Do mail-order gold places even know what they’re doing?
August 6th, 2009 | by mbhunter |ChristianPF discussed how badly some mail-order cash-for-gold places pay. The linked showed proof of a wide range of payments, ranging from peanuts to tiny peanuts. While a pawn shop would pay $50 for a particular amount of gold chain, the three mail-order cash-for-gold companies paid $37.67, $11.50, and $5.70.
But even beyond that, it’s hard to tell whether some of the companies are careless, incompetent, or outright fraudulent in how they identify the items they’re sent.
Watch the video and see if you can find what I’m talking about.
Did you catch it?
I’ll cut to the chase: Go to 0:36 in the video and here’s what’s said:
“We recently did a test with one eighteen-karat gold chain.”
Now fast forward to 1:33. They show the payment information from GoldKit.com. It says:
Gold 14k $5.70
GoldKit.com identified the chain as 14-karat, but it was actually 18-karat, according to Stacy Johnson, the reporter doing the piece. GoldKit.com didn’t identify the purity of the gold correctly.
For a moment, let’s give GoldKit.com the benefit of the doubt, and say that they weren’t able to identify the purity of the gold chain because they got the center piece of the chain, and there was no gold purity mark on the chain. If you were in their shoes, would you (a) guess at the purity, or (b) return it to the customer, saying that you can’t value it reliably?
One more reason to avoid these places, I guess.
2 Responses to “Do mail-order gold places even know what they’re doing?”
By Trees Full of Money on Aug 6, 2009 | Reply
I saw a segment on TV a while back (not sure if it was CNN, FOX, or ABC..)and they identified a similar pattern.
These companies would make an initial offer that was very, very low. The person who sent the gold in would then complain and Goldkit would offer a “better” offer that was still only about 50% of current market rates…
The FTC needs to shut these guys down or have a little more oversight.
By ChristianPF on Aug 14, 2009 | Reply
MBH,
I missed this when it came out! Thanks for the mention and I agree, I was amazed at the variances between the different places. It really makes you want to do your homework before selling your gold!