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A Really Disheartening Prospecting Experience


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WOW ! That is really terrible , sorry to hear about people getting taken like that , if the seller promised certain consideration, that equates a performance contract , perhaps litigation would be there only avenue at this point, 

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You've proven how nice and honorable of a guy you are Condor, it's a shame the "seller" of said claims is unlikely to do the same.  The claims of an ounce a day or even an ounce a week should have been the giveaway, who would sell a claim like that for 12k?  Poor guys seem like they were taken for a ride.

 

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39 minutes ago, Condor said:

Perhaps the seller came in and tell his version of events.  Unlikely.

Very unlikely. This is the kind of thing I would expect of a sleazy used car dealer, 
not a metal detector dealer. I hate this kind of naked dishonesty, especially with people who are newbies.

I have to say Condor, you go up a notch in my book with every post you put up.

 

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Well, no claim is valid until a discovery has been made on it (43 CFR 3832.11 part b) - and there is clear precedent showing that a discovery must be of economic (ie commercial scale) significance. There is a large body of precedent from federal courts detailing exactly what it must consist of (and almost no recreational/club claims I've seen would qualify), but I'm not going to get into the weeds on it. Still, one might find it interesting to ask the seller where exactly his discovery was, and what it consisted of, just out of curiosity.

One might also read the entire body of current mining code (it's not that bad, I've done it) and maybe look into laws surrounding contracts too, and in there they might conceivably find a number of other items that could be helpful in a range of hypothetical actions, like civil litigation. This is not legal advice though, I'm just saying these things are potential things that might occur to a scam victim in such a situation.

That said - and I'm not trying to be unfeeling here, there is no sugarcoated way to say this though -  I highly doubt 2 guys with a Deus 1, who have no clue what a mining claim is, are unfamiliar with mining law, and apparantly don't even know how to mine or prospect would be found by the BLM to be holding and using a mining claim in a commercially economic manner nor could they prove to the BLM that the claim possessed commercially economic levels of resources, in which case their mining claim should be devalidated anyways. Mining claims are not intended for recreation, vacations, or recreational clubs and while I feel bad for the scam victims and despise the scammers, people need to stop dropping $12k on things they've done zero research on because they feed the fire, and that fire is making actual prospecting as it is intended by law more difficult every year.

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Gotta say you're a really nice person to do that. 👍

I recently had someone approach me on on one of my permissions. He was nice enough but wanted to know what I was finding (I had just hit the motherlode of old buttons) and who owned the land. I told him straight up that any detectorist would be reluctant to give him that sort of info. I think he got the point.

I changed the subject and talked about detectors with him for a while and never gave him any clues, as I knew I would find him there another day if I did. I did tell him that he should not be on any property without permission.

I shouldn't be making your virtuous post into a cautionary tale, but hopefully they won't go to your claim someday without your knowledge. 🙂 For me the problem with people is people. 😀

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Jasong,

Thanks for the legal info, I will delve into that myself.  I am a retired federal prison sentence salesman (federal investigator) so I am accustomed to the intricacies of law and legal precedent.

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10 hours ago, jasong said:

Well, no claim is valid until a discovery has been made on it (43 CFR 3832.11 part b) -

This is one of those times that I wish that instead of a like button there was a special button that turned on flashing colored lights and played audio of a rousing John Phillips Sousa march. That might spare all of you from having to endure one of my rants and save Mr. H. from setting off my shock collar.

Thanks J.  I couldn't have stated it better.

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There have been some 'paper' flippers using the Rye Patch name and reputation for finding gold for a few years now.  They have made much, much more money flipping claims than finding any gold themselves.  To hear your description of weekly and perhaps daily gold find expectations told to expectant buyers smacks of fraud more than hype.  To have a claim 'near' a gold producing area is not the same as having a producing claim.  Of course an uninformed buyer or 'newbie' as Condor has described would not know how to prove the claims.

Let all buyers be ware that they should 'prove the claims (not just the paperwork filings)' of the seller before parting with your money.  We should name names and put good and bad reputations on display for what they sell.  We don't want people to be 'oversold' or cheated just because the word gold is involved.

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