If you buy from someone they keep a record of the purchase. If you are buying over time that means there could be Tens of thousands of dollars of purchases tied to your address. If an online PM dealer is hacked then it would seem like the thief would have a treasure map that leads to the pot at the end of the rainbow. The volume that an online PM company does allows for lower premiums and cheap shipping but should I find a local coin shop and pay in cash?
I'am personally own a shop and i believe the best plan of attack is to have a few options to compare prices and quality and then go from there i fear people don't shop around enough! different sellers sell different things undervalue so if you shop around allows the best chance to find deals!
Main reason why I have fake silver all over my room. Now people assume all the REAL silver they see line up beautifully on my desk are fake as well. Playing mind game with them.
I wish it were so, but we lost that battle decades ago. The term "hacker" is lost to the dark side for good.
Well you can say this about any online retailer such as Amazon for example. Granted what you buy on Amazon may not be worth as much as the bullion you're buying but if you're buying electronic equipment that could be worth a bit of money. Unless I start reading about robberies, where people were targeted because someone "hacked" the online retailer, I'm not going to worry to much about that type of crime.
I think this sounds a bit far fetched, but anything is possible. Lets entertain a more likely scenario. You buy some bullion at a coin shop (usually they are in shady areas). Someone watches you make the purchase and follows your car, or takes down your license plate and looks you up only to rob you later. There is no 100% guaranteed safe way to purchase coins, at some point you have to take a small risk.
Nobody is going to do that. Hackers usually are involved in some type of fraud. Where you really need to he careful is if someone follows you home from your local coin/bullion store
Criminals are usually after a quick gain. The searching of the license plate is very unlikely. They'll just follow you home and rob you. Or they'll follow you home and stand by in your neighborhood until you leave again and break in your house while you're gone
I would be less concerned about hackers, who are much more interested in identity theft or taking over your personal computer, than I would be about the government subpoena'ing their customer records (no warrant needed) to see who they might want to target for a potential confiscation. The definition of hacking is the search for knowledge. It is not in and of itself a bad thing. That's why there are white hats, grey hats, and black hats. If not for the good guy hackers the bad guy hackers would run amuck. Hacking is demonized unfairly. Cracking on the other hand is breaking into something, and hard to condone in any light.
