Flash in the Pan Blog

Dearest readers, it’s time to get serious for a moment. I’ll bet that if you are like most visitors to Prospectors Plus, that you read this simple gold prospecting and mining blog for the humor, a short respite from the day to day grind. You read my ramblings to stay up to date on what other likeminded gold adventurers are doing, the mining equipment they use, see pictures of their great finds and hopefully; pick up a good prospecting tip from time to time. I love writing about that stuff. Those are the stories and people that I care about. However, just like all good things – I have been doing a lot of thinking about the darker side of our hobby as well. Let me set the scene.

Times are hard. Jobs can be difficult to come by and harder to keep. According to the recently released unemployment figures gathered by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) the states within our great nation are currently rubbing up against historic unemployment numbers. The Golden state of California for instance, reports an unemployment rate of 12.5%, just one tenth of one percent away from its all-time high of 12.6%. And here’s the rub, that’s what the government is coping to – the actual numbers if they included the underemployed are even scarier. No, it’s not quite the 25% unemployment seen in the Great Depression, but when times are hard and jobs are scarce, people get desperate. When people are desperate, scammers and hucksters, conmen and grafters open up shop.

What does this all mean? How does a crappy economy and high unemployment rate relate to our hobby of recreational gold prospecting and mining? Well, to be frank, I believe that many people look to the recent historic highs of gold, spurred on by silly shows like Gold Rush Alaska, or websites selling ‘miracle’ gold mining equipment, clubs claiming ridiculous volumes of gold recovery on public lands and of course those pitching secret ‘systems’ to claim-up land – and think “Hey, there’s money to be made here”. They are right, there is money to be made in gold, but none of it is easy. It is very difficult to engage in prospecting and mining at the recreational level in order to supplement your income in a serious way. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a frickin’ blast to do, but it's also hard work. Just like any part time job, you get paid for the hours you put in. Prospecting is no exception.

A case in point. I recently joined the Discovery Channel Gold Rush Alaska Forums, yeah know…so I could talk about Gold Rush Alaska. In the forum, they have an area called Gold Stories where fans of the show can show pictures of their own gold finds, tell tall tales of their prospecting adventures and the like. One of the threads caught my attention immediately entitled, “Do you want to see some nuggets?” The post was opened by forum user cswiita, where he links to his company’s website and the monster nuggets they have been finding. Being an optimistic fella that I am, I clicked the link to his website and sure enough there were lots of pictures of pans full of marble sized gold pieces, big fist sized potato nuggets and all kinds of heavy equipment. “Wow,” I thought. “This guy is the real deal. Heck just look at all that gold in those pictures!”

When I went back to forums to read all the comments, an amazing thing happened. Three posts down, forum user supersurveyor raises the alarm on cswiita’s post.

Ding,Ding,Ding, something don't smell right here! We talk about gold in pounds? from one small trench? with no processing or mining equipment.The picture of one of the big nuggets almost looks like the "heart of gold" from Gaines creek.

cswiita replied a bit later by commenting:

I'm sorry, but I'm trying to figure out what you are refering to. The one photo album is from an exploration trench, every bit of that gold came from one trench, but not without processing equipment. I was saying that the nuggets over 3/4" may not have been found without metal detectors, which is fact. Did you ever find a nugget in an old tailings pile? That's because it was bigger than the grizzly. As far as naming nuggets, all of mine are named cash. The really big ones both came from a patented property outside of Redding, Ca. That my company has been in a JV with for over 3 years, the 2+ pounder came off of one of my properties that we have been mining for 10 years. Don't know where Gaines creek is, and unless we are contracted to explore, or mine it really don't care. So ding, ding, dong it all smells like gold when it's sitting in my hand.

Next, forum member aaabbbccc took it upon himself and began digging around, doing some research on the images that cswiita was using on his website to promote his business and claiming as gold that had come from his patented property. What aaabbbccc found, was very interesting.

