I think I joined and introduced myself then just lurked several people were highly motivated to persue him and nothing much came of it.
They were listed on ebay - ebay offer insurance only if payment is made by PayPal, this chap wanted cheque only which did not seem that unusual as I had already bought a couple of Krugers from buyers with cheques.
I havent bought gold on ebay since as Coininvestdirect, Chard and Goldline offer a simple and reliable service its not necessary to take the risk.
It could be an awful lot worse, I might well have never found out about gold investing at all, that was a complete fluke, I was thinking BTL but felt quite sceptical about it and unsure of why. I visited HPC with a genuine enquiring attitude about BTL. I rapidly learnt BTL is a dead loss.
I think it was about the time GF joined and the gold thread really got going, the subjects of high finance, history of money etc. are something I had never thought about at all but they really interested me especially as it became more and more plain that I really did need to protect myself from a greed driven dishonest financial system thats falling apart.
Thing is I would never ever have found this thread here.