An Orillia, Ont. man is out $1,200 after buying what he believed to be a gold bar from an online seller.
Darren Ceccanese said he met with a man at a local Tim Hortons on Tuesday after spotting an ad on a local buy and sell Facebook page called OrilliaJIJI. The bar he bought was advertised as one ounce of gold. A test found it’s actually $0.25 worth of gold-plated copper.
“It’s not even really the money. I feel violated. I feel like a sucker,” Ceccanese told CTV Barrie on Thursday.
He said the bar, which was advertised slightly below market value, was wrapped and appeared to be certified by the Royal Canadian Mint.
“I just figured he was desperate,” Ceccanese said of the seller. “Maybe he needs the money, and he just wants to unload (the bar) quickly.”
He realized the serial number was different from the one given online after he got home from making the deal. He brought the bar to EDI Refining to get it checked out.
“We did an assay on it with our spectrometer, and the assay determined that it was gold-plated copper,” said Jason Stern, EDI’s director of precious metals.
The seller’s phone number is no longer in service, and Ceccanese said the ad is not online anymore. He suspects the same man is behind other similar online offers.
Barrie police said pressing charges will be difficult, even if the seller is identified.
“We have to prove that that person selling it had the knowledge and intent that they were selling something fraudulent,” Det. Cst. Jason Marchildon said.
CTV Barrie went to a home that Ceccanese said was listed as a shipping address. The owner denied being involved with a gold transaction.
With a report from CTV Barrie’s Krista Sharpe
