DUmmies Discuss Investing In Gold Scams

[GOBUCKS]

ThomWV  (1000+ posts)      Mon Dec-21-09 02:25 PM
Original message
Its like buying your gold coins from a TV ad
There was an advertisement on television just a little bit ago selling gold coins. The particular coins looked like an old Buffalo Nickle, Indian on one side, beast on the other. As the shiney tribute to a time long gone was displayed in all its full screen wonder a voice in the background explained that gold now cost more than a thousand bucks per ounce and the world was in enough peril that he thought it would go higher. If you agreed you might want to buy yourself a hand-full of these coins. They'd be a good investment at $19.95, he intoned.

I am a gold skeptic but none-the-less interested in a safe haven for our humble wealth - so my ears were on full perk. Way late in the advertisement the background picture changed to a certificate that would come with the replica nickle-in-gold and it was there in one of the corners of the certificate is where I caught sight of just how much gold was actually involved in this coin. Some small number of milligrams was cited and I immediately chucked it into my trusty calculator and then figured my way toward an ounce.

$18,064.51 per ounce, that's how much the makers of the coins are getting for the number of coins necessary to account for 1 single ounce of gold.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7290213
Uh-oh....I think  DUmmy TwixVoy, the DUmp's unemployed gold bug, just got screwed!

Warpy  (1000+ posts)        Mon Dec-21-09 02:51 PM
Response to Original message
1. Never EVER take investment advice from the teevee
Even sending your broken and unwanted "joolery" into those gold places is a total scam, paying you pennies on the dollar for what it's actually worth.
There has been a bubble market in gold. Most of the scammers are set to make a quick disappearance in the not too distant future.

 
Only take investment advice from a deadbeat who couldn't hold jobs clerking at Target, or as a trainee cable guy. That's where you get the inside info.


On the innertubes, DUmmy PCIntern plays a dentist. She also reads correspondence from the trash can when she empties it at night:

PCIntern  (1000+ posts)        Mon Dec-21-09 02:58 PM
Response to Original message
3. As a dentist, I can tell you that EVERYONE is cheated
 to some degree or another. Even firms which were known for generations for honesty are up to no good. Case in point:

I deal with a firm when I send my crowns which I have removed from patients' mouths (and they don't want, after I've offered it to them) and they have been playing games with me. I sent batch in, and I have a pretty Good eye for what I'll get, and they really low-balled me. I called to complain, they claimed that they re-assayed the button and sent me EXACTLY another 200 dollars. I called them back and complained again...what are the odds of having EXACTLY 200 dollars in a scientific re-assay? and if you rounded it up...why would you do that without telling me that you did, and that you were compensating me for my troubles?

I was really pissed...and this a a famously reputable firm...I can only imagine what goes on in the real world.

[The Village Idiot]

G Gordon Liddy does one of those ads.

Then again it could be a scam, like when Montel Williams was hawking the Obama coins and they turned out to be half-dollars with Obama's pic taped to them. hahahahahahahaha.... imagine paying $19.99 for one of those.

[Karin]

I sent batch in, and I have a pretty Good eye for what I'll get, and they really low-balled me.

Quite atrocious English for a so-called professional. 

FGL, I cannot fathom the amount of money that was wasted on all the Obama junk. 

[LC EFA]

Mheh.

If you want gold , purchase stamped and serialized measures from a reputable company.

Commemorative coins and the like don't count.

Remember - gold is heavy and if you're depending on it for a SHTF situation you're probably going to be disappointed.

Better to stock up on it's close cousin - Lead. 

[BlueStateSaint]

Mheh.

If you want gold , purchase stamped and serialized measures from a reputable company.

Commemorative coins and the like don't count.

Remember - gold is heavy and if you're depending on it for a SHTF situation you're probably going to be disappointed.

Better to stock up on it's close cousin - Lead. 

Brass is a good one, too . . .

[LC EFA]

Brass is a good one, too . . .

I believe you can get a 2-pack Brass-lead combination that'd be just perfect.

[USA4ME]

ThomWV


.... but none-the-less interested in a safe haven for our humble wealth

What a greedy little twit.

BTW ThomWV dimwit primitive, they're selling the coin as a possible collectors item, not for the value of the gold.  Pay attention.

.

[DumbAss Tanker]

They do disclose the actual gold content verbally in the commercial, and yes it is the purely-theoretical collector value they are touting, not the gold content, which is on the order of a couple of bucks worth in non-economically-salvageable form. 

I do find that ad annoying because to the slow-moving wildebeests of our society it could easily foster the impression that they are buying $50 gold pieces (Containing $1200 worth of gold at current prices) for $20 apiece, and it offends my sense of morality to swindle retards. 

[miskie]

One of the several odd things I've done in my life was work as a precious metals inspector, and I can tell you that the only thing you want to invest in if you are looking at gold are ingots that are refinery stamped, serialized, and certified for weight and purity ( at least .9999% pure) almost everything offered on TV is crap.

Without naming names, (NDA) I can tell you that the unsold product ends up at a refinery, and once they sparge* and salt off* the impurities and base metals, there is nothing left.

( *Different base metals combine with different things at different temperatures - Sparging introduces oxygen into a pot of molten metal and it combines with waste metals such as lead and becomes lightweight floating slag on the top of the pot that can be skimmed off. Salting off involves doing a similar thing but with chlorine gas, and is usually done to remove good metals (copper, silver, etc.) from gold by producing Copper Chloride, Silver Chloride, etc. which also floats to the top of the pot to be removed. There are other ingredients involved but again, NDA and all that.)

[Oceander]

One of the several odd things I've done in my life was work as a precious metals inspector, and I can tell you that the only thing you want to invest in if you are looking at gold are ingots that are refinery stamped, serialized, and certified for weight and purity ( at least .9999% pure) almost everything offered on TV is crap.

Without naming names, (NDA) I can tell you that the unsold product ends up at a refinery, and once they sparge* and salt off* the impurities and base metals, there is nothing left.

( *Different base metals combine with different things at different temperatures - Sparging introduces oxygen into a pot of molten metal and it combines with waste metals such as lead and becomes lightweight floating slag on the top of the pot that can be skimmed off. Salting off involves doing a similar thing but with chlorine gas, and is usually done to remove good metals (copper, silver, etc.) from gold by producing Copper Chloride, Silver Chloride, etc. which also floats to the top of the pot to be removed. There are other ingredients involved but again, NDA and all that.)

Sounds a bit like the carbon footprint indulgences that some have started selling to the left - all hot air, no substance.  Come to think of it, though, as I'm unemployed, maybe I should set up an online carbon footprint indulgence store - you know, the sort of thing that Gorescam buys so he can pretend that he's "offsetting" the hideously high electric bills for his gigantic house and outdoor heated pool.

[LC EFA]

( *Different base metals combine with different things at different temperatures - Sparging introduces oxygen into a pot of molten metal and it combines with waste metals such as lead and becomes lightweight floating slag on the top of the pot that can be skimmed off. Salting off involves doing a similar thing but with chlorine gas, and is usually done to remove good metals (copper, silver, etc.) from gold by producing Copper Chloride, Silver Chloride, etc. which also floats to the top of the pot to be removed. There are other ingredients involved but again, NDA and all that.)

That's the miller process.

There's also the Wohlwill process - Which is also used in industrial scale applications , and results in a slightly higher purity.

[The Village Idiot]

Quite atrocious English for a so-called professional. 

FGL, I cannot fathom the amount of money that was wasted on all the Obama junk. 

Obama Plates! With mac n cheese

[JohnnyReb]

DUmmies are like raccoons....they love shiny objects.

[NHSparky]

Sorry, but as someone here earlier opined, if I've got canned goods and dried foods when society goes Tango Uniform and someone comes up to be wanting to trade those for gold, he'll still have gold when he's done.

[kenth]

I deal with a firm when I send my crowns which I have removed from patients' mouths (and they don't want, after I've offered it to them) and they have been playing games with me. I sent batch in, and I have a pretty Good eye for what I'll get, and they really low-balled me.

How much you want bet she cheat patient?

[Celtic Rose]

Sorry, but as someone here earlier opined, if I've got canned goods and dried foods when society goes Tango Uniform and someone comes up to be wanting to trade those for gold, he'll still have gold when he's done.

Thats the thing about investing in Gold.  It is great if civilization stays pretty much the same and the price goes up.  It will be good when the crisis period of WTSHTF has passed and life has stabilized and we are returning to normalcy.  It most likely won't do people any good during an actual crisis period.  We will all most interested in things we can eat, drink, and shoot at that point. 

[thundley4]

I've never understood why gold is given such value when compared to other things. Sure, it makes pretty jewelry and is a good conductor in electronics, but so is silver.