Among the many odd aspects of the court-ordered taking down of Larry Bates' ill-gotten economic empire is that a regular part of his legal defense was to disregard as simple "stories" the stories of victims created by the deceitful practices of his precious-metals firm, FAMC.
The painful truth of those little "stories" has amounted to a cumulative judgment by precious-metals clients around the United States that Bates and FAMC are "guilty" of not deserving their business at all. That's why Bates was in court in Memphis on Monday as his company and possessions entered into receivership.
And in time, those "anecdotes" also will come into play again as a court rules on the $80-million class-action suit brought against Bates and his company by many of the victims of their deceitful practices. Among other things, they materially shorted and delayed deliveries of lawfully ordered gold and silver, defrauding their customers out of a total of many hundreds of thousands of dollars.
To us, these aren't merely "stories" but the true accounts of actual people who were exploited in an evil way. We feel saddened by the number of people whom Bates cheated for many years. We directly assisted several of them understand just how he was cheating them. We guided some of them toward the lawful assistance they needed, and this eventually resulted in the class-action suit.
We are humbled that the Lord chose us to help deliver a form of earthly justice against this fraudulent man and company, who garnered so much of their business by masquerading under "Christian" principles.
Now, following Monday's court procedures, we are hearing many more "anecdotes" in the form of letters of thanks from those we had helped.
"Many thanks for all your hard work!" read one e-mail. "You were 'anointed' for this. I luckily got my gold (assume it is gold) [from FAMC] and when I didn't get my silver order after years, they finally sent me a check with an increase as price had gone up. But I am [not sure] what I would have gotten had I actually gotten the silver."
The sad thing about anecdotes is that, even as his house of cards is crumbling around him, Bates manages to create still more victims. One man we recently heard about had waited over a year to receive a check for a trade he'd made. FAMC had the coins, but the man didn't receive his $30,000 from Bates.
And now the sad thing is that he most likely never will. That's one more "story" Bates can tuck away.
The painful truth of those little "stories" has amounted to a cumulative judgment by precious-metals clients around the United States that Bates and FAMC are "guilty" of not deserving their business at all. That's why Bates was in court in Memphis on Monday as his company and possessions entered into receivership.
And in time, those "anecdotes" also will come into play again as a court rules on the $80-million class-action suit brought against Bates and his company by many of the victims of their deceitful practices. Among other things, they materially shorted and delayed deliveries of lawfully ordered gold and silver, defrauding their customers out of a total of many hundreds of thousands of dollars.
To us, these aren't merely "stories" but the true accounts of actual people who were exploited in an evil way. We feel saddened by the number of people whom Bates cheated for many years. We directly assisted several of them understand just how he was cheating them. We guided some of them toward the lawful assistance they needed, and this eventually resulted in the class-action suit.
We are humbled that the Lord chose us to help deliver a form of earthly justice against this fraudulent man and company, who garnered so much of their business by masquerading under "Christian" principles.
Now, following Monday's court procedures, we are hearing many more "anecdotes" in the form of letters of thanks from those we had helped.
"Many thanks for all your hard work!" read one e-mail. "You were 'anointed' for this. I luckily got my gold (assume it is gold) [from FAMC] and when I didn't get my silver order after years, they finally sent me a check with an increase as price had gone up. But I am [not sure] what I would have gotten had I actually gotten the silver."
The sad thing about anecdotes is that, even as his house of cards is crumbling around him, Bates manages to create still more victims. One man we recently heard about had waited over a year to receive a check for a trade he'd made. FAMC had the coins, but the man didn't receive his $30,000 from Bates.
And now the sad thing is that he most likely never will. That's one more "story" Bates can tuck away.
About the Author:
Want to find out more about precious metal investing, then visit Anne Trimble's site on how to buy gold and silver.
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