ilsaconsult
Fri, 20 Apr 2001 12:19:34 -0700
Hello, I am writing to e-gold Ltd and to the e-gold list and Western Union with a complaint and warning about the market maker GITGOLD.COM I do not say the owner Dave is directly dishonest, but to my mind he is very unprofessional having caused me and another party a lot of expense and inconvenience, and then badmouthed me to the other party (let's call him Mr X) without any evidence. Then when I complained he tried to silence me by making undefined threats about the FBI listening in to discussion groups etc. I would certainly say this reflects badly on the whole e-gold community and e-gold needs to do something about this. I don't think it is appropriate to go into all the details in a public forum because of privacy issues and not wanting to bore everybody, but it concerns a Western Union transfer. Instructions were clearly posted on the gitgold site (since changed) saying that WU transfers could be sent to Jane Miller Anderson and would be bought by gitgold and credited to an e-gold account usually the same day. I had never used gitgold before, I have always used Omnipay whose services are excellent, and was only attracted to gitgold because I had a client who insisted on paying by Western Union. I therefore gave the client exact instructions directly from the gitgold site, and he duly sent a WU transfer to Ms Anderson specifying our e-gold name and account number in the reference line. I was not too happy when Dave came back asking for a phone number of the sender, because it delayed things and I did not have the phone number of Mr X, having conducted business with him only be e-mail. For all I knew Mr X might not want his phone number given out. I now understand that this as a fraud prevention verification... it would nonetheless have saved a whole lot of time and trouble if Dave had bothered to mention this requirement on his website, since then I could have asked for Mr X's phone number before he sent the transfer. Anyway, I reluctantly emailed Mr X and he seemed happy to give his phone number so I passed it on to Dave. Dave promised to try and sort things out. In the meantime, so as not to inconvenience Mr X, I had already provided him with the service he was paying us for. This, by the way, was a professional fee concerning investment advice, and no, before anyone asks, the money ($500) was absolutely not an investment of any sort, nor pyramid scheme, nor advance fee for a loan application nor any such scam nor anything illegal or untoward. Basically this is irrelevant anyway since the fact was that Mr X was quite happy with what he was getting for his $500, and he had already received what he paid for. So, we have Mr X happy and wanting to confirm that he intended to make the payment exactly as he sent it, and we have Dave promising to get back to me. Nothing more from Dave... next thing I know, I get an email from Mr X with an almost apologetic tone to it (though it is him who was being put out by all this) saying that a Jane Miller Anderson had called, asked what service he was intending to pay for with this transfer (like it was any of her business anyway), and when he told her she said it was probably a scam and he should go to WU and pick up his money, which he did. And he was asking how he should send the funds instead? (Luckily for us, having provided the service on the basis of trust after we saw the money was tied up in this whole fiasco - we usually ask for payment up-front) Furious, I emailed Dave again trying to verify whether what Mr X said was true, and he comes back to me saying that he could not stop me bad-mouthing him in public but I should be careful because the FBI was watching. Whether he really believed that it was a fraud I don't know... but as far as I'm concerned if the FBI are out there and would like to talk to me about Mr Dave Anderson of GITGOLD would they please get in touch! Realistically, I don't think it's something for the FBI or even Western Union, it's more a matter of appalling customer service than outright fraud. Maybe the postal inspectors of Better Business Bureau would be interested. All in all, it is UNPROFESSIONAL IN THE EXTREME to go telling people who are perfectly happy with the deals they have made that they are "probably" involved in a scam, and then to try to silence complaints by making vague threats of FBI intervention. I understand from what he told me that Dave has himself been the subject of fraud investigations by Western Union and the FBI, although he is most probably not guilty of anything. However, that is no reason to go slagging off other people and making unilateral judgements. I would stress that if he simply said he didn't want the business, that would be one thing (although still annoying after we had sent the transfer and paid the fees etc ) But to go making accusations of scams when you don't know what you are talking about is really a totally different ball game, isn't it? So I THINK THIS PERSON IS UNSTABLE AND THEREFORE UNRELIABLE HANDLING OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY... I could definitely sue him for slander, he has wasted Mr X's Western Union fees (which we have covered) and he has wasted a couple of hours of my valuable time. So, rant over, I have no intention of taking any more action but I wanted to give this guy a public telling off and hopefully other e-gold market makers might benefit from hearing of this experience. With best regards, Ed at INVERSIONES LUISA S.A., Basseterre, St Kitts. Free, encrypted, secure Web-based email at www.hushmail.com IMPORTANT NOTICE: If you are not using HushMail, this message could have been read easily by the many people who have access to your open personal email messages. Get your FREE, totally secure email address at http://www.hushmail.com.
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