Two Capetonians who thought it safe to buy Krugerrands on installment have not received the coins or their money back.
|||Cape Town - Donovan Barnes and fellow Capetonian Vera Hougaard thought gold was a safe bet when they invested their money with Investments for Life, a company specialising in gold and precious metals.
The company promised safe returns in an uncertain investment climate by letting its clients pay for Krugerrands in monthly instalments.
But Barnes and Hougaard say they have not received their coins and have not been able to contact the company’s owner, Matthys van Tonder, since the middle of last year.
Barnes, 46, from Table View, said he had invested in five Krugerrands from Investments for Life in 2008. “The coins were a fair price,” he said. He paid R66 060 in
36 instalments of R2 185, and a final instalment of R1 825.
In March last year, when the time neared for the coins to be delivered, Van Tonder, who Barnes said by then had proved difficult to get hold of, became even more elusive. On March 12, Van Tonder e-mailed Barnes to say he was in Zimbabwe conducting important gold and diamond deals.
“You will receive your 5 x Krugerrand coins during this month,” he wrote. Van Tonder also wrote that Telkom was to blame for clients not being able to contact his offices by phone.
Two weeks after Van Tonder e-mailed him, Barnes said, his calls to the offices remained unanswered. Van Tonder tried to put him at ease and again spoke of important business deals involving gold and diamonds.
But as Barnes persisted, Van Tonder promised to fly back to South Africa with his business partner and deliver the coins personally. He did not arrive and weeks later said he was still in Zimbabwe.
“If we do not finalise the diamond transaction within the next week my buyers will lose $39 500 000 in revenue,” wrote Van Tonder. “I will be back next week whereby we can have a nice warm cappuccino and me handing you your coins.” Van Tonder’s last e-mail, sent in July, purportedly from Zimbabwe, ended with: “You have my word that you will get your coins.”
Barnes opened a case at the Milnerton police station.
“I don’t think it was a scam from the start,” said Barnes.
“But I think he might have started purchasing the coins once the money came in. Then suddenly people wanted their coins and he couldn’t pay.”
Hougaard, 31, from Tokai and a project assistant at an engineering firm, said she had started paying off her Krugerrand from Van Tonder in 2008, at R160 a month.
Like Barnes, she hadn’t heard from Van Tonder since the second half of last year.
When the Cape Times visited the company’s office in Kloof Nek Road, it had been taken over by another firm. The new occupants say they find surprised clients of Investments for Life asking for Van Tonder.
The Cape Times’s attempts to contact Van Tonder were unsuccessful.
Police spokesman Andrè Traut said the case against Van Tonder had been referred to the senior state prosecutor at the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court in October.
jan.cronje@inl.co.za
Cape Times