Maybe they’re truly desperate people trying to stay afloat, but more than likely they are simple con artists preying on other people’s good will in a time of worrisome pandemic. Regardless, the people who have been stopping others in parking lots, gas stations, and other public places in SW Michigan, pawning off “gold” rings and chains, are leaving the Good Samaritans holding the bag and ripping them off.
Adam Wagner of Napier Gold is throwing out an alert to anybody being confronted with the “opportunity” to help a fellow human “in need,” by purchasing gold in the streets that there are some serious fraudsters capitalizing on the current situation and he warns, “All that glitters, isn’t gold!”
Wagner’s Napier Gold has two locations in the local market, one in St. Joe at Napier and Niles and the other on Napier across from the entrance to the Orchards Mall. The business buys gold from the public routinely. Wagner says, “We have been having people come in for the last year with fake gold jewelry, but in the last couple of weeks it has picked up to a couple of people a day coming in and in one day earlier this week we had six people between the two stores.”
The story generally goes that people have been approached in a parking lot, gas station, or a big box store like Walmart or Meijer, and are usually given a sob story about having cash and cards being stolen or needing gas and food money in order to get somewhere or buy necessities for their kids. Wagner says, the story “consistently involves a large black SUV bearing out of state plates with a male, a female, and two kids.” People have been approached from Hartford to Stevensville and many places in between.
Wagner says that at Napier Gold he had a lady come in a couple of days ago who said she gave the couple $700 in exchange for several necklaces and rings. Another guy gave them $200 for two necklaces and two rings.
Unfortunately, when those unsuspecting people try to redeem their purchases at Napier Gold to get their cash back, they find out that it’s not real gold at all.
Wagner warns, “It is usually marked 18K and it is usually larger men’s rings and link necklaces, but I have seen a few bracelets and charms, too. The rings are usually just brass and the necklaces and bracelets are generally plated over copper, so the marks are counterfeit.”
He just wants people to know that they are ending up paying seriously inflated prices for what they are actually getting in return, and he won’t be buying such goods anyway.
If you’d like to see examples of the things that Wagner has been asked to buy, all of them fake, click the link to scroll through five more photos of the fake and counterfeit goods. Here’s the link:
