I don't watch much broadcast TV,
and when I do I skip as many
commercials as possible, but even I
have seen the incessant televised
advertisements for a company called
Cash4Gold, and I'm sure most of you
have, too (they even had a Super Bowl ad). The company is
being heavily promoted online as
well.
The sell sounds great on the
surface: You pack up all your old
jewelry that you'll never wear again
into an envelope and send it,
insured, to Cash4Gold. They melt it
down and cut you a check for the
value of the gold. End of process.
It sounds better than going to a
pawn shop -- the process is simple
and requires no personal interaction
with an appraiser -- so what could
go wrong?
A little online sleuthing finds
that I'm not the only one who
figures that if Cash4Gold has this
much money to spend on TV ads,
someone's getting the short end of
the stick, and it's probably the
people sending in their family
heirlooms to be melted into ingots.
The folks at
Cockeyed.com put Cash4Gold to the
test, rounding up a bunch of old
rings, necklaces, and earrings, and
taking them to a regular pawn shop
to be appraised. The offer: $198 for
the lot. They then sent the items to
Cash4Gold and waited for a check in
the mail. It arrived within a few
days as promised... in the amount of
60 bucks. (You don't have to accept
the check; the deal isn't done until
you cash it.)
That price alone is practically
criminal, but that's where the truly
slimy part of the operation begins.
First, if you call Cash4Gold and ask
for your stuff back, you abruptly
get a better offer: In the case of
the above experiment, the offer was
a whopping $178. That's a better
deal, but still not market rate,
though the caller was told that
Cash4Gold could "manipulate the
numbers on their end" to make it
appear that more product was sent
than was in reality. Bizarre, but
it's really the only way Cash4Gold
can cover its behind to convince you
the original offer wasn't a
wholesale ripoff.
As bad as that is, it's far worse
if you opted for the company's "Fast
Cash" option. Here, that original
offer ($60) is wired into your bank
account within 24 hours of them
receiving the booty. It sure is
fast, but it's not much cash -- and
you don't have the option of
declining the offer at all. You're
stuck with a pittance for your
valuable gold items. (It's also
worth noting that a publicist
working for Cash4Gold later offered Cockeyed
cash (allegedly without Cash4Gold's
involvement) for removing its expose
from the web...)
Update:
More test results on Cash4Gold and
other online gold buyers here from
Channel 10 San Diego.
Update 2: Cash4Gold's PR agency
has requested the removal of this
post, calling it defamatory. I have
amended certain language in this
post to clarify the source of some
of the content within.
