Spot-price coins: the seller whose paper trail didn't add up

A seller of spot-price coins who never delivered

At the end of 2014, a seller of gold and silver coins carved out a niche on second-hand marketplaces with an unbeatable promise: pieces at wholesale market prices. By February 2015, several buyers were still waiting for their orders, and the seller's trail did not add up anywhere.

The affected buyers had paid by bank transfer; one of them, 160 euros. None had received a coin. The case came to light when a forum user decided to cross-check the details the seller had left in each listing: phone numbers, addresses and names that, lined up, did not fit.

A shop with three addresses and a bar's phone number

The seller operated under the Or et d'Argent banner on Milanuncios and Segundamano, and under the name El Rincón del Siglo XX on various eBay accounts. On each storefront the address was different. One pointed to Andorra (Teruel), another to a street in Cornellà de Llobregat that does not exist, and a third to Calle Mayor Arrabal, which is only found in Teruel. The shopping centre in Andorra (Teruel) that he cited as a delivery point did not house any shop in the trade.

The phone number published on Segundamano and Milanuncios was the same in both listings. That number, according to a forum user who says he checked it, did not lead to any office: it led to a bar. One buyer maintained that he used the shopping centre in Andorra (Teruel) as a delivery point to avoid VAT; others saw it as just another excuse on an ever-growing list. The list of identities attributed to him —eBay shops, listings on various portals and at least one profile that allegedly went as far as impersonating a private individual with a full name— ran to more than half a dozen. The more you scratched, the more names appeared.

Gold at spot price and deadlines that do not exist

What drew buyers in were the prices. The seller even offered 1/4 ounce of gold at spot price, the cost of the metal on the wholesale market, without the margin any dealer needs to make a living. He also offered the 2015 Eagle coin, which according to a forum user was not on sale until the end of March.

While orders piled up without shipping, the seller kept posting new offers on 29 December, 13 January and 25 January. Each batch came with the same promises and no coins. Some buyers defended the seller and maintained that only the logistics had failed. Others recalled that anyone offering below market, with no fruta and in a hurry to collect, is already telling a story.

An account in two people's names and a repeat IP address

According to data gathered by a forum user, the account number the seller provided for payments was in the names of two people, a man and a woman. The man is registered as a self-employed plumbing worker in Faura. The IP addresses he operated from also matched those of another profile created in July 2014, which went so far as to acknowledge its entry into EMGOLDEX, a structure flagged as an alleged pyramid scheme.

An alleged private collector also had a shop, a self-employed registration number unrelated to the business and a shared identity. None of that is a crime in itself. What jars is the whole picture.

The refunds and the complaint that sped them up

As complaints multiplied, the seller began refunding money. First to some, then to others. Several affected buyers confirmed they had recovered their transfers, and one of them, after filing the corresponding complaint, received the amount weeks after paying at the end of December 2014 for an order that never arrived.

The usual detail remains. Anyone who paid as a product purchase kept the payment platform's protection; anyone who transferred as a friend or gift was left without a safety net. And there is the dossier the affected buyers managed to assemble with transfers, emails and addresses, only part of which was made public.

What this case exposes

The episode is not an isolated case of bad luck. It is the manual for buying and selling metals between private individuals: below-market prices, a hurry to collect, delayed shipping and an identity that can be reconstructed with fifteen minutes of searching. The platform that does not complain, the seller who promises and the buyer who trusts because it pays off.

I close with a prediction no one will sign: the same profile, under another name, will reappear on some second-hand marketplace sooner than the victims would like.