Characteristics of penny gold mining scams:
1. They continually say their property is adjacent to some past producer. Nearly every scam I've encountered says this. Sometimes they're right next door and in other cases they're many miles away. Doesn't matter--it's a big red flag.
I believe they are next to current producers.
2. The company was formerly in a completely different business.
Superior Oil and Gas has been here a while, they had other businesses but have always been in the oil business, this company was not started by Dan Jr.
3. Reverse split history followed by company printing--for themselves--to pay debt.
I’m not stock saavy but where does this apply?
4. Little or no cash in the bank, but plenty of debt on the books.
How do you know they have debt, maybe cash flow there are no filings, as if those really matter.
5. Dilution, dilution and more dilution.
No evidence of this at this time.
6. Outrageous, fantastic $$$ promises of resources and production....always unverifiable.
No outrageous claims have been made by SIOR, they don’t share info, just yet but have made no such claim.
7. Claims that they will be 'bought out' by majors. All explorers heavily tout this.
I have not seen this claim either, it does not say that in any information put out by the company.
8. Claims of ridiculously huge financing packages that are not verifiable.
Have not heard about this yet either, there are no filings.
9. Claims of unusual and proprietary methods of finding gold. Yeah. Right. Some podunk pink has a new technology or approach to find gold that the majors haven't figured out.
Horizontal drilling is not an unusual proprietary method, the big boys are using it.
10. Laying down a grid and doing a grab sample. The cheapest way to collect material for assays. They're almost always a bust, but heavily PRd. Real miners drill. They don't just pick up surface rocks.
Have not heard about this with SIOR either.
11. Drilling, but drilling is slow and stretched out over many months or even years. String investors along and keep them waiting while they dump shares. Real miners use many drills and make 100s of holes for the assay report. They're on the case if they have gold.
This stuff takes time, they have only said they will drill, I think Geo was correct, they changed course for the better a few months back. That takes time.
12. JVs with other loser mining companies with similar low balance sheets and heavy debt. Always heavily touted with fluff PR, these relationships go nowhere.
Nothing says they will have a JV from the company. No PR so no fluff can’t be heavily touted.
13. Frequent LOIs and claims of acquisitions that go nowhere. Skipping from lease to lease.
Very infrequent claims and no one so far has shown that they are untrue, I know t this kind of info can be researched in the public records if one knows where to look.
14. Leasing a small amount of worthless moose pasture many miles from roads or electricity and then touting it as having endless possibilities. Just because the property is hard to get to doesn't mean it's more valuable. It means it's less valuable because it's more expensive to develop!
No evidence of this that has been shown
15. No QP on staff and, in fact, many times the CEO has little or no mining experience. They depend on contractors...usually paid for by stock that gets promptly dumped.
CEO grew up in the oil business, it would be very hard not to if your father is doing it, that area is nothing but oil. (sorry I do not know what QP stands for)
16. Gimmicks such as stock dividends--because they want to 'reward' loyal bag, er..stockholders. Nothing is ever free and these crooks are there to steal YOUR money--not give you theirs. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
No stock dividends or splits that I have heard of with SIOR
17. Using touts of world events such as 'central banks are buying gold,' or gold prices will continue to rise exponentially! None of this matters since these companies have little or no gold in the ground and will never produce a single ounce. They sometimes name big institutions or organizations to trump themselves up even though they have nothing to do with them. (Name dropping).
Just some informational videos and conferences for what is going on the area.
18. Including other precious metals into the mix--especially the platinum group metals. These metals are very rare and if a pink mentions they have them with gold...be very suspicious. This goes for diamonds as well.
Oil and Gas.
19. Gold miners that claim massive 'rivers of gold,' but continually run into problems getting it. I'm talking about placer gold here. Lode gold requires a lot more equipment and is vastly more expensive.
Have not started that we know of so no problems getting it so far.
20. Cheap-looking, generic websites with stock photography showing lode mining, miners with helmets, giant trucks, strip mining, crushers, flotation, concentrators, etc--even though the company is exploring and not mining. They are counting those who know nothing about gold to buy their freshly-printed shares.
Lots of folks no about oil and gas, nice website, pictures of their wells. Can check with the Oklahoma Commission for that.
