ABC News recently did a story entitled “Gold Grifters” in which they investigated scams involving people lured under false pretenses to cash in their savings, buy gold and deliver the gold to scammers. I have been warning people about this scam since I described it in the Scam of the day for May 7 2024 when I told you that Ravinkle Mathon was arraigned in a Maryland court accused of attempting to scam an elderly man out of $200,000 in an elaborate scam that has increased dramatically in the last year. Police say that the scam began with a phone call from Mathon to an elderly man in which Mathon posed as a federal agent telling the targeted victim that his identity had been stolen and that he needed to protect his savings by withdrawing all of his funds, purchasing gold with the funds and then turn the gold over to the alleged scammer for safe keeping. Fortunately, a family member of the targeted victim became aware of the scam and notified police who set up a sting and arrested Mathon when he came to collect the gold..
Scammers posing as government officials also perpetrate this scam by telling their targeted victims that their accounts have been hacked or are in danger of being hacked and that they need to liquidate their assets and purchase gold or some other precious metal in order to protect their assets. The scammers then send a courier to collect the gold, purportedly for safe keeping on behalf of the targeted victim. Once they have the gold, they disappear leaving the victim penniless.
With the value of gold increasing, scammers have increasingly turned to this type of scam which according to the FBI resulted in losses of $126 million in 2024. According to the FBI, many of the perpetrators of this crime are foreigners who have little difficult leaving the country with gold bars.
TIPS
The primary thing to keep in mind in order to avoid this scam is to remember that no government agency or legitimate business will ever request that you purchase gold or other precious metals for any purpose and certainly not to protect them from criminals.
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