“It wasn’t real. Whatever he was selling wasn’t real.”
February 6, 2023 2:14 PM Subscribe
The Great Gatsby of Gold Took Their Millions—and Vanished; Shady Gold Guru Burnished Image With Paid-For Media Titles [The Daily Beast; ungated 1 and 2 ]
We come from the land of the ice and snow
posted by clavdivs at 2:59 PM on February 6, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 2:59 PM on February 6, 2023 [4 favorites]
In 2017, Regal Assets expanded its offerings to include crypto.Oh, of course they did. (Other than that, though, this feels like a refreshingly old-fashioned scam!)
posted by mbrubeck at 3:28 PM on February 6, 2023 [4 favorites]
I did not expect to see Robert T. Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad) referenced in this article, but knowing the book's questionable pedigree and the bankruptcy of the author's company, it makes a lot of sense.
posted by meowzilla at 3:50 PM on February 6, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by meowzilla at 3:50 PM on February 6, 2023 [5 favorites]
I've noticed gold making its way into advertising on second-tier TV channels again. The latest ones are specifically aimed at soon-to-be retirees, which is especially scummy in my book.
Anyway, yeah. Scam scam scam scammitty scam scam.
posted by humbug at 3:50 PM on February 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
Anyway, yeah. Scam scam scam scammitty scam scam.
posted by humbug at 3:50 PM on February 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
Some of the details… Regal said they would send the precious metals ‘to a depository', which in one apparently unusual early case they actually did. Then when the customer wanted to pull out of Regal, the depository simply sent the metals back to Regal, of course, and the customer never saw a penny!
posted by jamjam at 3:57 PM on February 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by jamjam at 3:57 PM on February 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
She was mulling retirement options when she found Regal Assets and its “Gold IRA,” which let customers convert their retirement accounts into metals like gold and silver. The company advertised the program as a hedge against stock market downturns and inflation, and O’Hara, concerned by talk of a coming recession, figured it was a safe bet.
"Yes, but how are you hedging against volatility in the price of gold and silver if you're going to ask people to convert all or part of their retirement savings into said precious metals? "
"Oh, that one's easy. We value simplicity, you see. We're simply taking your money, so the point of your question is moot. Hedge schmedge."
At age 16, according to an interview he gave on the “Damn Good Day” podcast, Gallagher fled his home in Calgary, Canada, for Toronto, where he lived out of a homeless shelter for several weeks.
To avoid spending time in the shelter, he said, he camped out at the local Barnes and Noble, gobbling up books by self-help guru Robert Kiyosaki, author of the “Rich Dad” series. (Kiyosaki’s company went bankrupt in 2012 following a long-running lawsuit accusing it of failing to pay royalties to a seminar promoter.)
A minor point, but since his business seems to be "making shit up," I gotta say I'm pretty sure that Barnes and Noble has never operated stores in Canada.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:24 PM on February 6, 2023 [11 favorites]
"Yes, but how are you hedging against volatility in the price of gold and silver if you're going to ask people to convert all or part of their retirement savings into said precious metals? "
"Oh, that one's easy. We value simplicity, you see. We're simply taking your money, so the point of your question is moot. Hedge schmedge."
At age 16, according to an interview he gave on the “Damn Good Day” podcast, Gallagher fled his home in Calgary, Canada, for Toronto, where he lived out of a homeless shelter for several weeks.
To avoid spending time in the shelter, he said, he camped out at the local Barnes and Noble, gobbling up books by self-help guru Robert Kiyosaki, author of the “Rich Dad” series. (Kiyosaki’s company went bankrupt in 2012 following a long-running lawsuit accusing it of failing to pay royalties to a seminar promoter.)
A minor point, but since his business seems to be "making shit up," I gotta say I'm pretty sure that Barnes and Noble has never operated stores in Canada.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:24 PM on February 6, 2023 [11 favorites]
There was a period of a few years, probably the last half of the Obama administration, that right wing outlets like Fox, and many others, were pushing hard for people to buy gold, and I don't see them mentioned in this article at all.
