Be warned !

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
21
I ́d still be very reluctant to accuse a bank of selling you a fake coin unless you can proof that.

22
How would anyone prove that?

23
Did it come in some sort of packaging?

I bought a gold-bar from ZKB and I think it has ZKB imprint/coinage and is wrapped.

I've not taken it out of that packaging (straight to deposit box).

24
No he isn't. Read what he wrote again.

1. If you can't substantiate a serious allegation, it can land you in trouble.

2. You have said yourself that you have no evidence to prove UBS sold you a fake coin, and finally:

There are two places (from your account of events) that it could have come.

1. UBS

2. The valuator.

UBS is also a very big company. Any particular reason you trust the valuator more?

25
Irrelevant, but made me jump. Valuator?

Valuer?

Whatever- seems to me the valuer would be my guess, rather than UBS. Who knows?

26
And here we go again, you jump to a lot of conclusions, without much to substantiate them.....

I don't doubt your actions and what you did or did not do as an investor is not relevant. But I very much doubt your conclusions.

There is no reason to assume that UBS is any more or less trustworthy than the dealers you have handed your coin to in order to have it valued. The coin was out of your possession and you have no idea where or if a switch was made.

My guess it's a dealer who bought a dud coin, by that is just an opinion.

27
Well two places we know of....

This story just illustrates what I always say to people asking about buying physical gold - you don't know what you are buying and what you are selling, you don't have the ability to test it yourself so you have to rely on what you are being told both sides.

28
Hi,

I think you need to contact the German police (Polizeipräsidium Köln) or your local police and you should definitely email UBS.

See the following links:

https://www.newsweek.com/cops-bust-c...-coins-1713250

https://www.bild.de/regional/koeln/k...8384.bild.html

https://www.stern.de/amp/gesellschaf...-31921858.html

https://www.tag24.de/justiz/koeln/be...lassen-2494101

Hope this helps and wishing you a speedy recovery

29
That should be different. AFAIK gold bars have a serial number (at least the larger ones), I would expect that to be on your recipt.

The rather big problem in OP's case, from the selling bank's view, is that Maple Leafs are legal tender with 50 CAD face value, that has the potential of making the sale by UBS a crime (though perhaps too long past for it to be prosecutable). Not sure if that covers/includes foreign legal tender, but that does get confiscated, so it may. At any rate that should be reason enough for leniency by them.

I think it's definitely worth contacting UBS. It may be useful to mention Fedpol, the federal police, as that's who appears to be tasked with prosecuting fake money stuff.

30
I have gold coins from various issuers including a few Canadian Maple Leaf. I might go get mine checked! I bought them from philoro in Zurich, so trust they check them.

Out of curiosity, do you have real Maple Leaf coins to compare with? Do the fakes look high quality and feel heavy, as gold coins should?

I remember reading a few years back about fake gold bars made with tungsten for weight, but not heard of gold coin fakes before.

31
Well if they are fake there is nothing you can do realistically. And since no one is going to buy them with out a valuation, you might as well just wait until you want to sell them.

32
Yeah, it was underlined by my browser spell-checker. But that's set to US English so it's often wrong.

I checked. It's listed in the OED as an archaic word. I'm archaic, so I'll continue using it.

33
So how exactly do you think the Germans got involved in this?

34
It does state in the Newspaper links that the Police should be contacted if one has these forgeries.

Probably best for local ones and not in Köln though.

35
The bullion dealers who are a very large well known dealer who test ,buy , sell and store dozens of gold coins or more a day test via two different instruments.

Both instruments failed the test.

Yes they could have switched the coin....but to do so would risk millions and decades in reputation for a very very small fraud.

Be like A main supermarket chain knowingly selling stolen goods to make 3,000 CHF.

I have contacted UBS.

On UBS web page dated 2017, one year after I made purchases mentions fakes.

So it seems they are aware of fakes coming in from China.

36
So two dealers would not risk their reputations but UBS would..... UBS knew about the fakes and did nothing.... Ya right what ever.

37
Who are them? And is it one dealer or two?

It's their word against UBS, why do you trust them and not UBS? Is there a previous history? Why are you repeatedly accusing UBS of fraud while refusing to explicitly name these "well known buillon dealers" which allegedly discovered the fraud (but gave no proof)? This is at least highly unfair.

38

Sure there are fakes out there.. Someone could buy of UBS and resell a fake back to them which may not be detected.

One easy solution if you paid on credit card.. call them and ask them to put the item (purchase) into dispute.. The bank probably won’t bother to challenge. Admittedly I’ve only done this with a item £400.

Two, claim on insurance.

Just to ask.. why do you say the two coins were from different batches?

39
Maybe because the two dealers aren’t foreigners..... who knows.

40
Caveat emptor