The Industry Standard - Not all e-Bullion customers are worried by outage - Comments

Readers: There are two major

Ian Lamont — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:52:55 -0500

Readers: There are two major developments in the e-Bullion story, located at the following locations:

Copies of the relevant court documents are linked from the articles.

I am closing the comment thread here, but you are welcome to continue the discussion in the comment threads for the two new articles.

Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
The Industry Standard

Readers: There is a new

Ian Lamont — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:25:31 -0500

Readers: There is a new update:

e-Bullion's lawyer blasts new government claims, says seizure of funds "not authorized"

You are welcome to comment below the new article. Please note that I cannot give any advice on how e-Bullion depositors can recover their funds.

Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
Industry Standard

James Michael is now charged

Paul Huebl — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:51:10 -0400

James Michael is now charged with capital murder along with his employee, Jose moya. Police are looking for at least one more suspect.

Fayed will be transfered to the L.A. County Jail shortly. He will be in court for the first time tomorow in Los Angeles.

My guess is a receiver will be appointed to liquidate Fayed's gold trading business. All money located and under government controll will be divided up to the investors it that happens. That is only a good guess based on other cases i have seen.

On the average it takes about three years from point of charging to the begining of a murder trial. Fayed will have a very long wait while in custody.

The actual murder complaint can be found here:
http://www.crimefilenews.com/search/label/fayed%20murder

I invested with profit

ignatius seffelaar — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:08:12 -0400

I invested with profit gateway and never got paid my withdrawal..they sent the withdrawal but there was no batch number. They never reply to my emails..I have $8000 invested..the first time I tried it for $150 and got paid..then I reinvested it again and got paid..then I did the big one and got nothing...and as I said, they never reply. I also asked them if they could switch my account from E BULLION to Liberty Reserve..NO REPLY. Who do you talk to..they do not answer a so called phone..mail box is always full..which means there is no phone..do you have any answers..I await your reply...thanking you...Dutch

Dear Ian I have just

Paddy Smuts — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:51:12 -0400

Dear Ian
I have just returned from a 2 month business trip to the East. On my return I tried logging on to e bullion to transfer +-$11000 I have with them and I see the site in inaccessible! Can you or anyone help me with info as what to do or who to contact? Have I lost my money?
Thanks Paddy

I have just returned from a

Paddy — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:47:48 -0400

I have just returned from a 2 month business trip to the East. On my return I tried logging on to e bullion to transfer +-$11000 I have with them and I see the site in inaccessible! Can anyone help me with info as what to do or who to contact?
Thanks Paddy

i am planning on sueing

Moe — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 08:52:22 -0400

i am planning on sueing e-bullion for 10,000,000 million usd, because they are promoting Ponzi online, i need my money back. if naybody from the newsletter want to email me about this they can. my email address moey124@yahoo.com thanks.

I have an update with MORE

Paul Huebl — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:28:19 -0400

I have an update with MORE new documents:
http://www.crimefilenews.com/search/label/fayed%20murder

I also had silver there. So

Peter — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 06:53:31 -0400

I also had silver there. So the government first seized all the gold an silver from liberty dollar and now they seize the silver and gold from e-bullion. It is like the 1933 Roosevelt gold seizure all over again. Why can't they just hold a gun to your head and tax you? Is that to much trouble?

I have an update with new

Paul Huebl — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 23:22:04 -0400

I have an update with new documents:
http://www.crimefilenews.com/search/label/fayed%20murder

Ian, Like everyone else I

Brian — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:50:27 -0400

Ian,
Like everyone else I cannot get through to anyone at ebullion or goldfinger and have about $2,000 tied up however i have been able to login and check my debit card balance which is through a different site. I have not tried it at an ATM but I will do that and let you know.
Brian.

e-Bullion account holders:

Ian Lamont — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 01:25:45 -0400

e-Bullion account holders: There is an update to this story which you all should read. It relates to the day-to-day management of e-Bullion and the Goldfinger companies:

Court papers indicate James Fayed had absolute control over e-Bullion

Let's keep comments related to this news on that article, and be careful if you decide to join the discussions, OK? Remember that real people are making important decisions relating to their personal finances and business activities because their e-Bullion accounts are in limbo, so please do not print rumors or hearsay in these comments. If you do have real information relating to the case that you would like to share, CLEARLY STATE THE SOURCE OF THAT INFORMATION.

