Hey guys, I am 99.9% sure I have been targeted as part of a scam. I put an ad up online a few months ago to buy silver 1966 50 cent pieces at a good rate. I get a call today from a private number from Steve who is a young Aussie bloke on a disability pension. He tells me he lives in Brisbane but is not willing to do face to face (I have family there) as he does everything by mail (suspicious but no obvious alarm bells ringing so far). He has gone around to different LCS's/dealers and has offered to sell 18000 of these 1966 fifties. Prices have varied from $2-3 up to about $6 per coin. He asks me straight out if I can buy them for say $6.50- $7 a coin. I tell him correctly that I don't have the liquidity to do that deal right now but given a bit of time I could get it done if it is legit. He asks me how long and I tell him probably a few weeks/ a month ish. To be honest I don't know because I was put on the spot but I'd have to shuffle some things around. Anyway, I have another idea, I said if I can get you $7.25 a coin and sell them for $7.75 and keep .50 a coin would you be happy with that and I'd do all the leg work. He replies yes that would be awesome. So far so good but I want to make sure its legit plus I don't want to f up my trade reputation on the forum. So I ask him for some id, if he can send it to me, he replies he can send me his pension card. I reply well can you send me your licence? He says no I cannot due to the fact I don't have one but my girlfriend does. I asked him how he got into pubs (he is a young bloke) his response was that he doesn't go out. He also tells me she has a bank account he uses and he doesn't have one. Plus he doesn't have paypal because "he is not computer literate". The strikes are starting to add up. He kept talking to someone in the background, example- "Hey babe, how do I get into pubs then? Do I use my birth certificate right?" I was like no that would not work, you need photo id mate, then he said he doesn't go out. I guess I found myself cutting him some slack because he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, I put this down to the fact he said he was on a disability pension. He told me he inherited cash off his grandparents a few years ago and invested in gold and silver. We have a chat for an hr and a half and he tells me he wouldn't waste that much time on me if he wasn't legitimate. I reply well mate for that kind of money a scammer would. He knows enough about bullion, sovs, round fifties etc as I was subtly testing him and this made him appear more legit. He informed me his coins are off property which is pretty standard and he'd need 72hrs to get them, box them and post them. He also told me he has done many deals where "guys just pay me and I then mail them the coins", he has never had an issue apparently. One idea I had was to ask for six references off him, this occurred to me after I got off the phone. We ended the conversation with him saying he would email me his missus id. He was happy to give me his address (didn't get it), phone number which I got and full name. He even offered to stand out the front of his "house" with tomorrows courier mail or give me his car rego number- both things I told him were not tangible or good enough. I told him to set up a paypal account to because I wouldn't be depositing directly into his bank account, the person buying would paypal me and I'd then deposit. There was some apprehension there but he seemed to understand after I explained it. I also told him I needed some ID off him with a picture, he offered his gf's but I am worried it will just be a stolen id. He and I are going to think about it for 48hrs and then hopefully we can work out a way for him to show id. Now that I am off the phone alarm bells are well and truly ringing. Especially when I reverse checked his phone number and it came up with this- 'Nuisance callers everyday non stop from 04------- calling 100s of times and SMS 1000s of times wanting to sell 20-30K worth of non-existent Gold and Silver. Trying to ask for money first - deposit to Wespac Bank BSB 733546 - WILEY refusing to allow anyone to seeing the goods before sending the cash. Clearly a pair of drug induced idiots who think they are bright 'sparkles' in an otherwise dull world." So yeah now I am adamant it is a scam, does anyone have any advice on how I can get this bloke to provide his details or how I can get law enforcement to nail him if he is indeed scamming people? There is still a extremely small chance (I'd say far less than 1%) that he is legit although I highly doubt it.
Any chance you are allow to file a police report? They might be able to assist. It won't be nice to let them off to find another fool.
Reality check - 18,000 coins is 240kg of 1966 50c rounds. That's a difficult quantity even for a retailer to acquire, let alone a single investor. His original purchase would have been an AUSTRAC KYC event unless he made at least 25x or 30x sub-$5000 purchases (probably a lot more given silver has been higher the past few years) - and there should be at least some paper trail to show his original purchases if they were only purchased in the last few years. He was just going to "box it up"? At minimum I'd be looking to see a photo with some sort of evidence that quantity existed, but the "no face to face" and "no ID" for those sorts of dollars is a huge red flag. Anyone that has long stories and explanations as to why things can't be done certain ways tends to be hiding something. I'd be looking to make a police report on that one as a scammer trying to take you for six figures - that quantity should be able to put it on someone's radar with QldPol.
We did discuss Austrac and he had no idea about it which raised yet another red flag. I am going to get in touch with some mates who work for QLDPOL tomorrow and give them what I have. thanks for the advice guys I will keep you posted.
There was another dodgy offer made towards another member by someone calling himself as 'Steve' a while back.... Perhaps it is the same scammer? Maybe worth to compare notes? http://forums.silverstackers.com/topic-67373-suspicious-seller.html
you really have to be careful now days with all the scammers out there much less with ice addicts who don't care about getting caught so long as they get money for drugs
got the same call, only he said he was from Victoria. I hung up after 2 min. because it was obvious he was either a scammer or slightly retarded.
Hopefully you have ditched the online add CFP. This amount does raise my eyebrows. I saw a tentative expression of interest of late over $10,000 worth, plus another possible additional $5,000 of fifty cent rounds that also made my eyebrows lift towards the stratosphere. When your talking about such quantities and amounts that's really sends out warning bells. Cheers
Do you really expect not to get calls like this if you put up notices that you have money and want to buy stuff in places like gumtree or wherever you posted it ? I'd assume the scam callers would outnumber genuine callers by a wide margin
There are a lot of similarities between this and what has happened to me. He told me he is in Brisbane. I have family there and told him he could do face to face with my brothers (3 of them, big lads, didn't tell him that) but he is adamant he doesn't want to do f2f with anyone but hey that is not uncommon. So I just texted him and told him I was flying to Melbourne this week for business (which I do occasionally) and we could meet this weekend. My hope is he will put his foot in it and say he doesn't want to do f2f in Melbourne. And yes I am 100% sure he is a scammer now because of all the loose holes. I contacted the author of the above thread to confirm its the same guy, my guess is that it is, I will then forward all the info to the police. Thanks for letting me know about this thread Taz.
100% correct, first scammer I have come across. And hey from the get go he sounded plausible, he had an answer for everything. Only after hanging up the phone did it resonate that it is probably bs. Which is why I also asked for a second opinion here because I had doubts. Most times people are just trying to get me to grade coins for them or give them an idea on what something is worth for free because they have no idea.
Another thing that just popped out. He is on the Pension. He has a Pension card. In order for him to collect his Pension he needs a Bank account with HIS name attached, Joint account is fine but must include HIS name.
