Mr Gold and Mr Silver the scammers want me to tie up my cash by spread betting on Bank of America. It's a bet I can't win...
It's always pleasing to be flattered, even when you know it is totally insincere. It can be uplifting, make you feel better about like. However, as Hank Ketcham, the creator of the American Dennis the Menace, said: “Flattery is like chewing gum; enjoy it but don't swallow it.”
So when a guy with an American accent phoned me out of the blue, telling me he was only calling because his colleague, Mr Gold, had said that I am a really super person and knowledgeable investor, I didn't swallow a word of it. Any credibility the scammer may have had disappeared when he introduced himself as Mr Silver.
Yes, it's possible there are Mr Golds and Mr Silvers in mega-organisations. But what are the plausibility odds of that in a boiler room?
Mr Silver, who never told me his first name, always called me Anthony although when I gave him an email address, he asked if I prefer Tony. I said I do, but he quickly reverted to Anthony – he may have beeen reading a script.
You're such a nice guy!
He claimed that he knew all about how wonderful I was because, very precisely, Mr Gold called me on 31st August last year. I could not confirm or deny this because he still hadn't told me the name of his firm. In any case boiler room merchants all have confusingly similar names.
Eventually, after a lot more flattery, he told me that Mr Gold had called last summer to tell me to pile into Bank of America shares. This did trigger a memory. I wrote about the call in The scammers who thought I was a Knight of the Realm.
[SPOTLIGHT]However, as this article appeared in mid-June last year, I now know his precise 31st August date was pure fantasy.
Back to the script. “You're such a nice guy, Anthony, and Mr Gold really liked you so we think you should have a new, surefire way to make money. Have you followed our recommendation Bank of America, Anthony? We told you to buy the stock at $11 so as it is now $15.35 you would have made a big profit. How much do you have to invest? I think you said £60,000, so you now could have made over £20,000. That would have been a really useful amount extra. Because we think you're so knowledgeable about investment, we think you should have a second chance.”
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Contracts for difference
As I said just over a year ago when I was subjected to several lengthy monologues on the virtues of Bank of America stock, why would anyone spend so much time on talking up such a mainstream share as Bank of America, which I can easily buy from online brokers?
The answer was that once they had convinced me of the bank's investment merits (reading probably from a mainstream US broker report), I would then be persuaded not to buy the shares but to invest in contracts for difference (CFDs). CFDs are effectively gambling instruments like spread betting, which are so highly geared that even a one day reverse of just ten or twenty cents could wipe out all my £60,000 and land me with a bill for more.
In common with all stocks, Bank of America has bad days.
Their idea was that I would make a huge profit from which they would take a “commission” (not specified, but apparently up to 50%). In reality, they would have just taken my cash and issued me with some sort of phoney paperwork. The odds against their recommended bet coming up were about the same as forecasting 100-1 winners in two consecutive races.
“You sound as though you are still as sincere as you were last August in improving your economic situation,” said Silver, whose not very informative and search-engine proof website shows his address as a $365-a-month maildrop in a smart sounding Zurich address.
"One of my brokers will call you this evening at six. Make sure you are by the phone.”
This was an imposed time and Silver never asked if it was convenient. Six o'clock and 6.30pm came and went. No call. Eventually, someone did phone around 8.00pm. This was definitely a bad time for a scam attempt so I told the “broker” to call back the next day. I am still waiting.
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