Archive for the ‘Where to Sell Gold’ Category

Cash For Gold Scam – Company Cuts Out the Middleman and Takes Their Share Too!

Monday, September 6th, 2010

If you’ve ever seen one of these commercials, you may ask yourself, “I wonder what they pay, anyway…” A very common and curious thought since the ads so clearly say that they cut out the middleman so they can pay higher prices! Really? Seriously…. Honestly? If I’m gonna sell my gold jewelry online, I think I deserve to know what I’ll be paid for it- no? I mean, isn’t that fair? Cash for gold scams are on the rise, and the size of the company apparently means nothing when it comes to the company’s gold price. The following video exposes the embarrassing truth about one of the bigger players in the cash for gold industry, and the statements are allegedly straight from the mouth of the company’s attorney. Watch out for cash for gold scams, and when you’re looking for the best place to sell gold jewelry, always, always, always look for a company who is open and honest enough to share their prices with you up front.

For more information about gold scams by this company, check out: Cash for Gold Company Tried to Bribe Me!
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Get 3X as Much Cash for Gold! (part 1)

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

One of the greatest successes of Augustus Gold and Silver has been our mission from the beginning, which is to publish our prices, and pay significantly more than the largest competitors in the cash for gold industry. This has proven to be the most important factor to our success in our business online, and we have also determined that of our local competitors- most of whom turn their nose up at the idea of anyone sending in their gold to an online buyer,  many are just as deceitful as the online buyers we compete with every day.  They us a myriad of different practices to skim and scam on calculating a client’s payout, but the end result is always the same- less money for the client. We thought our clients deserved to know the truth about local buyers, so we did some investigating in May and June 2010 to see if our local comrades were friend or foe to the average person who wanted to sell gold jewelry.

The local gold buyer market has been heating up in Kansas City and everywhere, in towns large and small. There are over four times as many gold buyers in our city as there were when Augustus Gold and Silver entered the marketplace in July 2008.  Although many of our fraternal brothers in the business locally don’t care for us that much, we have definitely earned our place at the table by generating more business in the last two years than some of them have done in the past five.  And there is a place here in town where we congregate; talk shop, knock back a few free drinks, and discuss solutions to the world’s problems while national news stories clamor in the background. Here we run into men from all over, who have been in the business for a year, five years, perhaps some seventy-five years. And we all have a few things in common- things to sell. This is the side of the market that is supposed to be ‘cut-throat.’ Wholesale. Large quantities. Big money. But another thing that almost all these other gold buyers have in common- they all have shops that are open while they are away, and the people left in charge of running those shops don’t know Ray and Jerry from Adam, which presents the perfect opportunity for us to test the integrity of their business.

So back in May, Jerry and I decided that we should…. (continued in part 2)

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Get 3X as Much Cash for Gold! (part 2)

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

(Continued from part 1)

So back in May, Jerry and I decided that we should take a few days and sneak away from our market-maker friends to sneak around to some of the more prevalent shops in town to see what kinds of business practices made them moguls (and which ones are posers). We were surprised at several of our findings, giving us new respect for a few buyers, and renewing our distrust in others.  For our first round of tests, we took a small amount of jewelry from our Social Media Marketing Consultant, Anne Haynes.  Anne’s jewelry consisted of a small amount of scrap gold and silver- various jewelry items of varying karats- some with hallmarks, and some without. It was a small lot, but perfect for our purposes. Since some of the items were not marked, it presented an opportunity for our competitors to show us how honest they are. Augustus’ payout on the items to Anne was $120.15.

Our first stop took us by the shop of a family who has been in the business for over 50 years.  The clerk was nice and showed us around answering questions about their other inventory. We sat down for him to test our items, he pulled out an electronic tester and testing acids, and commenced to testing each piece individually.  He did not disclose what the percentages were that he used to calculate the payment, he did give us prices for the gold and silver separately, so we were able to calculate it ourselves.  And although the total price he quoted us was over $110, his quote for the sterling silver items was only about 30% of what Augustus pays.  When we asked him what price it was calculated on, he said that the price that day was about $14 per ounce, and it was actually almost $18 per ounce.

As he tested the gold items, they were separated into different piles- 8k, 9k, 10k, 12k, 14k, 16k, 18k, 20k, 21k, 22k. All the items we brought in should have been sorted into 10k, 14k, and 18k, but almost all were ‘downgraded’ as he put them into piles for the karat below what they actually were.  As gold buyers, we are quite familiar with the fact that almost no gold jewelry has an actual test assay as high as the karatage that it gets stamped with, however, usually the discrepancy is minor, such as a 14k gold chain, which should assay at 58.33% gold actually testing at 57.5%. The problem was that this fellow was putting ost of the 14k in the 12k pile, as if it were only 50% gold, etc, etc. One always has to wonder if this practice is what the clerks are taught to do, or if, in fact, they may be skimming while the boss is away. Either way, the first competitor in our test squeaked by with a C+ overall with footnotes that they lack integrity in their testing practices and don’t pay much AT ALL for silver.

Our second stop was only a couple of miles down the road from the first. The lady who owns the establishment was a hanger-on at our fraternal gatherings for a while before opening her store. She brought in bags of things for a long time that she’d bought from individuals that she tried to shop around among our colleagues- many of which were either not real gold or silver or that didn’t have the kind of antique or artistic value she thought she’d bought into. Many times Jerry and I had been annoyed by her peering over our shoulders or watching us from another room as we worked on deals with other dealers or tested large lots of gold and silver. She used the information she harvested from us and from other dealers to start a website that had no success because she only copied the parts of our business she thought would be useful. She opened her store several months later with the help of a few silent partners, and her new website had information posted on it that was almost verbatim from our site.  It was time to learn what selling gold to them was really like.

So we went into the store directly after leaving the first place. The place was nice, but not really set up to serve many clients. They had banners hung across the pillars out front claiming that they pay up to 300% more than other buyers!! The kid working at the counter was a punk who seemed to have a chip on his shoulder. I knew some of the items we were bringing in had some obvious marks on them from acid, where they had been tested at the last place. “That’s OK,” I thought, “at least that way he’ll know that we’ve already gotten one quote, so his better be good if he wants to buy it.” Wrong. The clerk used the same methods of testing- electronic tester and acid. He also used the ‘karat piles’ method for keeping track of it. Jerry punched me in the shoulder and whispered to me, “Can you believe this guy??” the SECOND time he had to call his boss on the phone because he had a question about what to do. In the end, the price he offered for our items was about $43. I do remember laughing a little and asking him if he was joking, but he didn’t see the humor in the situation at all. This one gets an F- for not knowing what he was doing, price integrity, and for generally being a punk and not having any customer service skills.

This experiment goes to show you- if you want to get the most cash for gold, call Augustus Gold and Silver- The Gold Buyer You Can Trust!!

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Client Goes Undercover to Compare Augustus Gold Prices with Local Jeweler

Monday, June 7th, 2010

Going through some old emails, this exchange with a client came up. He was not sure where to sell gold jewelry or if he would get the best price for his gold by sending it in to us, so we challenged him to go on a covert mission to secretly price shop his local jeweler. I had forgotten that I made a deal with the client that if we won his business, he would have to allow us to share his testimony like this. For historical reference, the spot price of gold at the time was around $955/oz. Here is his story:

Subject: what to expect?
From: “Ron K”
Date: Sat, August 08, 2009 10:06 am
To:

Hi-

My wife and I are thinking about selling some jewelry we inherited from relatives. We have 2 rings, and a matching gold rope necklace and bracelet. Weighing on my (inexact) kitchen scale, I came up with 3 oz. Here’s the tricky part: The necklace also has a matching pendant with an 1898 gold double eagle $10 piece. I estimated the weight of the gold minus the coin and the stone in the ring that I would remove. I really have no idea what the coin is worth. It’s held in the pendant by prongs, so it’s not permanently in there. It’s in good shape, save for a few nicks and dings. I’m a little wary of storefront jewelers (or should that be “jewelers”) who advertise buying gold. A neighbor went to one and came away with a really bad vibe. But I’m also equally wary of putting the pieces in the mail and sending them halfway across the country.

I understand that you can’t be definitive without seeing the pieces, but would you be able to give me a “ballpark” sense of where I’d stand if I were to send the pieces to you. I’m particularly curious how the coin factors in. I’m writing because I’ve read some good things about your operation on the ‘net. Yeah, it’s the net, so anything should come with a grain of salt/suspicion, but there were some positive responses out there, so I figured…why not throw this out there.

