Friday, March 25, 2011

Beware These Gold/Silver Sellers!

In every reputable industry you invariably have a few bad eggs salted in with the honorable sellers. The precious metals industry is certainly no exception to this unfortunate rule. The following companies have raised flags with consumers who found their business practices less than satisfactory.

Monex Deposit Company http://www.monex.com/
Currently rates a D- with the BBB. Monex will offer to hold silver for you, or offer you leveraged accounts. I strongly advise against that. Their BBB report quotes the following:
"Complainants allege that they purchased precious metals based on advice and coaching from account representatives and as a result, they incurred substantial financial losses. A few clients complained that account representatives did not follow their instructions in applying funds for investment or that they failed to keep them informed, and as a result, they suffered losses they would not have incurred had their instructions been followed. The company responds to some complaints by disputing the allegations and stating that the investments are self-directed and they are not responsible for losses, denying requests for refunds or monetary compensation. In one case a partial refund was issued, but was conditional upon signing a release waiver composed by the company. "
Northwest Territorial Mint www.nwtmint.com

NWT Mint comes in with a C rating with the BBB. The primary complaints here lie in the long wait times (up to 6 months) for delivery of gold and silver bullion purchased from this company.

Goldline International www.goldline.com

Goldline rates an A+ rating with the BBB...which I find more than a little SUSPICIOUS. The last time I wrote about this company was in November 2010, when they had just moved up from an F to a D-. Rumors about buying a BBB rating have been kicked around, but who knows. Maybe they suddenly got religion...maybe not.

At any rate Congressional investigations were launched last year in response to a variety of predatory selling practices. One of their reputed favorite selling routines was to talk investors interested in buying gold or silver bullion coins into purchasing foreign numismatic collector gold coins with higher profit margins.

Check out these two links for other articles I've written about Goldline:
http://survivalus.blogspot.com/2010/07/goldline-international-scam.html
http://survivalus.blogspot.com/2010/11/goldline-scam-swiss-gold_30.html

Kitco www.kitco.com

Kitco has NO RATING with the BBB as their rating is "under review", whatever that means. My biggest problems with this company are their pool accounts, unknown delivery times for silver, and unknown and backlogged payment if you sold silver to them.

With Kitco Pool accounts your purchased silver and gold remains in their unallocated pool of precious metals. You get a statement for your gold or silver, and bills for trading fees. On the positive side, I guess, you get to easily sell and buy by punching a few keys on your computer.

I'm sorry, but any trust I had in my fellow man died with Enron and the Bernie Madoff scams. What's to stop a company like Kitco from preserving only a fractional supply of actual bullion, while reaping free profits for themselves with your assets? Bottom line, if it's in an unallocated pool, you don't know WHAT'S ACTUALLY SWIMMING AROUND IN THOSE MURKY WATERS!

One of Kitco's top men is Jon Nadler, a perennial gold and silver bear. He's been wrong so often in his precious metal price predictions since 2008, that he must surely envy a broken clock that's right twice a day! Internet rumors have speculated that Mr. Nadler has actually acted as Kitco's resident disinformation officer to help depress gold and silver pricing to preserve the "integrity" of the Kitco pool accounts by discouraging demands for physical delivery.

If interested, you can read The Best Places To Buy Silver http://survivalus.blogspot.com/2010/08/best-places-to-buy-your-survival-gold.html.

Time is running out fast! Hyperinflation seems unavoidable as fiat paper money is being printed as fast as the US presses can run. To protect your wealth and your family, buy gold and silver now from these top companies, APMEX Gold and Silver and Silver American Eagles.

Rick
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GoldSilver.com - Buy Gold & Silver

6 comments:

  1. I bought gold and silver from the U.S. Gold Bureau out of Austin, Texas and they cheated out of thousands of dollars. I complained to the Better Business and they really couldn't help me, except to take my complaint. If anyone knows of an agency that governs these type of companies, please let us know. thank you.

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  2. I'm sorry to hear you were cheated!

    Try contacting your State Attorney General's office to file a complaint.

    Rick

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    1. "Try contacting your State Attorney General's office to file a complaint."

      That, and a nickel, will get you five cents. Unfortunately, despite the plethora of government departments which are SUPPOSED to protect us from fraud, the AG, like the BBB, will take your complaint, (maybe) send a copy to the company you are complaining about, send you a copy of their dishonest reply, and close the case. So much for consumer protection, or enforcement of anti-fraud laws.

      Delete
    2. Unfortunately, you're probably right. In the past, though, I've used the threat of such an action to resolve a complaint with a dishonest seller. Many inexperienced thieves can be intimidated by the sound of "Attorney General".

      Delete
  3. Thanks for saving my time, I was thinking of writing about this topic. I hope you will come back and write part II and cover a lot more names, and companies, like that US gold. I bought once, they did send the right ones, on silver I am ok, but investors coin or collectibles, I have doubts they might have priced a bit higher that what I would have got in other places, but the coins came safely, I made lots of calls and asked tons of questions and cross checked a lot of things before I wired the hard earned money to this buggars..

    I posted your post on my blog: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6743041358077946240#editor/target=post;postID=8577963197890609194

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  4. I buy 100 oz silver bars from JM Bullion,fair price,quick shipping,with NO SHIPPING OR HANDLING CHARGES.I will stay with JM....

    ReplyDelete