Beware Gold Bar Scams

“You’ve been the victim of identity theft,” said the man on the telephone, posing as an official with the Federal Trade Commission. He then instructed the senior citizen he had called to convert all her assets into gold bars so they could be picked up by a courier “who is an FBI agent” and brought to the U.S. Department of Treasury for safekeeping.  The victim complied and provided two separate deliveries of gold bars, valued at nearly $800,000.

Montgomery County, Maryland prosecutors have charged two men, 34-year-old Wenhui Sun of California and 23-year-old Neel Patel of Illinois with the gold bar scam. In a similar case, Montgomery County charged 52-year-old Vipul Thakkar of Maryland with stealing $1.1 million from a senior citizen after convincing him to convert his assets into gold bars and hand them to couriers for safekeeping.

Gold, which should be a safe haven investment, has become the scammer’s asset of choice, as a growing number of criminals are deceiving consumers, typically senior citizens, into handing over gold bars that supposedly will be held for safekeeping.

In a consumer alert, the Federal Trade Commission is warning consumers that “scammers are pretending to be affiliated with the FTC to steal consumers’ hard-earned money.” The FTC says it will never instruct consumers to purchase gold bars for the purpose of handing them over to a courier who will supposedly protect the gold.

Such scams cost the public more than $55 million from May through December of 2023, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). The FBI instructs consumers to “never disclose your home address or agree to meet with unknown individuals to deliver cash or precious metals.”