Thanks in advance for your response.

Have a great weekend,

Ron K
———————————————————————————————————————————————
Subject: RE: what to expect?
From: rholley@augustusgold.com
Date: Sun, August 09, 2009 12:25 am
To: “Ron K”

Ron,

Thank you for your email.  It sounds like you’ve got quite a bit of stored value in the items you have to sell, and I’m very glad you contacted us rather than being taken in by some of those TV ads- We’ll get you a much better price for them.

As far as the ‘ballpark price’ you’re asking for, it sounds like the 3oz will be somewhere between $650-1175 depending on the precise karat value, and the bezel around the coin will add some ($40-75?). If the items were all 14k, I would go so far as to say pretty close to $920 plus another $50 for the bezel.

The coin is 90% gold- 1/2 ozt. so the coin itself should be worth about $250-350. The coin could actually be worth more than just the gold value depending on the condition, but we’ve almost always found that coins stuck in bezels like that for decades degrades the collectible value of the coins terribly.

It has been our experience that most jewelers will not offer you estimates like this sight unseen… They will insist that they are doing you a favor by not telling you unless they can see the items in person ‘because they could have more value depending on the possibility of them being suitable for resale.’ It is such a dishonest tactic that it just makes me mad talking about it! These guys just want to get you down to their store so they can size you up to see how much they thnk you know about what you’re doing…. and they want to see if you look desperate enough to take whatever little amount of money they pull out of their cash register. We have even seen jewelers who were prominent and thought to be trustworthy do the same thing…. They look both ways, and if they don’t think anybody else is looking, they’ll buy the items for 15-25% of spot. It has also been our experience that the higher the total value of your items is, the more willing they are to put the screws to you.

I’m sure you already planned on doing this, but this is what I would do if I were you… If you’re up for a good laugh, take all your items to a local jeweler. I tell people this all the time, and hearing the stories they come back with always renews my faith in the retail jewelry community.

Do this for both of us, and we’ll be friends for a long time. Just promise me that we can use your testimonial about this on our new website that should roll out soon…

Best regards,

Ray A J Holley
Co-Founder
Precious Metals Exchange, Inc
c/o Augustus Gold
6324 N Chatham Ave 112
Kansas City, MO 64151-2473
888.839.2851 office
——————————————————————————————————————————–
from Ron K
to Admin AugustusGold
date Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 11:33 AM
subject RE: Ray Holley from Augustus Gold

Hi Ray-

Sorry it’s taken me a bit to get back with you…it’s been a crazy week. Thanks for the detailed (and entertaining) response to my initial query. I did as you said to do and visited a local jeweler that advertises (everywhere—on billboards, in the paper, with a guy spinning a sign outside the strip mall where the store is located) that they buy gold. What an experience.

I was greeted by an attractive young woman who immediately asked if I had anything to sell “today.” I told her that I lived around the corner (true), had seen their signs (how could I miss them), and was curious about what I might get for the pieces of jewelry I had with me. I might note that I did not exactly dress up for the occasion—soccer jersey, shorts, backward baseball cap. She took my envelope beck behind the counter and started weighing the items. She asked if I’d been shopping around (I said “no”), if I was wanting to sell “today” (I told her that I was going to need to talk with my wife first), and whether I’d done any research (I fudged here and said “no” again). She came back with a price of $550…”today.” I then asked whether the coin was more valuable than its weight. She hemmed and hawed and said she needed to get “her boss.” The boss slithered out of his office, gave a limp handshake, asked (again) if I wanted to sell “today,” and then re-examined everything…coming back with a price of “about $1000” for everything. He also said he’d beat any local price and would top it off with a $5 gas card for my trouble if I sold to him. I asked him for a card and if he could write down the estimate so I could go elsewhere and be above board with things. He refused. I told him I’d look around and get back with him. I will on the 1st…of never. I felt like I needed to take a shower when I got home.

So needless to say, I appreciate your openness even more, and am about ready to embark on the process to send my pieces to you. I have someone here interested in buying the coin from me, so I’m going to give him a day or so to think about it, and then I’ll need to get the bezel back from him and get everything packaged and ready to send your way.

