Essex County Man Sues PNC Bank After $390,000 Gold Coin Scam

Jeffrey Maas thought he was fixing a billing error. Instead, the 76-year-old Essex County retiree spent two days purchasing $390,000 in gold coins and handing them to couriers working for scammers who had convinced him that a large sum had been mistakenly deposited into his account. On March 11, Maas filed a civil complaint in Essex County Superior Court naming PNC Financial Services Group, Clifton-based American Coin & Stamp Co., Inc., and Jaynesh Patel, who has been arrested in connection with the scheme.

The fraud began with a phony email alerting Maas to a charge of $691.85 for "Norton Antivirus." He called the number in the email and connected with scammers who posed as PayPal and PNC Bank representatives. They persuaded him to wire funds from his bank account to American Coin & Stamp, purchase gold, and surrender the coins to couriers they sent to collect them. Maas has said the theft represented half of his life savings.

The complaint, filed by Pollock Cohen LLP, argues that both the bank and the dealer had ample opportunity to stop the transaction and failed to act. PNC employees, the lawsuit contends, should have flagged two large and unusual wire transfers made on consecutive days. More strikingly, the complaint alleges that Maas was on his cellphone with the scammers while standing inside the bank arranging the transfers, a detail that, according to the lawsuit, should have prompted immediate intervention.

American Coin & Stamp, the Clifton precious-metals dealer that processed the sales, faces parallel allegations. The complaint accuses the company of selling $390,000 worth of gold over two days without asking a single relevant question, despite Maas's age, the size and frequency of the purchases, and the open phone line between Maas and his fraudsters during the transactions.

"These scams do not happen in a vacuum," said Steve Cohen, a partner at Pollock Cohen LLP representing Maas. "They depend on trusted institutions to ignore obvious red flags. Banks and precious-metal dealers are legally required to help detect and prevent this kind of elder financial exploitation. Their failure to abide by New Jersey's elder protection laws and the federal government's guidelines enables scams like this. Criminals may be driving these scams, but lazy, negligent companies willing to look the other way make them possible."

Pollock Cohen managing partner Adam Pollock and Cohen are leading the case. Neither PNC nor American Coin & Stamp has issued a public statement in response to the suit. Jaynesh Patel, the individual defendant named alongside the two companies, was arrested in connection with the scam; the specific charges and arrest date have not been disclosed in publicly available records.

The "phantom hacker/courier" scheme Maas encountered is a recognized pattern in elder financial fraud: fabricated tech-support or banking alerts create urgency, impersonation of trusted institutions provides false authority, and gold serves as the preferred instrument precisely because physical coins, once handed to a courier, leave almost no recovery path.