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A piggy bank hit by a wrecking ball with visualising marketplace scams

Guarding against marketplace scams: Expert tips from TallyMoney

Welcome to the wild world of online marketplaces, where the line between a steal and a scam gets blurrier than a foggy British morning. Dive into the deceptive world of marketplace scams with our Head of Compliance Operations, Kevin. Unmasking the sly tricks scammers use on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp, Kevin spills the beans on avoiding app frauds and emerging unscathed. From dodgy bank transfers to concert ticket cons, learn the savvy signs to protect your wallet.

So what is a purchase scam, is it any different from a marketplace scam?

A purchase scam occurs when fake or non-existent items are promoted for sale. These are commonly referred to as marketplace scams and often take place on platforms like Facebook Marketplace, Instagram, or WhatsApp, as well as on fraudulent websites. These scams typically focus on popular items such as smartphones, concert tickets, watches, and so on. It’s crucial to understand that not everything listed for sale on these platforms is fake. Therefore, it’s advisable to conduct thorough checks before making any payments, as, from a criminal’s perspective, all money is considered free money.

"One in 17 adults has fallen victim to fraud over the past year" - National Cyber Security Centre

What are the key signs to look out for?

How are you paying for the product?

  • Do they only offer the choice of receiving funds via a bank transfer? 
  • Is the bank account under the name of the person you are speaking to, or are they asking you to pay someone else?
  • Most reputable companies and online auction companies have the option of you paying by Credit or Debit card directly on the site. 
  • Would you typically send money to the bank account of someone you don’t know?

Have they asked you to be dishonest with anyone?

It’s not uncommon for your bank or payment provider to ask you why you are sending funds. They are not just being nosey, but often see patterns that can be used to protect you. 

If you are buying a product and the seller asks you to say you are ‘paying a friend’ ask yourself  ‘Why are they asking me to lie?’ could giving a false statement comeback to bite if you had to notify the police that your money had been stolen. 

If the price is too good to be true, it probably is.

Are they willing to accept a low offer? Ask yourself why. If they agree to your £10 offer for a product listed at £100 but worth £1000, does that seem reasonable? Receiving £10 from multiple people without providing anything in return is a successful day for a fraudster.

"Last year victims in the UK lost over £1.2bn due to fraud and authorised push payment fraud" - UKFinance, 2023

What can I do to protect myself from marketplace scams?

  • Check if you can meet them in-person and view the product for sale first. 
  • If you’re purchasing a highly sought-after item such as a concert ticket, ask yourself why aren’t they selling through a reputable resale website?
  • Use a secure payment method.
  • If you are buying from an independent website, ensure that:
    • The ‘click-through’ links lead to relevant information.
    • You can locate the business on Companies House or another reliable source to verify its existence. 
    • You can discover the website through a search engine rather than relying on a link within an email.
    • Assess the company’s credibility by checking review platforms like Trustpilot, Google Reviews, or Feefo.

What should you do if you think you have been scammed?

  1. Immediate Action: If scammed, act promptly. Contact local law enforcement and your bank immediately. 
  2. Documentation: Save conversations through screenshots or printouts. 
  3. Reporting: Report the user and listing to the platform.

Don’t feel guilty or ashamed if you’ve been scammed. These individuals are often professionals and are well-versed in their field.

 

More information and advice:

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Let’s get physical: How much gold bullion and printed fiat currency actually exists?

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Why Faster Payments aren’t always so fast

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How to get a TallyMoney account

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Real World Examples

  1. Fancy a coffee? Use your TallyMoney Mastercard. Boom – paid. (Yes, you’re buying a flat white with gold. How amazing is that?)

  2. Need cash? Use any Mastercard ATM worldwide or spend across the globe. ZERO fees from us, ZERO markup. (When you spend or withdraw, your gold converts instantly at the global spot price. No catches, no hidden charges – just straight-up Mastercard exchange rates. Because your money shouldn’t cost you… more money.)

  3. Want some money back in your bank? Just tap ‘transfer’ in the app. (Though after a while, you might wonder why you’d want to…)

    Zero faff. Zero waiting. Zero fees when you spend tally.

Meet Cameron Parry

Meet the guy who wouldn’t accept being trapped in a ‘heads they win, tales we lose’ government-run monetary system that protects and benefits the financial institutions, to the detriment of the public. Where people’s deposits are constantly at risk, and losing value through inflation caused by central bankers and politicians.

If necessity is the mother of invention, then frustration may be the roommate’s cousin of motivation. In any case, he decided to stop getting mad and start a new monetary system with sound money. Where deposits serve the depositor, where savings build wealth for savers, and transactions are made in a familiar way. And he called it TallyMoney.

