I have a Customer who wants to BUY/SELL/LEASE several tons of Gold Bars. Can you accommodate such large deal?

Numerous internet-based scams and fraudsters are associated with gold. Typically, these scammers don't approach us directly but instead reach out to intermediaries to set up the "transaction" for them. Each week, we receive numerous emails, sometimes calls, from these intermediaries offering multi-million dollar deals or transactions involving several tons of gold but are unaware of how the gold market works.

While we appreciate your confidence in the authenticity of your customer, and we hope you are right, we kindly request you to take the following into account for your safety prior to getting in touch with us:

• A deal for one (1) ton of gold is a large transaction, even for the professional markets—almost every inquiry over one (1) ton of gold is from a con-artist. If you are genuine, you can be almost certain that your customer is not. If you are certain that your customer is genuine, you can be almost certain that their Customer is not.

• One (1) ton of gold is worth about $61m. Anyone with that kind of money to spend can walk into any bullion bank in the world and be treated like royalty. They do not need to contact you.

• As of the year 2021, the US owns 8,134 tonnes of gold, while Germany owns 3,403 tonnes. If your customer is asking to buy/sell/lease amounts in this range, then they are either Russia, China, or a con-artist. Russia and China do not need to contact you.

• One tell-tale sign of an internet scammer is the discount. Typically, they will ask for a discount of 5%, which they will offer to split with you. This sounds like a great deal until you realize that there are no discounts in the gold bullion market. The gold bullion markets are vastly deep and highly liquid. Nobody sells at a discount because they can already sell as much as they like, whenever they like, at the full price. The only people who will offer you a discount on gold bullion are the other scammers who are pretending to sell.

• Most of these scams work by getting the victim to invest a large amount of time and energy in setting the deal up. Then, just as it is about to go through, the victim is asked for a few hundred dollars to cover some fictional banking or legal fee. The victim pays because it's small compared to the time they've already spent, and even smaller compared to the profit they hope to gain.

• Internet scammers usually live in very poor countries. It is a fact that some people can work full-time for a year to con just one person out of a few hundred dollars, and consider it a good year's earnings. They can afford to waste everyone's time parting you from your money. When they've done it it's extremely easy for them to disappear.

That said, we can arrange large orders if they are genuine, subject to our Terms of Service plus the following:

• The buyer/seller must verify their identity before dealing and must pass our Know-Your-Customer (KYC) process.

• The deal will be arranged at the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) pricing, typically for a two-day settlement.

• You must send the funds in advance, and you can only purchase when our bankers have notified us that your funds have cleared. No credit will be extended, no matter which banking institution vouches for it.

If you have checked that your Customer is happy with those terms, then please Contact Us.