In my opinion, the best form of protest is not buying Perth Mint products (from any dealer). Everyone knows only the governments are allowed to launder money successfully
...............thanks for the comments above Gold Pelican.....absolutely agree!!!! the thing that has most surprised me about this whole frenzy to do with the dragons............has been the rhetoric from the volumes of stackers here on this site. All the conspiracies about the mintage, who was missing out, who was winning, which dealers were in the know, and how "us" locals were going to miss out because of the international demand. its been a fascinating read!!!....wow what a roller coaster!!! its also more personally, interesting to see how a number of stackers here - have complained about the pricing of the dragons, how in some cases retailers were going to charge "high" prices!!!!.....oh ..and how that was really unfair!!!!! what i find more insightful is - now that the dust has settled.......IN FACT......even before the dust has settled.....our colleague stackers here quickly moving those very same dragons on at even far more grossly inflated prices......haha.!!!! dont get me wrong - I am all for market demand, and testing what the market will bear!!...........however, my personal observation is that such an event only brings out the primitive worst in people!!!...what other reason would you have to be buying 1oz silver dragons in the morning for say $50 ............and then flipping them in the afternoon for $70-$100!!??? if someone was doing that with sports tickets or concert tickets you would call them "price gougers".............time will tell...............................
I agree with you GP that people should have sorted out the ID thing well before the release date - I did! I was well prepared. I was counting the seconds down to when they opened trading. I put 20 silver, 5 gold in the basket! 2 hours later I still could not check out. Only after a phone call did I find out that the gold coins were sold out so I went back and deleted the gold coins from my basket. It still took a few attempts to check out - 3 hours in all! Unlesss you were there trying to go through this process you couldn't understand the frustration and diappointment. They could have put the 'sold out' on the gold coins and stopped that trade a lot sooner (probably a few minutes after opening!). The online process was a disaster! I really hope they learn from this episode. I also believe that they could allow local dealers a better allocation rather than sending most overseas. The fact that people are trying to buy back from overseas dealers is just ridiculous and a slap in the face for the Australian dealers and collectors. A simple way to have avoided a lot of the problems would have been to set a mintage limit on all the sizes rather than just on the 1 oz coins! I am not blaming the Perth Mint staff trying to deal with the problems as the ones I spoke to were very helpful.
I didn't bother registering for the online site because I figured the servers would get thrashed as they did and I prefer not to register at sites that require all your details. I got through on the phone fine only to find you have to still be registered for 5 silver ozs and apparently that's a fairly recent change. I asked about phone the retail shop and was told they don't take phone orders. If the retail shop was taking phone orders I'd be even more annoyed. PS If the registration had happened a long while ago I'd say fair enough but I suspect its more a case of tracking of the limits on the lunars.
I'm aware that you have a business, and that this site is tied into your business. I'm assuming that you may therefore have a vested interest in promoting the PM (not everyone gets private meetings with senior management ). I digested your post in that context. Many thanks GP for this forum and the opportunity to present personal viewpoints, irrespective of whether people agree or not with each others viewpoints (yours included).
If you can buy bullion coins with numismatic potential that is great, but buying more than one or two bullion coins and paying numismatic price even before they become numismatic makes no sense to me. Hard to imagine 1 oz dragons will be more expensive than 2 oz dragons, and you still have the liquidity issue with large numbers. Ask yourself the question; who will pay more for 100 1oz dragon than 100 2 oz dragon in 5 years time?
It's not all about just "making money from the metals". It's also about how one conducts business (ethics, service delivery etc) as well as issues associated with conducting business (data storage/use/sharing etc). If it was only about making money, I'd be running a brothel and pimping tomorrow.
Well said projack . . I think the members here turned it into a self fulfilling prophecy ...dragons will command a premium blah blah then someone pays $100 an oz hahahaha hilarious.Its only been out for 1 day & most dealers havent got their stock .Im cracking up watching this entire scenario
It depends on how many flip them or hold onto them. Might be best to flip them maybe? As more and more turn up with only so many actually collectors price might come back. Still will be a premium to a lot of coins though due to the limited mintage.
Isnt this the premise of free market economics? A concept that up until the Dragon dilema was a frequently spruiked and revered concept? As soon as there is some competition for a product (low supply and high demand) and people dont get what they want, everyone forgets the concept and decides intervention and price control is a great idea... i dont get it! Like has been mentioned before in other threads, it is possible that once the hype is over, demand will drop and prices will subside to something closer to the tigers/ox's though if the demand remains high, prices should be high... The reason why dealers are able to sell at high prices is that people are buying at those prices. Once they cant sell, prices drop. simple as that. (Check the property market for a live example)
If you already have accounts with the mint (like me), the difficulties they are imposing on this form of transacting are obviously not commensurate with your standing as an existing customer nor demonstrates any respect for one's time.
