My wife and I recently sent some items to Cash 4 Gold, a company that allows you to send jewelry or other items with gold content in exchange for a prompt cash payment. The company has become somewhat well known following some mainstream media coverage, a Super Bowl ad, and extensive internet advertising.
First, some background about the items we sent. My wife had a number of broken or unwanted gold jewelry items. This consisted of some broken bracelets and a few single earrings. We brought the items to a number of jewelers who provided similar offers for the larger items. There were four single earrings that none of the jewelers wanted to purchase because of the low gold content and small size. Some jewelers told us that these items were basically worthless.
Because I had always been curious about Cash 4 Gold, I decided that these items would be ideal for an experiment. The process for sending our items to them was simple. We filled out a form online and a few days later received a “Refiner’s Return Pak.” We put our items in the pack and sent it back to Cash4Gold in the postage paid mailing envelope. Our expectations were not very high, but we were curious to see how much we would receive.
About a week later we received a check in the amount of $3.22. The check also included a description of the items we sent and a calculation of the price paid for each. A scan of the check and descriptions appears below. Click for a larger image.
Hover to zoom.
I have bought and sold gold coins before and knew the price of gold, but I had to spend some time figuring out their calculations. Whenever I have dealt in gold, it has always been measured in ounces. They used a unit of weight referred to as DWT, which I later found out represents a “pennyweight” or 1/20 of an ounce. I was familiar with the karat grade, which refers to the purity of the gold. A grade of 24 karat refers to the finest purity gold (99.9% or finer). Each karat refers to 1/24 purity. For example, 18 karat gold is 18/24 pure, or 75% purity.
Based on their descriptions, I was able to determine the actual value of the gold that we sent:
One earring had a weight of 0.07 DWT or 0.0035 ounces and a purity of 18 karat or 75%. Converting to ounces of pure gold 0.0035 X .75 = 0.002625 ounces. Using a gold price of $950 per ounce yields a value of $2.49375. We were actually paid $0.45 for the item. This represents 18.045% of the calculated value.
Two earrings had a weight of 0.56 DWT or 0.028 ounces and a purity of 14 karat or 58.33%. Converting to ounces of pure gold 0.028 X .5833 = 0.016333 ounces. Using a gold price of $950 per ounce yields a value of $15.51635. We were actually paid $2.77, which represents 17.852% of the calculated value.
The check indicated that our payment included their “20% Gold Rush Bonus”. It also stated that if we were not satisfied with out settlement, we could call or email to have our items returned.
I suppose we will cash the check, but the payment of 18% of the value of a liquid commodity is distressing. In our situation, we sent unwanted items with a very low value, primarily as an experiment. Cash 4 Gold undoubtedly has some customers who are forced to sell cherished items with higher gold content and values. Are these people also receiving only 18% of the value?
This is a wonderful article. Thank you for the information and the detail. I will think twice before I send anything.
I have heard that if you call them and challenge the payout they will make larger offers, but still below the true value of the gold. My wife attended a local ‘gold party’ recently, and that buyer made an offer close to the actual value. I would recommend asking around your friends to see if there is a gold party coming up in your neighborhood and go there versus using the mail-in companies. At least at the party, your property is still right there and not shipped away, so you have the option of declining the offer on the spot.
I would strongly suggest checking out the Silver and Gold Exchange before selling gold or silver to ANYONE. I did a great deal of research, online and offline, and learned a lot about this business. I checked pawn shops, jewelers, “gold parties”, hotel “buying events as well as the online buyers, including the “as seen on tv” guys. I found that the Silver and Gold Exchange paid more than anyone else I could find. I liked the fact that they post the prices they pay per gram (beware of the places that quote in pennyweight/DWT) on a live price chart at http://SilverAndGoldExchange.com I also checked out their Better Business Bureau report and found they have never had a single complaint as opposed to HUNDREDS of complaints some other companies have! I recommend them 100%
That is why they call it jewelry.
I am not sure that your experiment is sufficient.
After all they have fixed/administrative costs, as they sent you a “Refiner’s Return Pak.” and must process your order, cut and mail you a check, etc.
I suppose that regardless of transaction size, these fixed cost might run near $20 to $25.
If so, then send one item, for instance worth $200, and see how much you will get back.
A jewerler would probably give you close to 70% of $200 = $140.
My estimate for Cash 4 Gold would be 60% of ($200 – $20) = $108, which would be way more than 18% ($36), and yet not much.
Just my $0.02FRN
I wouldn’t trust any of these guys who advertise on TV. How do you know they’ll return your gold if you don’t like their offer? How do you know they won’t even claim they never even received your gold?
Cash4Gold is one of the worst scams out there. If you call and complain that you could simply take your business elsewhere they will offer you 3 times what they origonally paid you to keep you quite. I would call and complain before cashing your check.
Thank you — I am going to pass this on to EVERYONE I know. These are criminals taking advantage of the weak, ignorant, and distressed.
I hear the upper management just keeps the nice stuff and mails you a check and an apology for losing it so you cant duspute the meager amount they send you. I also hear if you can (and talk to a person) they will generally offer you 20% more than their first offer. Just imagine, if he had called in he might have gotten $3.86!