TallyMoney: Gold upgraded

With TallyMoney:

  • Your pounds instantly become physical gold (1 tally = 1mg of real gold)
    Stored in Swiss vaults (not under your bed)
  • Fully insured and allocated (actually yours, not a paper promise)
  • Spend it anywhere with your TallyMoney debit Mastercard
  • Transfer back to pounds instantly if needed (but why would you?)

We’re not anti-bank because it’s trendy. We’re anti-bank because the current system is rigged against you. Every day you leave money in a “savings” account, you’re funding their profits while your wealth evaporates.

Enter gold: the original currency

Why gold? It’s value is universally acknowledged.

  • It’s not controlled by any single government
  • It can’t be printed or manufactured
  • It’s actually scarce 
  • It requires effort to extract it 
  • It doesn’t rust, decay, or disappear
  • It has remarkable properties

So while the pound’s lost 50% of its value since 2004, gold’s grown by 146% in the last decade alone. While your bank savings got mugged by inflation, gold owners were laughing all the way to… well, not the bank.

But here’s the rub: Traditional gold ownership is a right pain. Buy physical bars? Prepare for storage fees that’ll make your eyes water, insurance premiums that never end, and a 5-10% haircut when you need to sell. Plus, try buying your weekly shop with a gold ingot.
Paper gold ETFs? They’re classed as Tier 3 assets for a reason – that’s financial speak for “risky as hell.” You don’t own gold, you own a promise. A tradeable IOU. And when everyone wants their gold at once? Good luck with that. So you’re stuffed either way: real gold that’s impossible to use, or fake gold that might not be there when you need it.
Until now.

The truth about inflation

How? Well, when politicians overspend (and they invariably do), they need more money to ‘stimulate the economy’. But raising taxes makes voters angry. So what do they do? They fire up the money printer, and boy do they love to print. To give you a sense of the scale, since 2015 the Bank of England has created £520bn out of thin air through “quantitative easing” (electronic money printing) plus £86bn in physical currency. 

Thing is, more pounds in circulation = each pound is worth less. Think about it: In 2004, £100 could buy you a decent night out, theatre tickets, and a cab home. Today? That same £100 barely covers the theatre tickets. Your money didn’t disappear – it was diluted, like someone’s been topping up your whisky with water when you weren’t looking.

The “2% inflation target” they bang on about? That’s them telling you they plan to steal 2% of your wealth every single year. And calling it healthy.

How TallyMoney actually works?

  1. First things first: we’ve got actual gold bullion* (none of that paper-promise nonsense) locked up tight in a Brinks vault in Switzerland. Yeah, those Brinks – the security legends who’ve been protecting valuables since Queen Victoria was on the throne.

  2. You send your pounds to your TallyMoney account (bye-bye, inflation-addicted fiat!).

  3. We use the global gold spot price to instantly turn your currency into its weight in gold. No hidden or fuzzy exchange rates, just the real market gold price + 1.49% gold purchase fee.

  4. Each milligram of your physical gold = 1 tally (we keep it decimal because no one wants to faff about with troy ounces – the specific unit for measuring gold).

  5. That’s it! Your app shows your balance in tally, but remember – those aren’t just numbers on a screen. That’s your solid gold, in milligrams, sitting pretty in Switzerland.
  6. You can now save and spend your gold as you see fit.

*All Tally gold is sourced from LBMA-accredited providers because we’re rebels with a cause… and standards. Instead of tracking the gold price per kg, your money is directly converted based on the real-time global gold spot price.

TallyMoney is 
real money

  1. Store of value
    Your gold sits in a Swiss vault (not getting ‘quantitatively eased’ away)
    Evidenced by 5,000 years of holding its value
    Can’t be inflated by government whim and fingers on the ‘currency print’ button
  2. Medium of exchange
    Spendable at 150+ million shops worldwide (thanks, Mastercard)
    Currency converts instantly at market rates (no sneaky margins)
    Moves as quickly as sending a text 
  3. Unit of account
    1 tally = 1mg of gold. Simple
    Stable enough to actually plan your future with
    Speaks every currency’s language (gold’s kind of a big deal everywhere)

This is why TallyMoney is so much more than just owning Gold – it’s a real financial revolution. We’re not just helping you own gold; we’re bringing back what money was always meant to be. Sound Money for a Brighter Future. Because your hard work and wealth deserve better than being slowly robbed by external forces.

We want you to have real money

  1. A store of value:
    Keeps its value over time
    Insulated from devaluation/inflation
    Actually rare and can’t be created out of thin air
  2. Medium of exchange:
    Easy to use for everyday transactions
    Widely accepted
    Can be transferred efficiently
  3. Unit of account:
    Works like a proper value-measuring stick (imagine if your ruler shrunk every year – mad, right?)
    Splits nicely into useful bits
    Reliable enough to plan your future with

Why does this matter? Because your hard work deserves better than being turned into monopoly money by someone else’s actions. Every time your currency loses value (inflation) its stealing from your past work, which harms your present savings, and your future dreams.