tracking numbers must be 14 characters long and the one I've given only has 13 (it should be 13!)

The seller sends another email directly to me (outside of eBay) and threatens that he is on my trail and has images of me. I was by this stage very worried as I didn't know what his intentions were from this threat.

The police advised that I reply, to ask only that he stops further contact.

I did that, and the response I got was "Get f**ked you c**t"

I eventually got my refund from ebay rather than the seller, and the seller got a visit from the police for two separate crimes: harassment and malicious communications.

After their visit, the police told me he was just an old and confused gentleman, and that's probably why I got sent the wrong coin in the first place.

I was given the choice of having it resolved with a community resolution, or to prosecute for the offences of harassment and malicious communications and potentially have to go to court as a witness. I chose the former option as it felt like that's what the police would prefer (less work) and I didn't really want to have to relive the whole experience again.

Reading through all of this now makes it sound far less worse that it felt at the time and I regret not prosecuting now for the impact it had on me.

This is why I haven’t used eBay in over 10 years. 

[Agaupl]

My worst mistake was persisting with the RMint. There prices and service are awful. 
 

one regret was not buying some nice gold in Sudan when offered. I assumed it was dodgy but looking back now I don’t think it was. 
 

Not me so can’t confirm but I once heard someone that went to a dealer and was presented with a lot of bullion and they picked it up .. only to be then told .. you touched it you bought it !😳😳

Another investment mistake was I lost about £5k on a single bottle of wine. A 1900 Margot. I’d been drinking wine and bought it at auction. 🤬🤬🤬 don’t drink and invest. 

Edited July 20, 2023 by Agaupl

[n1k0s]

51 minutes ago, Agaupl said:

My worst mistake was persisting with the RMint. There prices and service are awful. 
 

one regret was not buying some nice gold in Sudan when offered. I assumed it was dodgy but looking back now I don’t think it was. 
 

Not me so can’t confirm but I once heard someone that went to a dealer and was presented with a lot of bullion and they picked it up .. only to be then told .. you touched it you bought it !😳😳

Another investment mistake was I lost about £5k on a single bottle of wine. A 1900 Margot. I’d been drinking wine and bought it at auction. 🤬🤬🤬 don’t drink and invest. 

So, gold bars are like bread in a supermarket then? 😀

crazy remark

[JohnA1]

20 hours ago, HonestMoneyGoldSilver said:

I used to shop exclusively at the Royal Mint and Bullionbypost

Here, here 😅

 

<Oh the shame>

[Agaupl]

1 hour ago, n1k0s said:

So, gold bars are like bread in a supermarket then? 😀

crazy remark

By all accounts they were serious. Put them off bullion for several years. 

[Sovhead]

My worst experience was just recently.

I was on eBay and spotted a 1918 Canadian sovereign it was a bit pricey but that made me curious so clicked the link and noticed immediately it wasn’t a 1918c it was a 1913c 

Needless to say my checking and dbl checking cost me dear and I missed it by seconds 😩😩😩

sold £500.

[JohnA1]

10 hours ago, Sovhead said:

My worst experience was just recently.

I was on eBay and spotted a 1918 Canadian sovereign it was a bit pricey but that made me curious so clicked the link and noticed immediately it wasn’t a 1918c it was a 1913c 

Needless to say my checking and dbl checking cost me dear and I missed it by seconds 😩😩😩

sold £500.

Double-checking such offerings on fleabay is essential.

You did the right thing

[Sovhead]

15 minutes ago, JohnA1 said:

Double-checking such offerings on fleabay is essential.

You did the right thing

Hi john

I did do the right thing checking it I just got unlucky time wise and missed the purchase.

Still annoys me I missed it, it’s probably worth about £2000+

[TheShinyStuff]

Just now, Sovhead said:

Hi john

I did do the right thing checking it I just got unlucky time wise and missed the purchase.

Still annoys me I missed it, it’s probably worth about £2000+

If it was real...

[Sovhead]

1 minute ago, TheShinyStuff said:

If it was real...

Yeah it was real…

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/256114888987?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=Eu3n0tDrQUa&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=yvjAM_HqRB-&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY