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You Can't Fix Stupid: The Iraqi Dinar Scam Lives


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I hope this guy will have to make a retraction statement soon!!!!!!!!!!!   This is from Forbes

 

 

In the words of popular comedian Ron White, “You can’t fix stupid.” That phrase, as elegant in its simplicity as it is frankly true, applies with special fervor to those who continue to believe that they are about to make millions, billions, or even trillions by investing in Iraqi dinars.

Yes, I know this has been written about before. Fellow Forbes’ contributorJohn Wasik wrote about this scam last January athttp://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2012/01/19/the-curse-of-saddam-iraqi-dinar-deals/ And even various law enforcement agencies are publicly warning about this scam, such as that of the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions at http://www.dfi.wa.gov/consumers/alerts/iraqi-dinar-scams.htm

Yet this scam continues to persist, and hardly a week goes by that some sucker or another doesn’t call my office to inquire about asset protection planning for the untold riches that he or she is about to receive when the Dinar finally re-valuates by 100 times or more.

 

 

Of course, they can’t pay my legal fees now for such planning because every last cent is invested in the Dinars. But they can pay me when they finally reap their great reward.

Which is never.

Scams involving the arbitrage of foreign currencies have been around as long as there have been, well, foreign currencies. In the modern age, many pyramid schemes have been disguised as sophisticated “FOREX trading programs” — but in fact, the scammers weren’t doing any trading at all, but simply paying old investors with the money from new investors. Charles Ponzi, the modern Father of such schemes, would be proud.

In fact, FOREX scams became so widespread in the 1990s — playing on the speculation regarding the then-new Euro — that the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission was compelled to put out a great deal of warnings about these scams. 

 

 

There exists an entire army of FOREX scammers who spend their entire days looking for suckers, which unfortunately include the most vulnerable in our society such as the elderly. For those folks in or nearing retirement whose ordinary investments didn’t quite get them where they needed to be, these scam artists are ready, willing and able to divest them of their remaining wealth with promises of high “risk free” returns trading in FOREX. But that money is just disappearing to banks in Belize or elsewhere.

The FOREX scams didn’t involve any actual purchases of foreign currency, but simply scam artists running utterly bogus “statements” off their printers that showed huge returns, right up until the time that the scammers disappeared. Some of the Dinar scams operate the same way: You don’t actually get any Dinars, but instead just a statement showing that you have Dinars or some sort of phony-baloney “Certificate” of ownership.

But — and this is why the Dinar scam has been largely successful — with the Dinar scam you can actually get the cold hard Dinars if you want them. Yep, suckers around America have their closets and garages full of bales of Dinars, just waiting for that glorious day when they will re-valuate.

Which is never.

To help sell the scam, the scam artists have set up all sorts of websites and bulletin boards and newsletter and social media and you-name-it to try to create the impression that the Dinars are valuable and are about to re-valuate at any moment. I’ve had people tell me that their Dinars are going to re-valuate “within the week” or “by the end of the month”, and they’ve been telling me for years.

All of this reminds me of the “Magic Bean Scheme” which was a pyramid scheme run in my native Oklahoma by some creative scammers. The idea was that you could buy from the scammers a certain type of expensive bean that when left in a jar of water for a couple of weeks would produce valuable “bean juice” that could then be re-sold for a large profit. The key was, according to the scammers, you had to shake the jars every few hours to get the desired result.

Of course, the scammers threw some of their own money in to get the scam started. The first few people made some good money selling their bean juice, and of course they told their friends and family about this new sure-fire way to make a fortune. Soon enough many folks in Oklahoma were brewing “bean juice” in their garages, going out every couple of hours to shake the jars so that the bean juice would form faster. “Honey, it’s 4:00 a.m., and you turn to shake the jars.”

Then, one day after selling enough of the expensive beans, the scammers vamoosed and there were a lot of folks in Oklahoma with closets and garages full of jars of worthless beans and juice in them — turned out the beans were just ordinary navy beans. My guess is that there are still people out there who have never given up on the beans, still turning them, and still expecting that bean juice to result in untold riches.

Ditto for the Dinars, the bales of which some suckers having in their closets and garages, taking up space and waiting for the day when they finally re-valuate.

Which is never.

Unfortunately, a bad thing about human nature is that once folks believe in a story, they refuse to believe they have been scammed. Often they are embarrassed, and figure that to admit they were wrong is worse than simply keeping their useless whatevers in the closet or out in the garage. But others are really, truly convinced that their initial investment was a good one, and no amount of proof or logic can dissuade them.

Even after Charles Ponzi died, some of his followers bought OUIJA boards and tried to channel his dead soul to find out when their utterly worthless investments would become valuable as he promised. Time and time again, I’ve watched as the victims of pyramid schemes continue to believe that they are about to get rich even as the perpetrators went to jail.

For me, after telling these folks they’ve been scammed and hearing their denials, I’ve been betting these folks who call me up to $5,000 in free legal work if the Dinar re-valuates in 30 days, against a gift certificate from a steakhouse. Suffice it to say that I’m going to be in good beef for some time. Which brings me back to Ron White, who is absolutely right: “You can’t fix stupid.

And that goes for the Dinars, and the idea that they will soon re-valuate, thus leading current investors to great riches.

Which is never.

So, why is this a scam? It is a scam because the Dinar has no chance or significant appreciation, i.e., appreciation that would make buying Dinars worthwhile. First, there is the political uncertainty — who would invest in the currency of a government that is still fighting a significant insurgency and might not be around the next year, any year? Second, and much more importantly, there are so many Dinars floating around that even if Iraq discovered the world’s largest gold mine tomorrow, the value of the Dinar would not significantly appreciate.

The scam artists say, “But look at Kuwait!” After the first Gulf War, the Kuwaiti Dinar did show significant appreciation. But that is an Apples and Orangutans comparison.

First, Kuwait is significantly richer than Iraq with significantly larger oil reserves — it is forgotten that the Iraq invaded Kuwait to get the latter’s oil reserves, not because Iraq had enough of its own.

Second, the Kuwaiti population is much smaller — 3 million compared to the 33 million living in Iraq. This means that Iraq has to take care of ten times as many people as Kuwait, as well as attempt to rebuild an infrastructure racked by a decade of civil war, with less money than Kuwait.

Third, and even more telling, the Iraq government even now has to borrow about $100 million per year to provide basic services. No country which is borrowing money is going to have an “imminent revaluation” (the term often used by the scam artists to sell Dinars) anytime soon!

Fourth, Kuwait had a stable government before the War that simply fled Kuwait until order was restored, and then returned to be a stable government. By contrast, Iraq’s government is new and whether it survives is anybody’s guess.

The point is that there is absolutely no reason to believe that the Iraqi Dinar will significantly appreciate in the long term, and it utterly insane to believe that the Iraqi Dinar will significantly appreciate in the short term, i.e., within 10 years.

And there is the scam: The scam artists sell Iraqi Dinars to suckers based on the false story that the Iraqi Dinars are about to become very valuable, when they are not. You might as well buy bags of sand, because they are going to appreciate more quickly than the Iraqi Dinar. Or just go down to the bank and buy rolls of pennies and hide them in the attic. Someday the U.S. government will get rid of pennies, and then the pennies will become rare and valuable — in about two hundred years. That is about how quickly the Iraqi Dinar is going to appreciate too.

Which is never.

Update 30 August 2012

After this article was published, I had numerous e-mails to the effect that I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about, and that the Iraqi Dinar would absolutely, positively re-valuate within a few days and the buyers thereof would become fabulously wealthy. Well, here we are 30 days later, and . . . the . . . Dinar . . . hasn’t . . . gone . . . anywhere.

bb8372.jpg

If you think the Iraqi Dinar will make you rich, you must be listening to Baghdad Bob!

The only thing that did happen of interest is that Justin Rohrlich wrote this article: http://www.minyanville.com/business-news/editors-pick/articles/iraqi-dinar-scam-currency-investment-tampadinar/8/30/2012/id/43627

I’ll update again in another 30 days, and for those of you who are still wondering, I don’t suggest the Dinar will substantially revaluate by that time either.

Update September 30, 2012

Well, surprise, surprise, surprise, the Iraqi Dinar did not re-valuate upwards in September, but we did see some interesting news on the Dinar front.

Such as this article, “Prosecutor: Fake Iraq Veteran Sold Fake Hedge Funds” at http://www.finalternatives.com/node/21635

Or this article, “2 Who Bought Iraqi Currency Bring Suit Against Indicted Sellers, Firm” at http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2012/09/22/2-who-bought-Iraqi-currency-file-suit-against-indicted-sellers-firms.html

I’ll update again in 30 days — during which time the Iraqi Dinar will not have revaluated then either. But there will still be lots of suckers in denial at having been scammed sitting around thinking they are gazillionaires.

This article at http://onforb.es/T1sOnq and http://goo.gl/GwfJM

Update October 31, 2012

Nothing new to report. The Iraqi Dinar is as far from an upwards re-valuation as ever — you might as well wish for Jack’s Magic Beanstock to take the Dinar upwards. But, lots of seriously deluded folks still continue to believe they are going to get enormously rich off the bales of Dinar’s socked away in their attics and garages through America. My guess is that pretty quick you’ll be able to buy as many Dinars as you want at garage sales.

Update January 31, 2013

Well, I must apologize to everybody for not updating at the end of November and December, 2012, but I got very busy with clients’ year-end planning . . . and frankly nothing was going on with the Iraqi Dinar anyway. So let me take this opportunity to update you on what has been happening with the Iraqi Dinar through January 31, 2013, which is: Nothing, Absolutely Nothing.

I have noticed, however, that sellers of Iraqi Dinar are starting to offer “free gifts” to suckers who buy that currency from them, sort of like “Buy 1 Trillion Iraqi Dinar And Get A Free Pinata” or some such (the Vietnamese Dong, a currency of sorts, seems to be a popular give-a-way with purchases of Iraqi Dinar).

The Better Business Bureau warns about the Dinar Scam at http://www.central-northern-western-arizona.bbb.org/article/iraqi-dinar-investments-opportunity-or-scam-34951

This expose of the Dinar Scam is pretty good too – http://www.learningmarkets.com/the-iraqi-dinar-scam/

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I really have to ask, "what compels someone to write something like this?"

he said there were numerous people calling his office looking for asset protection from their about to be new wealth. i guess he decided to check it out Edited by sandstorm
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***///

 

Well..! what would we EVER have done if this guy hadn't shown up here and saved the day for us...?!

 

Oh, my gosh.... thanks goodness for this uber-brilliant purveyor of truth!  :bow:   We bow to you sir!

 

Fellow Dinarians....!  Wake up from your dream-induced slumber --- WE'VE BEEN SAVED!

 

Put all your Dinar in a box and mail it to this guy straight away....!

 

:P  :lmao:  :lol:

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***///

 

Well..! what would we EVER have done if this guy hadn't shown up here and saved the day for us...?!

 

Oh, my gosh.... thanks goodness for this uber-brilliant purveyor of truth!  :bow:   We bow to you sir!

 

Fellow Dinarians....!  Wake up from your dream-induced slumber --- WE'VE BEEN SAVED!

 

Put all your Dinar in a box and mail it to this guy straight away....!

 

:P  :lmao:  :lol:

Put all your Dinar in a box and mail it to this guy straight away...!
Sure , I'll send him all of my dinar but !..........He will never see my Dong !

 

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I really have to ask, "what compels someone to write something like this?"

 

 

Can you say, government hack? This is exactly the kind of post 

 

that makes me believe the government has people coming on here to 

 

post. New guy, negative off the bat, and doing his best to convince us 

 

that a legitimate currency is a scam. Only a liberal is that stupid.   

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Can you say, government hack? This is exactly the kind of post

that makes me believe the government has people coming on here to

post. New guy, negative off the bat, and doing his best to convince us

that a legitimate currency is a scam. Only a liberal is that stupid.

I agree 100% LGD !

I agree 100% LGD !

Edited by Man_Kind
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Its not the currency itself that is a scam.....its the promise of untold riches because there is an imminent RV ahead......

He is right about one thing, people will throw all logic out the window to defend a belief and to keep the.denial that they might have been scammed......

If the US govt is charging people with fraud for misleading people about a RV because Iraq is planning on RD, I would think it might have some merit to it......unfortunately

It is quite possible we have all been taken for a ride.....

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Its not the currency itself that is a scam.....its the promise of untold riches because there is an imminent RV ahead......

He is right about one thing, people will throw all logic out the window to defend a belief and to keep the.denial that they might have been scammed......

If the US govt is charging people with fraud for misleading people about a RV because Iraq is planning on RD, I would think it might have some merit to it......unfortunately

It is quite possible we have all been taken for a ride.....

 

 

That is not a scam, that is simply hope. There's a difference you know. 

 

It is not only hope but it is prophetic. Babylon will rise.   

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That is not a scam, that is simply hope. There's a difference you know. 

 

It is not only hope but it is prophetic. Babylon will rise.   

yes babylon will rise. but god didnt say in which thousand year period it would happen. and will iraq rise again because it keeps its wealth...or will they give it away. those things dont tell us...what the currency would be worth.

So its hope. But when you first bought it.......you were probably worried it wouldnt get delivered in time before a rv. thats the hyping scam. that is just in range or right around the corner. Its a legit currency no doubt.....its the excessive guaranteed type of blessing people have put on it......that keeps it in the scandalous, scam like area

same thing from about every professional ive heard.

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It would seem that the Iraq dinar has a lot of room to reach equilibrium with the other currencies in that region.

They have a whole lot of wealth building up with all that oil and gold to go along with it. 

Is it a sure thing that they will increase value without lopping? of course not. Is it possible? of course, anything is possible.

Nothing in this world can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

 

'Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.'
Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, 1789
 
 
Question : If Benjamin Franklin were alive today, what do you think his feelings would be on Obama peeling away the layers of the Constitution like a banana?
 
 
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That is not a scam, that is simply hope. There's a difference you know. 

 

It is not only hope but it is prophetic. Babylon will rise.   

The hype of becoming rich overnight or making millions is the scam part.....

 

And I know there is lots of prophets about Babylon rising again, but Im pretty sure you cant infer that its in regards to making speculators all across the world millionaires or that it means the currency of Iraq will become the most valuable....

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The hype of becoming rich overnight or making millions is the scam part.....

And I know there is lots of prophets about Babylon rising again, but Im pretty sure you cant infer that its in regards to making speculators all across the world millionaires or that it means the currency of Iraq will become the most valuable....

That's ok if it does not revalue very high. I make money if it goes to .01. If it does I might just get off this ride!!!!

I also have the details on their inditement. Can't post it now as I am remote on the phone.

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Can you say, government hack? This is exactly the kind of post 

 

that makes me believe the government has people coming on here to 

 

post. New guy, negative off the bat, and doing his best to convince us 

 

that a legitimate currency is a scam. Only a liberal is that stupid.   

Please do not think I agree with this article, just posted it because it was an opinion from a so-called "expert" from Forbes. Just brought it over for discussion.  I am hoping that he will have to post an update for March or April stating that he was wrong.  

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It would seem that the Iraq dinar has a lot of room to reach equilibrium with the other currencies in that region.

They have a whole lot of wealth building up with all that oil and gold to go along with it. 

Is it a sure thing that they will increase value without lopping? of course not. Is it possible? of course, anything is possible.

Nothing in this world can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

 

'Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.'

Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, 1789

 

 

Question : If Benjamin Franklin were alive today, what do you think his feelings would be on Obama peeling away the layers of the Constitution like a banana?

i get your point. i dont understand why we quote people from the past like they were the almighty....know everything for eternity .

it. thomas jefferson, benjamin franklin, and reagan and others are like some go to guys....because they spat out a oneliner.

benjamin franklin....would probably say.....wheres the judiciary checking obama? Why is the house of reps funding such crap? why is the states allowing these unconstitutional terms to be put on them.

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i get your point. i dont understand why we quote people from the past like they were the almighty....know everything for eternity .

it. thomas jefferson, benjamin franklin, and reagan and others are like some go to guys....because they spat out a oneliner.

benjamin franklin....would probably say.....wheres the judiciary checking obama? Why is the house of reps funding such crap? why is the states allowing these unconstitutional terms to be put on them.

Franklin is considered to be one of the greatest American minds and he personified the American dream. A leading American statesman, inventor, philanthropist, publisher, revolutionary, and thinker, Benjamin Franklin was truly the Enlightened American. He did much more than spit out an occasional one liner. 

 

Obama has some good one liners as well : 

 

“The problem is that I’m the president of the United States, I’m not the emperor of the United States."

"We don't have a spending problem."

‘I don’t believe people should be able to own guns’

 

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I really have to ask, "what compels someone to write something like this?"

Iv'e posted some dumb stuff before. This one takes the cake. A Newbie on a Veteran site, sucks to be them about now. You pretty much asked for it, I got all ideas you're gonna get it! Welcome aboard! You got guts.

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