Beware of con men coining it

I WOULD like to warn Port Alfred residents of two con men who go door to door offering to buy old coins and jewellery.

We were hoodwinked by these two last Saturday. They came to our guesthouse, one doing all the talking and the other sitting in the car. They parked out of view so we didn’t get a clear view of the car.

My husband has old coins that he would like to sell, so there was an interest for us, by happenstance. The man bought some of my old jewellery and said he would return the following day to purchase more jewellery he was interested in, as well as the coins, which he said were very valuable.

He returned the next day with a cake and seemed very friendly. He was very persuasive and asked my husband to clean his coins so he could better evaluate them.

Then the man asked me if I had a gold necklace and said he had a procedure involving two plastic containers and a blue gel which could make silver look gold.

I obliged because I wanted to be friendly, but I must admit I was anxious about my gold necklace.

So he put two silver necklaces in the one container with the substance and the gold one with diamonds in the other one, with a pipe between them.

While distracting me asking for coffee and earbuds and cotton wool, he said it would take 20 minutes for the process to work.

While I was in the kitchen making coffee, he also asked for coffee for his driver and then said he had to fetch something from his car. At that point, I ran to the containers and my gold necklace and the car was gone.

The con man who did all the talking, has a very distinguishing feature – he has four gold-plated front teeth.

I have opened a case at the police station.