Virgin Mining Corporate Investment Scheme

Turbulent Times SG

I do not invest in such investment schemes as below, but since my brother was querying about the matter, I thought I do a lil due diligence. Below is my own findings and opinion. Any ideas?

1. Guaranteed dividends every month

This part is true. The Company offers subscription to preferred stocks. As a preferred shareholder you are guaranteed a monthly/annual dividends, irrespective of the Company’s performance, which is agreed upon at the time of subscription.

2. Share price

Appears to me that the Company themselves determine the share price of the Company internally, and it is not based on market factors of supply and demand, and the general investing public, so it is prone to manipulation by the Company’s managers.

3. Unallocated Investment

This is not a direct investment in gold. It is an unallocated investment, which means, similar to Gold ETFs, you are buying ‘paper’ gold that is backed by actual gold. However, since it is unallocated, in the event of liquidation of the Company, you lose all your money. Unlike buying actual gold bars or coins, or allocated paper gold, you have no counterparty risk, i.e. if the Company liquidates, you still can recover the gold.

4. Dividend payments

The dividend payment is in the form of gold ounces, not actual money. The money you ‘earn’ every month is in a credit account maintained with THE COMPANY, in the form of gold ounces. It is not in your bank account, but rather in the COMPANY BANK ACCOUNT or so they say. So it’s never yours – they send you an online statement saying how much value of gold ounces you have with the Company, until you ask for a return of the $$$.

5. Is the Company and investment scheme legitimate

I don’t think so. I read through their website and unlike real gold and silver mining companies (you can refer to Silver Wheaton, Barrick Gold, Ashanti Gold, etc), the Company does not provide any specific details on their operations, i.e. where is the location of the mines, what are the Companies they acquired and the mines of these investee companies, the estimated gold quantity that can be extracted, production capacity, etc.

Absolutely nothing. They speak in very very general terms that they are slowly buying companies in South America and Africa (yet most gold mines are in North America and Canada). But that’s it. If you had a look at real gold and silver miners, you can obtain the details of their mines, production capacity, location of the mines, etc. I am talking about very specific details investors will want to know about the mines and production.

I went through their press releases to the public. All they speak of is this ‘investment’ scheme they are offering potential investors, like you and me, to buy into their scheme. But no press releases on their activities and events, and progress of their mines or investee companies, like any normal company does.

http://www.infomine.com/index/companies/VIRGIN_METALS_INC..html - I went through this list. I couldn’t find the Company in this list.

6. My opinion?

My best bet is this is another Ponzi scheme. There is no Company or any mines or offices. But what I think is that they take money from investors, like you and me, to pay off previous subscribers, and take money from subsequent investors to pay us. So on and so forth.

In the short-run, you probably can make money in the next year or so, until the news is out this guy is a Scam. But becareful, you will need to refund the money before they call in a Scam.