I still want to see someone try to deliver a super tanker of crude to an investment house just because someone screwed up a contract. This is a close second. heh....

Is this real, with names changed to protect the guilty?

ZAZ: Is this real, with names changed to protect the guilty?

Who knows, but God I hope so!

NewportBarGuy

Like you, I want to believe.

This story is completely bogus.

1) The address of the company is "Pier 53"? Not likely. When I worked in Alameda in an old building that used to be a pier, it still had a street address. Does everybody in the building in the story take a water-taxi to work?

Even if the address were not an issue...

2) Futures in the US are delivered at specific times, in specified quantities at specified warehouses. They are *not* delivered to business addresses. That's actually one of the features of the futures market.

Even if they did deliver physical commodities, it wouldn't be to this guy...

3) Futures markets have three players: producers, consumers and speculators. Producer and consumers are distinctly different from speculators. Speculator accounts are very clearly identified and *never* take physical delivery. (This can be overcome, and has recently been done quote a bit with commodities like gold).

In short, while it's a cute story, it's BS.

Rustico

I know of a company that used to advertise its address as "on the airport", Danbury, Connecticut. It's at least plausible that a company could use a pier number.

But I won't argue with your conclusion.

I used to work near a coal storage pit and used to poke around in there for fossils all the time. I used to sell 'em to tourists for a ton of money. I remember once though, there was this tour group from Brazil and they were all annoying as shiat. Seriously, they were all about banging on drums and pissing on the sidewalk, and I swear to God that I saw one taking a grumpy in a big planter. I yelled at him to fark off and go back to Brazil, but he didn't understand me because he didn't speak English. I rounded up a few of the boys and we hijacked their bus and forced them to eat a ton of whole-wheat spaghetti, then we buried the bus and I don't know if they ever made it out, but I guaranteed they started to care where they where taking a dump after that. I think they were from Brazil. Koreans don't beat on drums do they?

Well, this time of year there's always the Christmas novelty market....

Some people are getting coal in their stockings this year.

I'm calling shenanigans. a GIS for Æxecor reveals only links to different sites carrying this story.

oops. i meant a regular Google search.

cmunic8r99: I'm calling shenanigans. a GIS for Æxecor reveals only links to different sites carrying this story.

I think I saw this a few months back. Not entirely sure. It's written too perfectly to be true. But I want to believe.

ZAZ: It's at least plausible that a company could use a pier number.

Fair enough.

Rusty Shackleford: Coal porter.

Outstanding.

... he's a coal-hearted snake?

Rustico: Even if they did deliver physical commodities, it wouldn't be to this guy...

when you trade commodities through a trading house, you never actually own the contract, they do, and just give you the money when it's sold.

If you actually do buy the contract, then yes, they'll deliver it to you when it comes due.

I bought cardboard when it was 2 cents a ton,and its up to 3 cents now! And I bought 3 tons of it so........,well you figure the math. And I made a special deal so that I only have to store half of it at my house.

Treygreen13: I bought cardboard when it was 2 cents a ton,and its up to 3 cents now!

Hey, it's a better investment than gold right now!

Buy a couple tons of cardboard today, buy a tropical island tomorrow.

gorgor: Solution
http://tinyurl.com/yh7wupz
(copy and paste, NSFW)

What a ridiculous pic.

If you're going to make gem quality diamonds out of raw carbon, you're going to need a much bigger pooper.

Ivo Shandor: Not a problem.

Step 1 - dump all of the coal to the bottom of the river.
Step 2 - sell Offset Certificates for the carbon that he has just sequestered.
Step 3 - profit.

Step 4 - Get fined tens of thousands of dollars per day plus interest by every state and Federal environmental regulatory agency ever created, as well as getting stuck for the cost of the clean-up.

rmz: The Daily WTF almost always anonymizes their submitted stories by changing company names, employee names, locations, and (when not relevant) the industry sector involved. I'm not saying the story is true (or fake), but Googling for the names you see in the story will not get you anywhere.

Indeed. I'm pretty sure there isn't a WTFSE anywhere on the planet. :-/

A google search for mistaken coal deliveries doesn't turn up any news, so unless that detail has also been changed, it's probably fake.