Beware of Cash for Gold Rip Offs

When you sell your broken gold jewelry for cash, you need to realize you aren’t going to get back what you paid for it. After all, you paid for the jeweler’s workmanship in addition to the cost of the gold, and so the value of jewelry is decreased when it is broken.

But how do you keep from being ripped off in a scam designed to pay you pennies on the dollar for your jewelry? How can you trust the company’s measurement of the gold in your jewelry? How do you know you are being paid a fair price for your gold?

As the old saying goes, “You only get out of it what you put into it.” That applies to the sale of secondhand jewelry in two ways. First, the more gold that is contained in your jewelry, the more money you’ll get when you sell it. That should be obvious. However, the more important factor is that the more you learn about the cash-for-gold process and who you are doing business with, the better the price you will be able to get for gold jewelry.

Find A Trusted Cash For Gold Company

Let’s look at some ways you can educate yourself to avoid being a victim of a cash for gold ripoff.

Check Out the Company

Consider companies your friends and family have used. If they had a good experience working with a particular company, chances are you won’t get caught in a cash for gold ripoff.

When working with an unknown company, check with the Better Business Bureau. The BBB has a free database of companies and will have grades for many of them. You can also do Internet searches for cash for gold ripoffs and see if there have been complaints about the company you’re thinking about doing business with.

Cash4gold.com has been in business since 2001 and 94 percent of our customers feel the amount we offer them for their second-hand jewelry is fair.

Know How the Cash For Gold Businesses Work

While there are some variations from business to business, cash for gold businesses are only interested in your second-hand jewelry for the value of the precious metals that were used to make it. So while they make it easy for you to sell your gold jewelry, they still have to pay for the refining process. Cash4gold.com has an advantage in this regard because the company has its own refinery to separate the precious metals in jewelry so they don’t have to pay a refiner’s mark-up like other companies do.

When a company like Cash4gold.com receives your unwanted jewelry, they weigh and test it to determine what metals can be refined and how much of those metals are in your piece. For instance, if you sent Cash4gold.com two bracelets that weighed the same but one was made of 14-karat gold and the other was made of 18-karat gold, you would get more money for the 18-karat-gold bracelet. This is because the 14-karat-gold bracelet is 60 percent gold while the 18-karat-gold bracelet contains 75 percent gold.

Based on the results of the tests and the current cost of gold, Cash4gold.com will write a check to the customer, who can either accept it or not. At Cash4gold.com, 94 percent of owners accept the offer.

You can learn more about the precious metals market at www.cash4gold.com or cash4gold.blogspot.com. Either site will provide you with plenty of free information about the precious metals market and the melt value of various items. Not only is providing the information part of Cash4gold.com’s commitment to quality customer service, but the company believes that a customer who is educated in how the business works will recognize the value, professionalism and fair prices Cash4 gold.com offers.

Know What Gold Costs

To have an idea of what your jewelry piece may be worth, you need to know what the price of gold is and what factors may change the price. Gold prices change daily. It is a commodity bought and sold in the marketplace so the supply of gold available for sale and the demand for that gold will drive the price up or down. If investors decide to hold onto their gold, supply will drop and the price will generally rise. If there are a lot of people seeking to buy gold, the price will generally rise. In periods of a down economy, investors will generally seek to move more of their investment into gold. This creates a greater demand and lower supply that allows the price of gold to rise during a poor economy. When the economy improves, other investments become more attractive and investments move out of gold into other investments and the demand is also reduced, bringing the price of gold down.

In general, gold has been trading around $950 per troy ounce.

Know the Basics on Your Jewelry

One final thing to understand to avoid a cash for gold rip off is to know what jewelry you are offering for sale. Weigh the jewelry and know how many karats are in the gold in the piece. If the offer you receive from a company seems too low, compare the weight, karats and price of gold in the offer with the numbers you have. While some variation is to be expected, large variations could be indicative of a problem and you should question them.

Getting the best deal for your secondhand jewelry and avoiding a cash for gold rip off is not hard, but it does require some effort on your part to become informed.

You can begin your education at www.cash4gold.com or cashforgold.blogspot.com. You’ll find the information and links you need to turn yourself into a smart seller.

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