Numerous seniors ensnared by Metals.com and Chase Metals said they lost significant chunks of their life savings in an instant. The thousands of supposedly collectible gold and silver coins they bought turned out to include a markup as high as 200% from the value of the metal they contained.
One Missouri woman bought 7,333 Polar Bear coins from Metals.com, which are smaller than the Polar Bear & Cub coins, each containing half an ounce of silver, according to an invoice reviewed by Quartz that was obtained by the Missouri attorney general’s office. She was charged about $26, the invoice says, for coins that contained less than $9 worth of silver. The markup on her coins relative to their melt value was 219%.
Metals.com knew who its “prime targets” were, the former salesperson said: “deep conservatives” who might be retired.
“These people believe the dollar could collapse tomorrow, people with a deep-seated distrust for government, the elite, Wall Street, the entire system,” said the former saleperson, who asked to remain anonymous fearing retaliation by the company.
This group is also significantly less tech-savvy and internet-literate—seniors are three times more likely to share fake news than younger people. For any potential scammers, it’s no longer just chasing down leads from a boiler room, Rotunda said. They can “use this technology to reach a large number of potential victims at a very low cost.”
Asher pushed his salespeople to start their calls with a political narrative, according to the former salesperson. It was important to get potential investors to connect with and trust them. Customers had to be conservative, with little faith in the government or the economy. “If someone says they’re liberal or they don’t like Hannity, you just hang up,” said the former salesperson.
One such script shown to Quartz began, “I’m part of a conservative team… we help Fox News / Hannity / Limbaugh / Levin.” (A Fox News spokesperson said it has no affiliation with Metals.com, and that the use of the channel’s name was unauthorized.) Another says: “I don’t know what your religious beliefs are, but I’m Christian. Did you know that there are 700 references to gold and silver in the bible.”
