Personal Injury Law

Let the seller always beware

By Edward Bills

The Better Business Bureau and the Florida attorney general’s office have received hundreds of complaints about Cash4Gold’s jewelry exchange and most of them say the company shortchanged them.

The Florida attorney general’s office says it is examining nearly 60 complaints about Cash4Gold, including some from people who were disappointed by the amount of money they received in exchange for their jewelry.

The Better Business Bureau has processed 269 complaints nationwide about Cash4Gold in the last 36 months. The pattern of complaints, the bureau’s website says, is similar to what the Florida attorney general’s office describes: Consumers allege that the company is not offering a fair value for the jewelry, and that they’ve had a hard time getting their materials returned.

In one, New York resident Frank Poindexter complained to the attorney general that “he mailed in $150-$200 worth of gold,” but “all he got back was a check for 15 cents.”

Thomas Valle of Colorado said Cash4Gold sent him $16.61 for gold and diamonds that he believed were worth $300.

An investigation conducted by the CBS program “Inside Edition” sent the company 23 pieces of gold that a jewelry expert had valued at close to $1,000. Cash4Gold sent a check for $209.81, an amount at which the expert scoffed.

The airwaves and Internet are filling up with quick-money schemes, not just Cash4Gold and its competitors — Dollars4Gold, GoldKit and GoldPaq — but simple ways to make thousands a week at home, or wring a profit from the depleted housing market.

But it’s Cash4Gold, a 350-employee spinoff of Chicago-based Albar Precious Metal Refining, that has been able to buy its way into the cultural mainstream. Its Super Bowl commercial featured Ed McMahon and MC Hammer, faded celebrities known for their financial woes. Hammer, once a chart-topping rap artist, filed for bankruptcy protection in 1996, and last summer McMahon narrowly missed losing his Beverly Hills estate to foreclosure.

“Heeeeere’s money!” McMahon intones, in a less-than-enthusiastic reference to his “Tonight Show” heyday. He and Hammer then heft a series of “gold” objects they’ve decided to unload. For Hammer, it’s his gold records and a medallion embossed with his own face; for McMahon, now 85, it’s a “golden hip replacement” and a solid gold toilet.

Cash4gold said traffic to its website multiplied by a factor of 10 in the wake of the ad.

But beneath the shiny veneer lies a dull reality: Cash4Gold is essentially a buyer of scrap metal. And scrap doesn’t fetch much on the open market.

Cash4Gold’s own literature says its appraisal quotes are “based upon the current price of gold.” But the exact price it offers on a given day isn’t revealed in its literature, on its website or by its customer service representatives.

Full post as published by Bodily Injury Blog on February 06, 2009 (boomark / email).