Amber Gold and other Poland's suspicious institutions

I hope none of PF posters invested his/her funds in Amber Gold.

Clients of the troubled parabank Amber Gold have not yet been able to start withdrawing their deposits, as they had been told they could from today, reported TVN24. In one Warsaw branch clients were told they would have to wait several days for their money and will lose up to 35 percent of the value of their deposits.

Amber Gold stopped paying out money on August 3 after the firm's clients had effectively made a run on their accounts, following media speculation that the company was running out of money.

The speculation began when OLT Express, a firm owned by Amber Gold, began suspending flights due to lack of funds - it filed for bankruptcy last week. The scrutiny intensified after Polish media reported that Marcin Plichta, the owner of Amber Gold, had previously been convicted of fraud.

biznes.onet.pl/amber-gold-zabiera-klientom-prawie-polowe-ich-pien,18543,5211095,1,news-detal
wbj.pl/article-60015-amber-gold-president-pledges-to-repay-clients-blames-govt-conspiracy.html
magielfinansowy.nowyekran.pl/post/70440,zlociutki-cos-tu-smierdzi

Enraged clients accuse the Polish authorities of having ignored the parabank`s suspicious activities. But the warnings have been available for everybody to read on Financial Supervision Commission`s site for over 2 years.

Come on, guys, the state isn`t able to think for every citizen.

Pawian - can you explain something to me?

Why didn't the relevant authorities stop them much earlier?

Cracking news for me: I bet a mate double the return Amber Gold offered him that he'd get bugger all from them.

But really, 13% guaranteed, seriously?

Yes, of course.


Can I answer your question with another question, like a decent Jew? :):):):):):):):)

Why didn`t the relevant American authorities stop Bernard Madoff from robbing his clients of 50 billion $ much earlier???? :):):):)


online.wsj.com/article/SB122903010173099377.html

I can't understand why so-called intelligent adults did not want to listen when everyone told them that this is a scam and put their life savings into this pyramid scheme.

Anyone offering 3 times the current savings rate should be under suspicion.
But now, it's all - "help me, I've lost my money. It's the Government's fault, that I was fooled"...No, it's your own fault for being greedy.

Every adult (over 18) should be responsible for their own decisions.
Some like me take 4% and are glad, others want 13% and think they are clever...

As Judge Judy would say: "If it looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck...then it's a duck". Some things are too good to be true.

I can sign with my both hands under it. :):):)

I just had a look at their website, which is still active.. They are offering 10% return on deposits, and up to 16,5% if you make a 5 year deposit. How can anyone be so gullible as to believe such crap is just beyond me..

It is allegedly based on the price of gold.

There were two or three frauds like this in Poland.

They happen in every country from time to time.

People are hopelessly gullible.

Well, be I'd be interested to hear the detailed explanation. I doubt whether it would make any sense at all

You can only con greedy people.

In short, they buy gold when it is cheap and sell when the price rises. Sort of, playing the market. Currently, this Plichta guy claims they have 100 kg of gold which they are going to sell.

Bullfrog, just google 'pyramid scheme'.

As I said, it doesn't make any sense. If that's the case, they link their promise of high returns to the fact that they make money playing the gold market, which is just anything but a guarantee..

I think the issue is more complicated. Not knowing the Madoff case in much detail, I may suspect he may have acted within the "private fund" category on which the American SEC should not have the power to impose regulations (or should it?, please correct me if I'm wrong). If that is true, the case with Amber Gold is different; the company acted by addressing its offer to the general public, so it should have been subjected to regulation and control. And in fact, the Polish SEC, the KNF (Komisja Nadzoru Finansowego) was alarming prosecutors as long as two years ago, but these people did nothing, although they were entitled and obliged to. The explanation for it at the moment is that they were not knowlegable and competent enough. All this is extremely deplorable and disgusting, as we may ask: what do we need all these State regulations and banking licences for, if it is so easy to operate without them on the market to fool people who have every right to trust the government that it stops a fraudulous enterprise which advertises regularly and openly to the genaral public?

OK, but they had several forewarning from Markopolos including the now famous 18 page report which he handed to them in 2005 describing in details Madoff's fraud. No action was taken

BTW, when in Gdańsk, we walked past Amber Gold headquarters. I knew nothing about it then, but I liked the contrast it created with the buildings in the background.

3 architectonic periods in one line

greed and ego are indeed character flaws.

The first deal my husband did after we moved here (commercial real estate) was will a Polish investors group/ stock market trader. They took loads of space at prime and they fitted it out in over priced finishings in a style of feng shui. Needless to say- these guys lived large. In your face, obnoxious- former blokersi with money, arrogant pigs. Anyway- about nine months after they moved in they all got arrested for insider trading and laundering. It was quite the scene having the police to come during office hours to take all these men away and they are all still serving time.

The unfortunate thing is that loads of people lost their life savings- which is indeed what has happened with Amber Gold. That guy needs a public flogging.

Like in Pakistan?



I agree. :):):):)

It would be fun.

Ha!, I saw an ad on jubilat in Krakow (not in the link) offering 13% return Amber gold ads in Krakow.
city.com.pl/pl/aktualnosci/grudzien-2011/gora-zlota

I thought this is too good to be true.

Not is but was. :):):) After all ,we are talking about sth which doesn`t pertain to reality anymore. :):):):):)


There is one in your link. :):):
I have this photo somewhere in my collection of Krakow ads.
1 minute search and here you are. Shyt, it is quite recent one.
Funny, they wrote: We guarantee the safety of your savings......... :):):):):)

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Indeed. My feeling is that this could be one scandal that really does hurt the current Government - especially if people end up losing money as a result.

There's a huge, huge advertisement in Poznan for Amber Gold. Anyone with half a brain would see the 13% returns advertised and run a mile - especially when you can take a loan for as little as 11%.


Doesn't surprise me in the slightest, and that boss of Amber Gold looks to be exactly the same.

Unfortunately, mostly elderly people have fallen for it. They were brought up in the old system and still haven`t grasped certain things.

I never thought of that, actually - I imagined idiots in their 30's falling for it!

Pawian, being a man of history - do you know if there was ever a high profile case like this in the past, where a "bank" had acted like this?

When I watch TV reports on it, they show only pensioners.


Yes, I mentioned it


Check Grobelny parabank fraud in early 1990s:
Sorry, only in Polish:
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bezpieczna_Kasa_Oszcz%C4%99dno%C5%9Bci

Is that the guy dangling the bit of paper at the top of the thread? I wandered who we was. He does look like someone who escaped from the Grom ou the Mafia and just jumped into a suit..

Easy for us to feel smug but how many folk here have got Swiss Frank mortgages based on the promises of lower interest rates. It's equally barmy, affects millions, the losses are far more than most of amber golds pensioners have and and I'm surprised at the number of qualified people, even accountants and bankers that went for it.

Somebody recently described the phenomena of people Poland getting mortgages in a currency other than the one they earn as a case of collective insanity. I know a few people who are in serious trouble because of this. Worth mentioning that most of them have mortgages on more than one flat. They were speculating and obviously greed played its part.

I could never understand that as well. My mortgage is in PLN - it just doesn't make sense to borrow in a different currency when you have no real idea of how it could go, especially with a very young currency like the PLN.

Its a shame that these people were not offered "Tracker mortgages"at the time (2007-2008), they would not have had any problems until now.

That needs a bit of correction, however. Swiss frank mortgages have had substantially lower interest rates than mortgages in Polish zloty all that time. The problem begun some time ago when there was a run on the Swiss Frank and as a result it rose sharply against all other curriencies, including the euro and the dollar. As we know, the Swiss central bank then put a curb on the value of its currency and - until today - has succesfuly managed to keep it under control. As a result, things have returned more or less to normal for Polish Swiss franc mortgage owners.


If you look at the statistics, you will see that there are much less Swiss frank or Euro mortgages in trouble as compared to those in Polish zloty .


That is indeed a kind of long-term speculation (I would even call it an investment as it is hard to imagine a person would be borrowing money in zloties to buy themselves several mortgages in Swiss franc) and cannot be compared with the financial position of someone who buys himself a house or a flat. The problem now is that banks demand of many (not all) of the Swiss franc mortgage owners to repay some of the debt or buy an additional insurance even if they pay regularly to the bank since the value of their house or flat has gone down and does not cover the value of their mortgage.