Also, if you are a current or former e-Bullion/Goldfinger employee, I would like to talk with you. Please email me at ian at thestandard.com. Note that I am unable to help anyone access their e-Bullion accounts.

Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
The Industry Standard

The whole concept of

Paul Huebl — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:02:25 -0400

The whole concept of Fayed’s gold trading businesses were and are flawed. Think about the huge amount of trust investors place in an Internet business. You send them money and they hold your gold for you? That’s every bit as silly as asking any total stranger you meet on the street to hold your cash for you and pay you interest.

If you want to buy gold go out and buy it. Put it in your mattress or bank’s safety deposit box. That’s just what Fayed did with $3 million in gold bullion police seized at his home.

Why have some unregulated, unlicensed and bankrupt jerk with a website hold your assets for you? What a terrible idea!

Here are all my articles about the Goldfinger Murder:
http://www.crimefilenews.com/search/label/fayed%20murder

so what are the chances of

matt — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 02:51:09 -0400

so what are the chances of getting our money back??

Readers: I can't tell you

Ian Lamont — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:23:40 -0400

Readers: I can't tell you how to get your money back from e-Bullion or other financial institutions. Right now, I am trying to find out what happened to the e-Bullion website. So far, I haven't been able to determine this information. In the meantime, I am updating the story with information from the various court cases and other sources, as it becomes available. Here's a list of the articles I've written so far:

There is also a long comment thread at the end of
this article, where people are discussing the case and I sometimes post updates or links. I recommend checking back there to see what is going on with the case.

Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
The Industry Standard

Not all e-Bullion customers are worried by outage

Ian Lamont — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:17:08 -0400

Accounts on e-Bullion.com were still inaccessible on Thursday afternoon, two days after a message appeared on the front page of the website saying services would be temporarily taken offline to perform "routine maintenance." While some e-Bullion customers have expressed concern, others have told The Industry Standard that they are not worried about the outage, which started earlier this week following the arrest of the site's owner, James Fayed.

Fayed is currently being held in a California jail on a charge that he performed unlicensed money transactions. Yesterday, a judge denied bail after prosecutors said he was a suspect in the murder of his wife and e-Bullion co-founder Pamela Fayed.

e-Bullion's "digital gold currency" and e-currency services have an unknown number of customers. Four who were contacted by The Industry Standard said they have been unable to access their accounts or contact anyone at the company since the site went down on Tuesday. These complaints were echoed by commenters on an Industry Standard article published Wednesday.

Other customers, however, did not seem very worried. Jay, who asked that his full name not be used, reported that he has $4,000 in an e-Bullion account. He explained that while the outage was inconvenient, he expected he would be able to access his funds within two days. Jay added that he wasn't bothered by unconfirmed rumors that federal authorities are accessing and monitoring e-Bullion's servers.

Mark Herpel, an e-Bullion customer who is also the editor of DGC Magazine, expressed confidence that he would be able to access his funds. Herpel reported that despite the website outage, account data relating to e-Bullion's debit card service can be accessed by phone. The Industry Standard was unable to confirm this.

When asked whether e-Bullion has an auditing mechanism to verify whether customer deposits are backed up by physical gold holdings, Herpel said e-Bullion has not released audit reports for several years. "You might think that because [e-Bullion] did not publish, it was some kind of red flag but no one thought of it that way," Herpel explained, noting that he has used various e-Bullion services since 2002. "It never bothered me or the agents I had used."

The Industry Standard has called and emailed e-Bullion several times, but has not received a response. Calls to Fayed's lawyer and the U.S. attorney prosecuting the case were not returned.

Background: