http://www.businessinsider.com/tungsten-filled-gold-bars-found-in-new-york-2012-9
Posted on 12/10/2014 10:16:55 AM PST by george76
Criminal scams are not unique to the precious metals industry, as it is but one minor niche of the massive financial markets. However, it is the industry in which I participate. Where possible, I try to help would-be buyers of physical precious metals avoid the crooks.
There are many different ways that unscrupulous dealers may try to take advantage of uninformed buyers, but today I want to focus on the problem with people purchasing and paying for merchandise, then never receiving their goods.
There have been some operations that never delivered promised merchandise right from the beginning. Such crooks tend to be detected soon. But, there are other less obvious traps that customers may fall for.
One warning sign of a dealer to avoid is any business that offers free storage of their customers’ holdings or offering vault storage under the title of the company that sold customers the merchandise. Over the decades, too many companies that have offered this service have gone out of business with their customers left with little or nothing. For your own protection, assume that if you do not have physical custody of your purchases, or you do not have them stored in a vault where the storage account is in your name, then you are at risk of losing your holdings.
One danger is that a company that might have operated on the up and up for many years could get into financial difficulty. There are several examples where one tactic some of these businesses had tried is to delay customer deliveries. This happened with Tulving Company in Orange County, Calif., this spring, where customers may have lost as much as $40 million in undelivered merchandise.
(Excerpt) Read more at numismaticnews.net ...
What about the tungsten scams?................Looks real, feels real, but inside it’s worthless..................
I think there are some major problems with supply and demand in the gold industry, and no one should trust to delayed delivery, or storage schemes.
There is a duty of the buyer to inspect and make a determination of compliance with the specifications.
Anybody buying tungsten rather than pure gold is responsible for being scammed
Caveat Emptor
Germany and the Dutch government also want some of their gold stored by the US Federal Reserve back.
What the scammers do is hollow out real gold bullion bars and replace the missing gold with tungsten, then seal up the end with real gold, so from the outside it looks and feels like real gold bullion.
Tungsten density is 19.25 g/cubic cm and gold density is 19.30 g/cubic cm.
Only a very fine and accurate scale could tell the difference in weight.................
I’ll look forward to the episode of Storage Wars where Dave opens up a box containing gold bullion.
Remember Horaldo opened up - on live TV - in Chicago an alleged vault that he thought was full of mob gold ?
Especially if it turns out to be tungsten.
YUUUP!
It's not entirely worthless. You can use it to upgrade your ammo to armor piercing before tracking down the scammer.
Chicken bullion soup.
What is the smallest, in ounces, bars that you know of that have been compromised with tungsten?
I was in the business and I’ve heard enough stories to assert the following as true beyond doubt. If you aren’t looking at the guy selling you gold or silver, you are asking to be cheated. You may be lucky but luck is nothing to depend upon. The absolute safest buy is silver in the form of junk silver, i.e., pre1965 US dimes, quarters and half-dollars. Don’t go for those bright, shiny uncirculated ones. They’re too easy to fake
http://www.businessinsider.com/tungsten-filled-gold-bars-found-in-new-york-2012-9
Or a hacksaw. =;^)
Yes, that’s ONE way!...................
I thought Dave quit the show. Said most of the scenes were planted merchandise...................
He’s back, but only recently. Yes, the planted items are obvious.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.