With gold shooting up, and the general public buying metal at Costco, I wonder how long before we see some classic scams.
Thought I would review some past classics and y'all can jump in with any y'all remember.
I wonder where Hannes Tulving Jr. is now. My memory is fuzzy, so maybe google for exact details, but iirc in the early 90s he was a numismatics dealer (for new guys, numismatics = coins valued on condition and rarity instead of just weight and composition) and was part of a trend at that time of selling them as investments with a predictable increase in value.
Well, the bottom fell out of that, and I believe he got charged with knowingly flogging over-priced assets. Don't think he did actual time.
Well, next he alters course, gets out of numismatics, and goes pure bullion, where x amount of gold or silver is worth y dollars. He specialized in minimum orders of thousands of dollars and shipped fast for the minimum mark up. This went smoothly for years.
Something changed around 2013-2014. Orders went out slowly or not at all. Tulving was running some sort of Ponzi where he would take cash from new orders to buy the metal to fulfill older orders. By the time the engine seized up, he owed in excess of 15 million to 300+ people (it's probably gone forever) and he got sent to Club Fed for a few years in 2016.
He should be out by now, and still under 70 years old. I wonder what he's up to now.