Sure, it seems foolish to anyone reasonable, but this wasn't just a rando suddenly starting to sell people gold and somehow succeeeding. There was a pervasive marketing campaign leading up to this that the article doesn't even mention once.
posted by mhoye at 7:20 PM on February 6, 2023 [6 favorites]
Sure, it seems foolish to anyone reasonable, but this wasn't just a rando suddenly starting to sell people gold and somehow succeeeding. There was a pervasive marketing campaign leading up to this that the article doesn't even mention once.
posted by mhoye at 7:20 PM on February 6, 2023 [6 favorites]
Oh man, I love a good scams post. Nice one!
I especially like the implicit taking advantage of the gold bugs. Because goooooooooooooooollllllllllddddddd!!!!!
posted by ec2y at 10:20 PM on February 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
I especially like the implicit taking advantage of the gold bugs. Because goooooooooooooooollllllllllddddddd!!!!!
posted by ec2y at 10:20 PM on February 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad back when, and I noticed it was about making investments where all the risk was shuffled off to other people-- I think it was through government support for real estate investments. No one else seemed to see a problem with that part of it, and I was horrified.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 11:24 PM on February 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 11:24 PM on February 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
mandolin conspiracy: A minor point, but since his business seems to be "making shit up," I gotta say I'm pretty sure that Barnes and Noble has never operated stores in Canada.
I got really confused by that, and thought that he’d had to have been living the US by that point, but it says he was in Toronto. It’s such a weird lie, which made me think that perhaps he wasn’t actually Canadian, but I guess his passport says otherwise.
posted by Kattullus at 12:19 AM on February 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
I got really confused by that, and thought that he’d had to have been living the US by that point, but it says he was in Toronto. It’s such a weird lie, which made me think that perhaps he wasn’t actually Canadian, but I guess his passport says otherwise.
posted by Kattullus at 12:19 AM on February 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
There was a period of a few years, probably the last half of the Obama administration, that right wing outlets like Fox, and many others, were pushing hard for people to buy gold, and I don't see them mentioned in this article at all.Yup! I worked at a financial services company during that period - one that largely just provided online billing services - who decided to take up a side-hustle with the precious metals folks for a bit there. It's how I first learned about Dennis Prager, who - in lieu of just letting us run an ad on his program - pitched the company on "an in-depth interview about the importance of investing in precious metals in THIS OBAMA ERA!". And, yeah, of course the higher-ups went for that because then it sounded like news instead of an ad and it got a lot more airtime (like 20 straight minutes). Whether they paid more for that, or got a discount to go along with his 20 minute rant so he could fill airtime, or whether he wanted some kickback for X amount of days or dollars, I genuinely have no idea. I was just the graphics guy.
The sales inquiries for the precious metals department went through the roof after that, when plenty of paranoid older folk leaning right-wing or afraid of scary "Mr HUSSEEEEEEEIN OBAMA!" heard Prager ring the doom bell and couldn't wait to jump on that train.
Precious metals are, by and large, not a bad side-investment as they're a finite resource and the values tend to increase over time. But, alas, they are largely targeted towards the crowd of folks who distrust both government and banks because neither one treats seniors very well, and if they have any money at all, they don't want it going to the socialist ne'er-do-wells who are tearing this "once great country" to shreds.
posted by revmitcz at 12:26 AM on February 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
Of course there's hardly any difference between "earned" and "bought" media when the whole purpose of publications like Forbes et al. is to sell adrenalized anxiety to an audience of rat-racing strivers. The Daily Beast piece gets close to the heart of the matter when it quotes Yitzi Weiner: “It’s part of the same story, sadly,” he said. “People who are con artists are using the media to gain legitimacy. The part left unsaid is that the media use the con artists as well — indeed, the whole industry is a frenzied soliciting of pitches for the next big scam.
posted by dmh at 2:19 AM on February 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by dmh at 2:19 AM on February 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
When I read "Canadian investment scammer", I thought this was about the useless Aiden “Crypto King” Pleterski, but this Gallagher chap had way more depth to his scamming.
