You Can't Con a Con

The strongest lure used by scammers and con artists is the lure of instant wealth or extraordinary profits, thus the old adage "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is".  Many dinarians (myself included) suspended our disbelief long enough to fork over a few hundred or a few thousand dollars on the chance that this could be the exception to the rule.  The con artists on the other hand took a different approach.  They saw the con, and they wanted in on it.  Over a billion dollars has been spent by speculators on dinar, dinar services, and dinar related products.  When you have that kind of money changing hands you better believe the criminal element shows up, and they're not buying they're selling. 

Here's the typical scenario.  Scammer #1 starts a dinar forum.  (I'm not calling all dinar forum owners con artists, but let's face it - many are.)   He starts pumping.  And pumping.  And pumping.  "The Kuwaiti dinar RV'd and made millions for the people who were smart enough to buy it at the right time.  Don't be left out with the Iraqi dinar like those who missed out on the Kuwaiti RV!"  "Bush said the war would pay for itself because he and Dick Cheney planned all along to revalue the dinar!"  "We have confirmation that the lower denoms have been printed and are stored at the CBI awaiting the RV!" blah blah blah .... pump pump pump .... all lies of course, but people believe and buy.  Oh boy, do they buy.  They buy dinar.  They join VIP.  They pay for intel.  They buy books.  WOW!  What a gold mine! 

So now scammer #2 sees how much money scammer #1 is raking in and says "HOLY $#1T!!! I want in on this!!!"  So what does he do?  Well he joins the forum and starts posting.  If there's a chat room he goes in there.  He starts gaining the confidence of other members.  Then he starts sharing his "intel".  "You guys don't know this, but I have a friend who is a contractor in Iraq.  We don't talk very often but the other day he calls me up out of the clear blue and says ..... (insert BS here)."  The next time he shows up everybody is quizzing him.  "Have you heard from your friend again?  Any news?"

In no time this guy has a following.  He starts exchanging emails with some of them.  Scammer #1 sees what Scammer #2 is up to and bans his a$$, but it's too late.  He's already got a following and they have his contact information.  He starts his own forum and his believers follow him over.  Before long his site is bigger than Scammer #1's site.

Enter Scammer #3.  Rinse and repeat.  After about four years of this you have literally dozens of sites doing innumerable conference calls with gurus galore.  Some of them are rate and date types.  Some are forex guys.  Some talk economics.  Some start pitching other products like health supplements, trusts, cookbooks, investments opportunities, or some MLM scheme.  Some "explain" the RV process.  Some are experts on Iraqi law, politics, history, or religion.  All scrambling for a piece of the dinar pie.  (Again, not everybody who comments on the dinar is a scammer, but many are.) 

And after all of these posts, all of these chat sessions, all of these conference calls, and all of this great intel and analysis where are we?  Since 2009 the IQD has moved from 1170 to 1166.  All that work for 4 pips, folks!  Think about it.  If you own a million dinar your profit from this movement is a whopping $3, and that's before you deduct any dealer markup or shipping fees.  If you own a billion dinar as SteveI claims your profit is roughly $3000 before markup and fees.  (Brilliant move there Steve.  You're out $20,000 - $50,000 you could have made in a more conventional investment.  But I digress.)  The money supply has gone from 25 trillion to 35 trillion despite claims throughout guruland that they're reducing the money supply by removing the notes with three zeros (another pumper lie).  The government is still squabbling.  Bombs are still going off.  There is absolutely no reason to conclude that anything substantial is going to happen any time soon with the IQD's exchange rate, and yet the pumpers keep pumping and the buyers keep buying.  New gurus pop up nearly every week.  Why?  It's the lure of the easy money.  As long as people keep buying the scammers will keep scamming. 

You can't con a con, folks.  But apparently those cons can con millions of people given the right conditions, and the dinar is the perfect storm for scammers.  Easy money.  Conspiracy nut fodder of a new world order.  Religious fanatics baited by the declaration of the fulfillment of prophecy or the supernatural transfer of wealth.  A troubled economy providing hundreds of thousands of desperate people.  And a generation of internet junkies who can't seem to pull themselves away from the computer long enough to get a life.  A scammer's paradise.

The more I dig the more I find out about the biggest names in the dinar world, the more convinced I am that they're dirty, and the more determined I am to see them exposed.  Stay tuned.

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