21. Taking advantage of gold fever and economic headlines: Claims their stock will rise as gold rises--scaring you with inflation and economic meltdown while also hinting that their stock will rise faster because it's cheap. Again, many of these pink sheets won't rise at all because they're printing and not mining.
No claims of rising stock prices by the company.
22. Any penny gold miner in an obscure location on the other side of the word should be given extra-careful consideration. Especially those in Africa. They can make any sort of BS up and it's even more difficult to verify. Any property in Canada should be carefully considered. The land mass is huge and there are endless claims--and a lot of the gold on those claims is weak.
In the heart of the Mississippi Lime, not a remote island. Can be verified by county records, OCC, lots of places.
23. Penny gold miners are known to be the most prolific in terms of scams because the crooks know people are easily dazzled by the yellow metal. Gold appeals to investors' greed more than any other commodity or industry. This is why scams are most prevalent with penny gold miners.
Does not seem to apply here,
24. Penny touts or stock gurus pushing the stock. These people aren't doing you a favor by sending you an exciting email with exclamation points and ALL CAPS. They're not your friends and you aren't getting some sort of 'privileged' information. Whether paid or unpaid by the company, these outfits are ALWAYS and I do mean ALWAYS wanting people to buy so they can sell. That money is for THEM. They want YOU to cough it up to them.
SIOR does not do this that I have seen, never got one of those emails.
25. "Management" consists of the CEO. Often with no photo or little information about it. Instead you get copious talk about the 'team' or qualified people or backers that go unnamed. RUN when you see this on websites. They don't want to be named because they know it's a scam.
All members of the team are named, they do not hide.
26. Using padding such as unnecessary glossaries on the site--showing mining terms and definitions. This filler is designed to make themselves sound like they're actually doing what the glossary lists. Nope--just another red flag.
I like to know what I am looking at, this is helpful information in the educational section, I learned alot and sounds like that is what they will be doing.
27. History of broken deals, unexplained losses of property and dead ends. They swing from PR vine to vine and leave shareholders hanging from them.
No swinging vines, no PR.
28. HUGE OS/AS that is ignored while a 'low float' is touted. Those low floats NEVER stay low for long!
Not so huge,
29. Touters who want you to have 'strong hands' and buy 'cheapies' as the company dilutes. They always get cheaper as the share price often plummets to no bid/.0001. The best thing you can do is get out right away if the stock behaves suspiciously.
No evidence of dilution
30. Persistent claims that the company would do great if it weren't attacked by shorts--naked and otherwise. Also, if you read about an impending 'short squeeze,' it's almost always a red flag.
What company would’nt
31. Charts show a story of pump and dumps.
Can’t comment here, don’t watch em
32. Property is on untenable land that can't be developed due to environmental concerns and red tape.
We don’t know where the property is,m there are no PR’s so Does not apply
33. Salting. This is criminal and geologists will rarely do it, but it happened in the BRE-X case.
DNA
34. Buying an old, worn-out mine and touting that it will spring to life with higher prices. Wrong. It often takes countless millions to bring such a mine up to MISHA and EPA standards. The mines were abandoned because the cupboards were bare. These mines are often flooded. They were abandoned for good reasons besides low gold prices.
Drilling sideways from an existing hole, not the same.
35. Cheap spectrographic machinery and magnetic flyovers and other such gimmicks. The only way to really determine if an ore body there is drilling and assaying.
Drilling in known oil fields where proven oil deposits are in the shale/lime
36. No reply with email or phone call. The home office might be a PO Box or some home residence...or generic office shared by other scams.
SIOR talks to some people.
37. Many changes of management/CEOs, but the game plan is always the same. Fluff news then print!
Management passed on, needed new management to replace them.
FINRA’s Investor Alert cautions investors to be on the lookout for any pitch for a gold investment that:
Are there FINRA alerts?
Claims to tie stock performance to the general rise in gold prices – a rise in gold prices does not guarantee a rise in the price of a gold company’s stock;
Uses scare tactics such as the threat of inflation or an economic meltdown;
Makes speculative claims based on a new reserve’s proximity to an existing reserve; or
SIOR does not talk about their stock performance, they have made no speculative claims. No PR
Centers on a company that has changed its name or trading symbol to align it more closely with gold – for example, one company that currently purports to engage in gold mining was originally incorporated to provide golfing opportunities on private courses to nonmembers.
Have always kept the same name once they became SIOR.