Nope - I was there in a personal capacity as a muppet standing in line with everyone else buying gold dragons for myself. The silver dragons I bought though are getting flicked over into Gold Stackers to help with shortfalls there. Please refer to my signature - Silver Stackers and Gold Stackers are two separate commercial entities, with different people involved in each. I'm a common factor in both, but I was there in either a personal or Silver Stackers capacity yesterday.
I had no idea they had two separate services, I mean why would you? The fact that they can't put the whole online store in the one place with one registration process already shows that they are falling well short of a professional outfit. Being that I had already purchased proof coins from the mint with without I.D. requirements for a $ value above what I wanted to buy yesterday made it not occur to me that they have a double standard. It would have all been avoided if the retail shop could have simply taken my order over the phone and held the items (with upfront payment) until the form could be sighted the next day. But oh no, they can't even take orders unless I.D. is verified. I mean really how hard would it be for them to make one site, wether they want to make all customers provide I.D. is up to them really but to find out that I couldn't make an order without it being processed was a farce.
I believe the point the original post was getting across was not the ID requirement itself but the process. It makes no logical sense if you already have an established account with the Perth Mint and have ordered over the phone previously for the last few years, that you are now required to register on the website first have ID verified to place an order over the phone. If that's the case isn't it good business practice to inform your customers in a simple email/letter stating that all future purchases at the perth mint require you to do X before you purchase with us again. I'll use your IPO analogy, do you allocate a number of shares to an investor and then a few weeks out from the listing date say you know what, you were originally allocated 5000 shares, you can actually only have 500 now. The investor in this case being the dealers on this forum. I wonder how many mints around the world would give preference to overseas distributors over their own local Australian dealers and customers. Just my opinion, some people will agree some people will disagree. That's what we're all here for to express our views and maybe just maybe the Perth Mint can improve so everyone can benefit.
Because I can ask my grandmothers sister to buy me million wroth of gold coins on my behalf from Gainesville and ship them to me without any problem, but buying one single oz silver dragon coin from the Perth Mint requires me to waist my time on things not required by any Australian law, yet the Peth Mint either stupid to acknowledge that or outright lying when they say I am the one who is incorrect.
I think theres enough examples on this thread to know that there is some legitimate concerns & like many topics only a percentage of people who have a problem will post a reply so by the sheer length of this thread shows that there is something wrong .Not to mention all the "il keep my mouth shut" types who havent posted it would be enormous i hope the PM take the time to read it & address some of the concerns raised .
I purchased a monster box from Gainesville (in person over the counter) and had to do ID processes... and they are most definitely in different jurisdictions. Been covered before, but a refresher for everyone: Bullion dealing is considered by AUSTRAC to be a "designated service". As such, businesses are required for undertake customer identification processes for anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing purposes. Ongoing customer due diligence (OCDD) programs also need to be instituted to monitor customer purchasing patterns to identify suspicious transactions. * Transactions (regardless of payment method) under $5000 - collecting ID is at the discretion of the dealer. * Transactions (regardless of payment method) of $5000 or more - collecting ID is mandatory. * Transactions of $10,000 or more paid by cash - reporting to AUSTRAC is mandatory. Perth Mint do not require ID for purchases under $5000 in person. They do online, and apparently now by phone. They've been clear on their blog (linked to earlier) that this is to prevent internet fraud attempts, not related to AUSTRAC. As someone involved extensively in e-commerce in both a current and former career, it's a very real problem. Numismatics are not considered precious metals for investment purposes, and apparently this allows them to avoid being considered a designated service by AUSTRAC - so you could buy $20,000 of gold proofs and not show ID, and a business would have no legal basis to request ID, but if you paid cash, it would become an AUSTRAC reportable event.
I actually got burned on the silver dragons by being loyal to my usual dealer. If I'd known in advance that they weren't going to be given the allocation they asked for, I'd have placed pre-orders with as many different dealers as possible under a bunch of different names to ensure I got the number of coins I wanted. I take your point, but some of us out there are still familiar with the concept of loyalty. Not feeling much towards the Perth Mint any more though...
Of course, we all understand this. I am sure projack does as well, obviously. And this is where we are complaining. If I wanted to buy a 1/2oz Silver Dragon coin online I have to do all that shitty paper work for it. It is most definitely Perth Mint's "discretion" which is exactly what we're complaining about. Do you seriously think a "terrorist" will launder a hundred dollars via one coin when there are plenty of other methods of doing so which requires less logistics and is easier? Due diligence or due stupidity for making everyone go through the process? Entirely valid complaint about the mint's anal processes imo. Archaic stupid requirements based on the mint's so called "judgment" that is what we're complaining about. Not the freakin AUSTRAC crap. And.... they didn't a while back so some people don't know and got stung. Hence the complaints. Entirely legitimate and people will now remember next time that this is required.
