Gold Dust / Nuggets / D’ore Bars

There are also thousands of offers made every year to the private gold market for Gold Dust ( gold particles) Gold Nuggets ( gold lumps or large particles) and D’ore bars ( usually 2 kg bars of raw gold with a gold purity level of between 92% and 98%).

Unlike Bullion offers, many of these are often real but the demands placed on Buyers are often unrealistic and very complex. Most offers of this type come from West Africa. It is a largely unregulated market. Many Sellers will initially try to scam buyers out of money and only change when they know they will not be able to affect a scam. They still have gold for sale, but if they can keep it whilst earning money then they will !

Many Sellers in this market will think nothing of creating the most elaborate scams to entice Buyers into buying false gold. Forgeries of export licenses, passports and trading licenses are now extremely good, especially from countries like Ghana. We hope the following will be of help to both our Buyers and Sellers:-

Get as much documentation on such offers as you can before you submit them to us, as it will reduce the many scams we constantly have to deal with.

Any requests for money up front that are related to government taxes or transportation charges must be treated with the greatest suspicion. Most Buyers refuse to do this, quite rightly, because as soon as the money is sent, then the so called sellers disappear. We do have one set of Buyers who will go out, inspect and test the gold in the country where it is located. They will pay the taxes and shipping costs to the relevant government departments and shipping companies, but they will not hand over a lump sum to the seller in advance for obvious reasons ! They will also pay for the Seller’s flights and hotel expenses to the USA or Europe so that they can accompany the gold throughout the purchasing process. But like all the other Buyers, they will ONLY pay the Seller for his gold once the final Assay Report at the Refinery has been produced and the true weight of pure gold has been confirmed.

We have experienced numerous types of scams. Here are a few of them:-

Gold painted rocks offered for sale
Lead nuggets covered in a thin layer of gold
Silver nuggets covered in a thin layer of gold
Invitations to view gold in a warehouse where you must bring cash and pay for the consignment. A common robbery.
Buyer pays for gold in the country where it is located but allows the Seller to book it into the local customs authorities. Gold is replaced with rocks by customs officials and the gold returned to the seller. The Buyer only finds out when boxes are opened at the Buyers destination.
Seller is prepared to send the gold to the Buyer but an SBLC must be employed to pay for the gold. As the Gold is about to be shipped money is drawn down on the SBLC. Gold never appears.
Seller agrees to all our procedures but he demands we send them money for their flights as “they have to book it for themselves”. £700 for a flight in Africa is a huge sum of money. Once they get it, they disappear.

The Private Gold market is an extremely difficult place in which to operate. Processing gold deals with gold mining companies direct is often possible but never really satisfactory, unless you are prepared to personally build your contacts and then go out and take the risks to purchase direct yourself. Many deals are certanly done that way.

The Gold Buyers syndicate welcomes all genuine gold sellers and can assure them of an excellent service with a whole range buying options to suit each genuine Seller.

We also hope that Mandates and intermediaries take note of the many points we have listed above.

Gold Bullion

There are literally thousands of intermediaries, agents and so called Mandates desperately trying to sell Gold Bullion deals on behalf of fraudsters all around the world. False Gold Bullion deals presented over the internet attract desperate people wanting to change their lives at little or no financial cost. They see it as an easy way to make huge sums of money. Blinded by the vast size of the commission payouts, they throw away any modicom of common sense and convince themselves fervently that every deal is real. They then send it on to “people who know people that deal in gold”…..supposedly. We hope the following will help many good people come to terms with the actual reality:-

There are two types of Bullion. One is GLD or “Good London Delivery”. This is Gold that has been smelted down to a minimum acceptable fineness of 995.0 parts per thousand of fine gold by an LBMA certificated Gold Refinery of which there are many located around the world. GLD is classed as cash and is therefore part of the world’s monetary system. You cannot discount cash ! There are very rare occassions when owners of GLD may try to sell their stocks privately at a small discount to avoid publicity. It is fraught with difficulties on the legal front and Buyers need to exercise extreme caution. Because it is technically possible to sell GLD in this way, fraudsters have picked up on this fact and have created a frenzy of activity in the private gold markets where they use people to get as much information as possible on “High Net Worth” individuals and/or use certain types of banking instruments to steal money from them. 99.99% of GLD Bullion deals are false.

Non-GLD Bullion is GLD over 5 years old. There are plenty of private stocks of this type of Bullion but it only costs a fraction of 1% of the consignment value to re-smelt it and bring it back within GLD specifications. Then it can AUTOMATICALLY be sold to a Bullion bank at full market rates. Therefore intermediaries should exercise extreme caution when they are offered Non-GLD stocks with discounts of 8% or 10% and sometimes more. It is highly unlikely to be real.
No sensible businessman anywhere in the world would buy a house or a car without seeing the product first. In the case of property, where large sums of money are involved, buyers will always seek legal advice. It stands to reason, therefore, that real buyers of gold will not only want to see the product but that they will also want their lawyers and bankers to ensure that they are fully protected. Yet there are thousands of intermediaries who expect Buyers to sign contracts over the internet or sign contracts at a TTM without ever knowing if in fact the gold is real. In real deals of this type, such sales are conducted within the banking system with lawyers present in face to face meetings. Contracts for Billions of Dollars are never done at a distance over the interent !

Similarly, we never cease to be amazed by intermediaries wanting buyers to accept SKR’s as proof that a consignment of Bullion is real. Unless they are produced in a bank by a bank bullion officer then they are almost certainly forgeries.

In many countries around the world it is illegal to demand an LOI up front as it is classed as “solicitation”. If you are passing on an FCO it is almost certainly illegal. FCO’s must be sent direct to the Buyer from the Seller. If a Mandate is employed then by law in most countries he must attach his official Mandate Letter to the FCO in question.

All our Buyers will honour commission payments. But so many deals are hijacked by intermediaries grabbing unrealistic percentages and demanding IMFPA’s are signed well in advance of any contract being agreed to by the principle parties involved. In all such cases the deals are never looked at seriously and are disregarded as a waste of time. IMFPA’s can only be completed and agreed to by the Buyer before the final draft of a Contract is about to be released. It comes right at the end of the buying process – when all parties know there is a strong possibility that a deal will be done. The Buyers will decide what the commission breakdown will be and not any intermediary. But we would still suggest however, that you have a greater chance of winning the Lottery in comparison to closing a genuine Bullion deal !