You were dead on with this process…way, way worse than trying to buy a car. So again, I appreciate your open and friendly communication. I’ll be sending my stuff your way at the beginning of next week.

Thanks, and have a great weekend!

Ron

————————————–

Now, that’s classic. :)

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Gold Scams- What to Look Out For

Monday, April 19th, 2010

There are literally thousands of websites these days who say they want to buy your gold jewelry. In addition to internet companies, undoubtedly there are also dozens of places in your home town with a sign hung out front that say the same. So with all these buyers holding out their hands, how does one know what to look for? Who’s gonna give you the best deal, and which ones are honest? Here’s a good place to start…. which ones have a sign up in their shop or on their website with a sign that says how much they pay? How many of them have information available to you that explains the process, who are transparent about how their gold price is calculated and how your items will be evaluated? Will they tell you what they pay for gold over the phone? Will they even tell you in person? No- well, there are reasons…

It is obvious why most of these buyers don’t want to say how much they pay, and for some of them it is not only the risk of being chastised for how ridiculously little they pay. Because for some of them, the truth is that they don’t always pay the same- that there are several factors, and at least one of them has overriding influence in every deal they make. One factor takes into account some smaller, local shops who may be dealing with cashflow problems. Believe it or not, the price they offer you may be greatly influenced by how much money they have in their cash register (or wallet) at the time. If you do business with this guy, you might leave his shop feeling like you just went a few rounds with a heavyweight boxer.

Another con game that is frequently run by all kinds of jewelers and coin shops is initiated when someone calls to ask what they are paying for gold. The answer people will get about 90% of the time is, “Well, it just depends- we’ll have to look at it to see its condition, see if it has any resale value- you know?” This is an outright lie- period. If you want to push it further, you could insist on continuing the conversation by saying- “Wait- but what if it’s just total scrap- no jewelry value at all- then what’s your price?” And again, of the initial 90%, about 90% of them will say they just can’t say without looking at it, or some will be a little bit more honest and just say, “Sorry- we just can’t give prices over the phone.” And that just means that their prices are bad enough that they don’t want to be compared to anyone else. Another thing you can do if someone tells you they have to look at your items in person to evaluate them for their ‘resale value-’ go visit their store… and when you walk in, say, “I’d like to see your USED jewelry.” Obviously you shouldn’t be surprised when they tell you they don’t have any.

The jewelry stores and coin shops love to hear about internet cash for gold scams because it scares sellers into coming into their stores, and the unsuspecting sellers have no idea they are walking straight into a predator’s lair. It is really unbelievable how many of the oldest, most respected jewelers have allowed their ethics to be reduced to such levels in the name of competition- just because everyone else was doing it. They don’t want you to come into their store so they can see your jewelry- they want to see you. They want to see if you look like you know what you’re doing, and they think if they can make you drive to their location, then you’ll have a vested interest in going through with the transaction. They want to see if you look desperate enough to take whatever offer they’ll give you, and they want to keep the whole transaction private, just between the uneducated seller and them.

Augustus Gold took a stand against these kinds of practices when we opened our business. We opened up our process for everyone to see, disclosed the calculations the way we use them to arrive at our gold price, and we even put our prices live on our website for everyone to see. The largest cash for gold companies on the internet are paying 11-29% as documented by many investigative reports found on YouTube. Still wonder why they won’t publish their prices?? …That’s why.

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Why Would I Want to Spend Any of My Time Reading This Blog?

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Time and money! And only one of those can ever be replaced- but then who wants to give up on a chance to get paid more money when the only work involved is learning to make better decisions about who you choose to sell gold jewelry to? If you read the posts in this blog,  they will arm you with the facts to make your experience selling gold one to remember and to share with friends and family members. From week to week, we will focus on different topics that show you what to things to look out for. There are some dirty little secrets in this business that are much more widespread than most people would believe.  We will publish actual results of local competitive “secret shopper” experiences to give everyone the latest information about how well the “experts” are doing, and we will publish the results of anyone we find who is fair, too.  We will also invite comments from anyone on this subject who goes out to test our methods.  Very few things are as valuable as knowledge, and knowing who you can trust for selling gold jewelry is extremely valuable…. Like I said, your TIME cannot be replaced!

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