(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) I ran across a story the other day that can serve as a cautionary tale. I’ll tell you up front that there are a lot of unanswered questions in this story, but with a little speculation, I think I can squeeze out a lesson.
The lesson is to keep your mouth shut!
Headline: Florida Man Uses Fake ID to Steal Gold Bars.
You have to love those “Florida Man” headlines, right?
Anyway, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, a UPS truck pulled up to a Tampa home. A man approached the driver and told him the package belonged to him. The driver did the right thing. He didn’t just hand some rando the package. He asked for ID, which the man produced.
Turns out the ID was fake.
And what was in the package?
Gold bars.
Ouch.
By the way, here’s a picture of our intrepid suspect:
As I mentioned, this story comes with a lot of questions, chief among them: how did this guy get a fake ID matching up to a person who happened to be getting a shipment of gold?
A lot of people on the sheriff’s Facebook page speculated that it was an inside job. That’s certainly possible. An unscrupulous sales rep could have tipped off the thief. This underscores the importance of only doing business with reputable dealers.
But there’s another possibility — the person who bought the gold ran his mouth and the thief knew it was coming.
I throw this theory out for your consideration because something similar happened to my step dad.
He took a large sum of money out of the bank, talking loudly about how he didn’t trust the banking system. Somebody overheard him. Two thieves somehow managed to track him down. Posing as utility workers, they forced their way into his home, pistol whipped him, tied him up with a plastic bag over his head, and made off with a significant amount of cash.
Thankfully, he was able to get his hands loose and remove the bag before he suffocated. Police eventually caught the thieves and they admitted they knew he had cash because an associate overheard him talking in the bank.
It’s highly possible that the victim of this Tampa heist told people he was buying gold. Or maybe he posted about it on social media. As my stepdad’s story reveals – people listen and word gets around. And unsavory characters can be pretty dang resourceful when it comes to getting information.
Of course, this is all speculation, but keeping one’s mouth shut is always good advice. You don’t want to trumpet your business to the world.
However, it happens all the time.
Just the other day, somebody posted about all the gold they have at home on Facebook. He was bragging about how he wasn’t going to be the victim of some third-party vault who might not take good care of his gold. I guess that fair, but he is setting himself to lose his gold to thieves breaking into your home. Trust me, your home vault isn’t nearly as secure as you might imagine. I read a story recently about a band of burglars who made off with a huge safe that was bolted to the floor.
The bottom line is keep your business your business. Don’t paint a target on your back by advertising what you have, and don’t have.
Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for Money Metals with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.
