Beware of the Cash4Gold Scam
February 1st, 2010
While watching television, I recall watching certain commercial breaks on Cash4Gold. What surprised me at first was the idea of shipping valuable jewelry or possessions (that is of course made out of gold) to a stranger that will supposedly evaluate the worth of the shipped product. This concept sounded very strange to me so I did some thorough research. Scratch that. I googled “Cash4Gold” and I got all the information I needed to tell that the company and the whole process is actually a scam. I am aware that a lot of people are going through some tough economic losses and have been notified lately that there has been some inflation in gold selling. So, I thought I’d like to check up on the topic of gold selling with Cash4Gold.
The articles that has deliberately attacked the company is dated from 2009, about a year ago. Seeing that the commercials still appear on some TV channels, I assumed that the company had cleared their bad reputation and regained reputation as being the top leading gold buyers. Boy was I wrong. If you still look at the user reviews from Complaints Board that were most recently published, you will notice that nothing has changed if you were to read the first review. Seeing that their commercial still airs on some TV channels today to attract desperate people who are in need money, it is sickening to see a trend in inflation of gold trading because reading from the reviews, you can get better offers from your local pawn shop or on Ebay.
Some people who were caught in the scam said that for the most part if you got a check from them, you were already considered lucky because sometimes they claim that the item was never obtained before. And if you do get the check, it is usually 1/3 of the amount that your local pawn shop offers.
I even heard a story that someone was paid $0.01 for their jewelry and that the is also making bank with this idea (read about it on TechCrunch).
And also if you decide to try their service despite of what you have read, realize that the 10-14 day return if a customer is not satisfied with their payment, begins on day 1 when you order a kit to ship back to their company for evaluation.
Here are some really interesting reads that first brought up this issue that I recommend you should read if you are really interested.
- Cash4Gold Will Offer One-Third of the Actual Value for your Gold
- 10 Confessions Of A Cash4Gold Employee – The Consumerist
- The Article Cash4Gold Doesn’t Want You To Read – The Consumerist
- So, will Cash4Gold offer me cash to kill this story? | Wise Bread
This comes to show that you cannot trust everything that you see that is on TV – especially if it is a sponsored TV ad.
Author Bio: Albert Fang is an Internet Marketer, a Blogger, and is someone who likes to undercover new ways to utilize the web for means of generating consistent income.
Thanks for the info in this article….great read. I agree that we all need to be careful where we choose to sell our old jewelry – there are too many companies out there now ready to just rip us off. I think we all need to do lots of homework before being willing to just send off our items. Find out if the company has any BBB complaints, what are their terms and conditions, can you get your items back if you don’t like the offer (and easily and timely), what are their customer saying, and be sure you know what they’re going to pay you (do they list their buy prices online). When I researched all of this – I finally found one that met all of these conditions. The Silver And Gold Exchange in NH – seem very reputable. (http://silverandgoldexchange.com) I’ll let you know how it goes. Thanks again for the article.
Typically what customers are getting scammed of, is their money’s worth for the gold valuables they in turn send out to Cash4Gold for evaluation. Cash4Gold boldly claims that they will pay the highest amount for a certain valuable, but in reality, it is said to be only 1/3 of what local pawn shops offer. I don’t really think that is honest if their model is to say that they offer highest value for gold — it can be misleading to many consumers.
Also, there has been a lot of discussions on whether or not this is a scam to consumers that you can read from the sources we cited. You will learn that it has occurred many times that valuables that customers sends to Cash4Gold, either gets only a fraction of the amount they anticipated to even nothing at all.
And are you saying that the 20 pages of complaints on complaintsboard has no say at all or should have no impact at all for a new customer who is interested in trying their services? These are honest reviews from honest people who have tried Cash4Gold’s services. No one is taught to hate a company right off the bat. It is how the company decides to treat their customers, that determines their reputation. In any business, this stands true and by the number of reviews that has been given constantly through out the years, it reflects Cash4Gold’s stance as a whole.
If a customer review were to rate a service negatively because for some odd reason it didn’t work for them, like if they were to buy a phone and it wouldn’t turn on, that can be understandable that the review isn’t accurate. However, for Cash4Gold, this is not the case. People are getting the wrong impressions on it and the reviews speak from them selves.
I won’t call this a pessimistic review at all really, because It was thoroughly researched before coming to a conclusion that the process to many, is a scam.
Also, for your insight about the BBB, for Dollars4Gold, it seems like their license has expired or been removed.
Having read through this, I cannot see where the ‘scam’ actually is. You send in gold, they send you cash. Simple as that. Just because you can get a better deal elsewhere does not mean that this is a scam. In that case, you could sue coca cola for not being as cheap as RC cola.
You may be referencing their promotion for being the highest paying company for gold, but you need to read further than just their ‘double G guarantee’ catchphrase. They state that they only guarantee the highest price when compared only against other national gold buying advertisers, meaning you can’t just say say “my friend billy said he would buy my ring for $50,000, so you HAVE to double it!”.
Furthermore, you have to do better than “well I heard a story”. It is not fair that you can call a company out on a possible scam, deterring people from using this service and therefore costing the company possible customers just because you heard a story.
As far as the complaints board goes, no matter what product, company or website you visit, there are ALWAYS going to be people who make a mistake, don’t read the fine-print, or just plain like to complain when something doesn’t show instant / miraculous results, and will flood the forums with comments. It happens with 100% working, legitimate companies all the time, and it is just something you have to expect (It is never a 100% accurate sign if a company is a scam or not). You have to keep in mind that only the negative reviews are seen, no-one shows the pages upon pages of proof of being paid, testimonials, and praise from anonymous customers.
As far as the 10-14 day return, dollars4gold has NO way of knowing when their kit arrives, so how could they possibly start their return timer any other way? Take their word for it? I don’t think so.
Concerning the shipping issues, that is in no way the fault of dollars4gold, EVERY company has some sort of issues with shipping at one time or another, and %99 of the time, it is a mistake of the post office or some sort of paperwork mix-up and not a ‘scam’.
If you are stubborn enough to just deny everything I just said, here is something that is not disputable. Dollars4gold has the BBB satisfactory rating. For those of you who don’t know, BBB (Better Business Bureau) is a government-run program that inspects and monitors business to ensure that they are up to government standard for things like customer service, good faith, etc. Business must pay a fee, be thoroughly inspected, and closely monitored in order to be accredited. If Dollars4Gold was a scam, they would not have applied/paid for this rating, and if for some reason they did, they would have been caught by the initial inspection or the constant monitoring.
You need to actually watch the commercials and do at least a bit of research before bashing a companies good name. I see too many people watch a commercial that appears too good to be true, then run to their blog and pull the scam card.
***I am in no way affiliated with dollars4gold or any other gold purchasing websites, nor have i been paid or persuaded to make this post, this is just my personal opinion and findings***
Ha, it’s kind of funny that you have a whole article written on Cash4Gold being a scam and I look over and it’s one of the links on Google’s adsense LOL.
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