That 7 pound nugget on your website came from Gaines Creek Alaska. In fact you lifted the picture straight off of the Alaska mining and diving website. Scroll about halfway down the page and take a look for yourself. http://www.akmining.com/mine/nuggets.htm

Caught in his own lie, cswiita feebly replied with the following explanation and a well worded threat:

That nugget came from outside Redding, Ca. If you know anything about the color of gold in different areas, there is no way a nugget of this color could even come from Alaska. I did not lift any picture from any other site. With a fake online name it is pretty cowardly to accuse someone of something you know little about. Slander is a crime, be careful.

To aaabbbccc’s credit, the reply back to cswiita was to the point, factual and well researched. He in fact had found that it was not just the one large gold nugget picture cited by supersurveyor that cswiita had stolen and used on his website, but two. In this case, a honker from Australia.

Slander may be a crime, but if I were you I would be a little worried about taking 5 year old pictures from copyrighted websites and the copyright infringement that goes along with it. If I was even just a little bit motivated I'd go find the site you lifted the picture of the Australian nugget from and post a link to it as well.

...

Well. I got bored and found where you took the picture of the Australian nugget from. It was lighter than I thought, only 15 ounces. Must be all the holes in it. Not to sure if Janet would approve.

Just goes to show you can't believe everything you see on the internet.

http://www.janetsgoldnuggets.com/stories%20page2.htm

It was no surprise that cswiita never responded back to the thread. cswiita was caught in his lie by prospecting and internet savvy forum users aaabbbccc and supersurveyor. You can’t refute the truth. But where was the scam? cswiita just copied pictures from someone else’s find and put them on his website. Where’s the harm in that? All it takes is a deeper look on his website to understand why (beyond the obvious copy write issues) the damage those photos can do.

The clincher for me was on cswtia’s company website page “Claims for sale”. cswiita’s company is using pictures of gold they didn’t find, from claims they didn’t mine to sell claims they want to get rid of. I can’t say that his company doesn’t find gold. I can’t say that they aren’t good at mine exploration or rattle snake removal or selling pretty rocks to tourists or any of the other random services they offer on their website. I also can’t say that they aren’t selling great gold bearing properties. I can however say that nearly two months after getting outted for falsely using images of gold they didn’t recover to portray how 'rich' their claims are…they still haven’t removed them. How could anyone believe that the claims that they are selling have much of anything on them? The company has readily proven themselves dishonest. cswiita’s lack of response back to the forums is telling.

What chaps my hide is that being a newer gold prospector and very very junior gold miner myself reading through this exchange, I am nervous for others that don't engage in a little preventative research. I look to the gold rush stirring by high unemployment, high gold prices and cringe at the thought that people might not be digging deeper into cswiita’s claims. Spurred by either their own desperation, a false sense of adventure or a mistaken notion that gold prospecting is easy money, the unaware, incautious will be unwittingly separated from their hard earned cash.

While I would not go as far as to claim that cswiita or his company are scamming potential claim buyers, I do believe that they being unscrupulous by using those images. When they are trying to sell claims, get into join ventures or offer gold investments ranging from $25,000 up to $7,000,000 not being honest about something small like a picture may be an indication that other things are amiss. Let's try out some common phrases that might fit. Usually, it’s not just one part of a skunk that stinks…it’s the whole thing. Where's there's smoke, ther is usually fire. Buyer beware. Any others I missed?

So what did we learn today? Everything on the internet is not true. Shock huh? When people are boastfully claiming overly rich finds, use your common sense. Take it with a grain of salt. If they are doing said boasting and are trying to sell something to you at the same time, well…a fool and his money, right? Be cautious. Do your homework. Ask questions.

I hope that you forgive my 'serious post' and will not begrudge me your viewership in next weeks post on gold prospecting and mining scams. In the next installment, I want to cast my net a bit wider and take on some of the more insteresting and colorful "miracle mining machines" being peddled in magazines and across the internet. Just what kind of miracles are these anyway? Hmmm. Smells like alchemy to me.

Oh, one more thing. If you know of a scam, or something sounds to be too good to be true, I'd love to hear about it. Contact me at deuce@prospectorsplus.com. Thanks in advance!