SCAM Alert!
Very Important SCAM Alert!
Dear valued clients and friends,
There is a horrible insidious fraud scheme involving gold, silver and precious metals of all kinds. These scammers are targeting individuals young and old but are having great success duping the elderly out of their life savings in some instances. Please don’t laugh this off as “it would never happen to me.” Unfortunately, many elderly people have lost a step off of their game as they have aged.
The reason this sophisticated fraud has worked is because scammers pose as Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Social Security Administration agents or other government agents. These scams can begin from an e-mail, text or phone call. Most often people are contacted about claims that their financial instruments have been linked to a crime. Sometimes it may be that their accounts may have been compromised by criminals. We’ve heard of things like tax evasion and even child pornography to instill fear to get victims to act. They may say that to safeguard your assets we are instructing you to liquidate your financial assets, which may even include selling your house to avoid jail! Put your money into gold or other precious metals. Allow a courier to pick up the metals for the government agency to store for safe keeping and then you can claim it when things get cleared up. They always say to tell no one. If you tell anyone, we may not be able to keep you from jail or from losing all of your assets. This secrecy is key to pulling off the scam. Remember, fear is a very powerful motivator and we know of three clients that recently fell for this and suffered tremendous loss and heartache. All were elderly.
Yes, we may look at such a scam and say I don’t care, this would not happen to me. Maybe not but it may happen to a friend or relative. These crooks are very convincing. We even know of an elderly couple that could not figure out how to fill the forms sent to them from the scammers so they called their daughter. The daughter told the F.B.I. When I heard this my thoughts were great, now they can arrest those involved. The response from the F.B.I. was it’s just a scam and left it at that. Zero interest in pursuing the bad guys. They are left to find new victims and ruin more innocent people’s lives.
To protect yourself or a loved one, remember government agencies don’t send couriers to pick up financial assets or ask you to convert assets to precious metals. The aspect of secrecy is a high red flag. It’s time to call the authorities or a relative to let them know what’s going on and cease all contact with these scumbags and they will seep back into the slime they crawled out of.
If anyone has any questions or needs some help, feel free to contact our financial services director, Don Dee.
Thank you, Warren Mills