Scammer Alert! Jimmy “Thong” Tran

bumping to add this.

Recently Jimmy got a few more people in Vegas for loans. He also asked multiple plo players in Vegas for loans in the last few weeks who fortunately told him no.

2 weeks or so he cashed for 27k in some Wynn tournament. Naturally he didn't pay anyone back anything.
The day after this cash a guy who final tabled the same event was screaming at Jimmy in the poker room saying at the final table they agreed to swap 5 percent. This guy cashed for about 9k so he said Jimmy owed him about 900 dollars (5 percent of the 18k difference.) I've never seen this guy in my life but I 100 percent believe him.

suckers keep giving out unsecured loans and the degens keep vacuuming them up, such is life.

I played with this guy in tournaments around L.A. many times in years gone by. Being as I'm bald, I always admired his hairdo. I would have given him 2K for a transplant! 😀

ya Im out $4k this year from doing this w my poker friends :/

my own son asked for a $10k 'loan'. Told him I needed collateral AND I made him sign a promissory note, so now I'm sitting on 400 ozs of silver rounds, spot price went up $2 this week so I've already made $800 in juice on top of the $500 I charged him in interest. That's how you 'loan' money.

The poker world in general is bizarre.

Tell anyone outside of that world "loan me money so I can gamble" and you'll be laughed out of the room.

A friend of mine got charged interest by his parents on a loan he got from them after college. Years later he didn't let them see their newborn grandchild before they paid him back that interest plus interest.

This isn't the humble brag you think it is. I agreed with everything up until 'I've already made....'. Taking collateral and signing a promissory note in which you assign an interest rate and payment structure is perfectly fine and a good lesson in responsibility for your son. But to make make money on the collateral you are holding is going too far and just weird imo. That is not how a loan and collateral work. The collateral you hold is not your asset unless he defaults on his payments. You don't get to keep the difference in value once it is returned to him. Are you going to also pay him money for the difference in the lower value if it depreciates while in your possession too?

You are correct. If he pays me back within a year he gets the collateral back. I had to pay 12% income tax to take the money out of my IRA, but am only charging him $500 simple interest, and if he pays me back right away I'll probably wave that. So I am losing a bit on the deal, but he is my son. If he goes past the year we agreed upon, I keep the silver.

What a scumbag your friend is.

You're a tosser mate. Jog on you flog.

You had to raid your IRA to come up with 10 grand? Baller lol.

More questions than answers here

I've played wit Jimmy a bunch at Bellagio and we became somewhat friendly. Would also see him when I played tournies. One time at Venetian he asked me to borrow ~3k to rebuy in the tourney, he gave me some story and said he'd get me back within few weeks. At the time i had just done OK in a tourney and thought he was good for it. I lent it to him. It took him few years to totally squash the debt. But to his credit he did squash it entirely. It was generally few hundred at a time and I had to continually check in with him and ask for it. Also to his credit he did always respond to my texts and like I said he did eventually pay it all off. After I finally got paid back I wouldn't loan him anymore that's for sure. I think he's a good dude but yeah, I wouldn't loan him. But if you did then just keep messaging him every few weeks and in my experience he will pay it all back. Just very slowly and painfully.

i can only speak to my brief interaction with jimmy..

he also after playing with me for a few years eventually asked me for a buyin after busting a tournament and wanting to reenter. As I had seen him many times and playing buyins appropirate to pay back this amount, I lent it to him. think it was around 1200 or so. to his credit he did give me his real phone number.

Cliffs:

I got paid back like a month later, but i had to hunt him down a bit. I am also very direct when I am collecting a debt and often press ppl giving them a hard deadline before I report the debt to the community. I think this also helps in the speed at which I got paid. also we where playing in same tournaments in same rooms that month so was hard to avoid me. first few times i messaged him he was out of town or had a reason why he wasn't around.

cant speak to anything else but believe lilys account of everything.

Why aren’t you maxing your Roth IRA?

I'm retired (pensioner for you subjects that can't own a firearm) and live off my investments and social security, maybe I should move some to a Roth but still have to pay taxes when I transfer. On a conservative course but still made 18% last year on my IRA. Did find a natural gas ETF paying a 8% dividend so put some in that.

I don't keep too much in cash due to the current high inflation, Warren Buffet said the worst place to have money in these times is cash, and he is smarter than me.

The point of all this has been repeated many times, as stated above, unsecured loans to people who want it to gamble is foolish. Jimmy T. is a perfect example as this thread illustrates. After a lifetime of friends and family hitting me up for money I have to take a hard line, my money (about $2 mil) has to last for the rest of my life.

If that makes me a jerk then so be it.

Saw him last night playing $1/$2 plo at Encore

Not to mention being in a 12% marginal tax bracket, lol.

Wouldn't be friends with someone like this