What I wanna know, as someone generally considered fairly bright but instilled with some self-doubt, is where do folks like Gallagher and Pleterski (and by extension, Bankman-Fried) get their confidence? To call someone up whose money you've just nicked and banter with them about how well their investment is doing and how the employee they talked to was let go takes chemicals I can't fathom. Where can I get just a tiny bit of it? Not enough to steal money and lie about it, but you know, maybe enough to be able to pick up a phone and call someone without feeling I'd rather puke?
posted by scruss at 4:13 AM on February 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
What I wanna know, as someone generally considered fairly bright but instilled with some self-doubt, is where do folks like Gallagher and Pleterski (and by extension, Bankman-Fried) get their confidence? To call someone up whose money you've just nicked and banter with them about how well their investment is doing and how the employee they talked to was let go takes chemicals I can't fathom. Where can I get just a tiny bit of it? Not enough to steal money and lie about it, but you know, maybe enough to be able to pick up a phone and call someone without feeling I'd rather puke?
posted by scruss at 4:13 AM on February 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
There was a period of a few years, probably the last half of the Obama administration, that right wing outlets like Fox, and many others, were pushing hard for people to buy gold, and I don't see them mentioned in this article at all.
He wasn't the first and wasn't the last, but Glenn Beck's gold scams were prominent ones in the genre, especially in the Fox News orbit:
...the Santa Monica city attorney obtained a judgment and injunction against Goldline that requires the company to radically overhaul its practices and to stop deceiving customers about prices, among other things. The company must refund up to $4.5 million to defrauded customers, and pay $800,000 into a fund for future claims. The judgment also requires the company to give up one of the staples of its marketing tactics, and one that was hyped routinely by Beck: the idea that the government’s coming for your gold. For years Beck and Goldline insisted customers should buy its “numismatic” (or antique) coins rather than standard government-issued bullion because, they claimed, in 1933 President Franklin Roosevelt had ordered the government to confiscate private citizens’ gold bullion; antique coins were spared from the seizure. The claim was a huge stretch, as was the notion Beck perpetuated that Obama was plotting to seize Americans’ gold. Now, Goldline has to quit talking about bullion confiscation lest it face further trouble from prosecutors.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:34 AM on February 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
He wasn't the first and wasn't the last, but Glenn Beck's gold scams were prominent ones in the genre, especially in the Fox News orbit:
...the Santa Monica city attorney obtained a judgment and injunction against Goldline that requires the company to radically overhaul its practices and to stop deceiving customers about prices, among other things. The company must refund up to $4.5 million to defrauded customers, and pay $800,000 into a fund for future claims. The judgment also requires the company to give up one of the staples of its marketing tactics, and one that was hyped routinely by Beck: the idea that the government’s coming for your gold. For years Beck and Goldline insisted customers should buy its “numismatic” (or antique) coins rather than standard government-issued bullion because, they claimed, in 1933 President Franklin Roosevelt had ordered the government to confiscate private citizens’ gold bullion; antique coins were spared from the seizure. The claim was a huge stretch, as was the notion Beck perpetuated that Obama was plotting to seize Americans’ gold. Now, Goldline has to quit talking about bullion confiscation lest it face further trouble from prosecutors.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:34 AM on February 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
Gold and crypto dreams
Let them be
The biggest scam of all is Forbes and the rest, as mentioned above.
posted by blue shadows at 7:48 AM on February 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
Let them be
The biggest scam of all is Forbes and the rest, as mentioned above.
posted by blue shadows at 7:48 AM on February 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
To call someone up whose money you've just nicked and banter with them about how well their investment is doing and how the employee they talked to was let go takes chemicals I can't fathom.
That’s how I know you’re not a sociopath 2 weeks…
posted by ec2y at 1:15 PM on February 21, 2023
That’s how I know you’re not a sociopath 2 weeks…
posted by ec2y at 1:15 PM on February 21, 2023
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another victim of Forbes' descent into platforming basically anyone.
posted by BungaDunga at 2:55 PM on February 6, 2023 [10 favorites]