Anyone in this business knows the hardest part is trust. It doesn’t matter which side you’re on, from thousands of fake sellers asking you to visit them with no proofs to give, to joker broker CIF buyers, to fake documentation (SKRs, SBLCs, MTs etc). Its a bit of a minefield!
The easy ones to spot are your common scams like the 200MT HSBC Hong Kong deal, or your bullion in Switzerland at -5%. The common African scams are also easy as you know they can sell on ground at -2% (in Ghana for example) with lots of reputable buyers in town, why offer it out? Only one fraudulent reason..Obviously.
So…what do you do? After 12 years in business I have 3 main nuggets of advice.
(1) If its an email offer or LinkedIn offer, and you don’t know them VERY well, its a fake.
(2) If its too good to be true, it is! Guaranteed. Check the maths, big profit = fake, there’s too much on ground competition for those margins.
(3) If you’re doing a gold deal, check out who you’re working with. Professional background, company, personal and licencing checks. They are a fraction of a percent of a deal from a company like ours.