HEy dude ,, great article,,,, it covers all the important points,,,
but one thing,,,, to finish,, your learning experience,,,, why would you ever cash their check,,,, call them and ask for your items to be returned,,, beacuse that is part two,, of the story,,,
i did the same thing ,,, and i had to get the sheriff in their coun ty to go and physicaly demand the items back,,,, He said and I quote “that place stinks” and he wasnt talking about a smell,,,,,
they did everything to stall and not send the items back,,,
they are a shady operation ,,, taking advantage of widows and orphans….
go to any gold or silver forum on the web… I’m sure you could find someone that lives ‘nearby’ that wouldn’t mind paying a shade UNDER spot prices, for gold or silver rounds or coins, (though I’m NOT referring to a ‘worthless’ single earring, or a crappy chain with a broken clasp. Bypassing the markup, shipping / handling, and insurance would be that much more incentive to buy / sell local.
Cash4Gold is outright larceny.
This so-called “review” and “experiment” of Cash4Gold is extremely misleading. I reviewed the items that you sent in—a couple of small pieces with no precious metal content and three extremely small earrings whose only gold content consisted of the posts and the back. The earring with the 18k post didn’t even have a back. Readers should understand how miniscule these items were-they weighed next to nothing and collectively are smaller than a single small raisin. Your own review notes that “none of the jewelers wanted to purchase [them] because of the low gold content and small size,” with some jewelers noting they were “basically worthless.” Yet Cash4Gold, because it owns its own refinery, bought the same items that nobody else even wanted, while at the same time pre-paying your postage and insurance. And if you had been unhappy with the check you could have utilized a guaranteed 100 percent customer satisfaction guarantee and gotten your items—classified as “basically worthless” by other jewelers–returned to you at no cost.
Yes the items were small and I explained from the outset that others deemed the items basically worthless.
What is more pertinent is the calculation of the payment for the actual gold content, which came in at 18%. Is the “unit price” calculation adjusted based on the volume of gold sent, and if so how significantly?
If you would like to provide details on the percentage of gold spot paid based on karat grade and volume of gold sent, I would be happy to publish this material.
I just saw the today show and they said that Red Swan pays 2x more than cash4gold, you should contact them and get 36 instead of 18%
I read about another blogger that asked for the items back after sending them into Cash4Gold and received 3x the original estimate. I guess they want you to haggle a little bit. 😉
Good thing you didn’t waste too much.
I read earlier comments on this post and followed the advice of “Ben” and sent some gold as well as some silver to the Silver and Gold Exchange. I received an offer 2 days later that was more than double of what I was offered locally! It does pay to shop around and get some quotes so you know what you have. I think it is also a good idea to check them out with the Better Business Bureau and I know I am more comfortable dealing with a company that shows what they pay right out front. So.. thanks for the info Ben. I owe you one!
IF you knew that you were only getting 18 cents on the dollar why did you cash the checkI wonder why some people enjoy being ripped off or are we just getting used to it
This is exactly what I anticipated would happen with these types of programs, a massive harvesting of gold under the guise of “we’re doing you a huge favor.”
Anyone who didn’t sit down and do rough calculations of the quantity of actual pm and what value it had based on spot price is a fool.
I have discouraged anyone I know from participating in these things from the beginning.
Frog perspective versus bird perspective. First, CashForGold spends a ton on adverstisements on TV and they have overhead costs so you have to be nuts or very desperate to sell to people like that. BUT WORST OF ALL, there’s a rumor that these people and others that buy large volumes from the public could be recycling the gold into gold bars to sell to Comex IN ORDER TO KEEP THE PRICE OF GOLD CHEAP! If the public wants their gold to go to the true price adjusted to inflation at $3,000 to $5,000, don’t sell any gold at all, and just wait for the gold cartel that manipulates the prices of gold and silver daily to crash and burn sooner than later.
You should have asked for the items back and then sent the exact same items to another place (Like the Silver and Gold Exchange people are mentioning). This would be a more fair test of the value you were offered. Nice article though.
I found a link to this article when doing a search. boy am I glad I did! I almost sent my gold off to the WRONG place! Instead I used the Silver and Gold Exchange discussed above. I received an offer in two days that was above my expectations. I am sending off a bag of “junk” silver coins next as I think silver is about to take a dip within the next month. Thanks to the article writer and the readers for pointing me in the right direction. There apparently are honest gold and silver buyers out there!
i need to contact cash 4 gold. my mother sold my dads wedding band for $20 and i have to get it back. my dad dyed 11 years ago and im really upset that she sold it and want it back. can anyone help me
I would certainly not recommend sending your unwanted jewelry to CMG for cash. I sent 2 platinum gold rings and received £18.92 for it. I got my jewelry back but also received someone elses bag of gold items. CMG obviously sent it to the wrong address and I did the right thing by sending it directly to the owner just in case CMG made the same mistake again.
DONT USE DO IT!!! you won’t be happy with your cheque and you might never see your jewelry again.
I have used cash my gold once before, and never again as was offered a very low percentage of the actual gold value, an the service was poor. I have recently just used a new company that i saw advertised on the internet called ‘Golden Owl’ Who instead of asking to post your gold sent me a courier directly to my houseto pick up my unwanted jewellery and i recieved the cheque the next day, they also had someone you can actually talk to if you have any qeries instead of a machine to talk to unlike the others. I would highly reccomend using this company for unwanted jewellery.
I’m sending my wedding band to Cash 4 Gold because I’ve known for 27 years what it’s worth – nothing. I hope they loose it so I can never let it back in my life. See companies like this do serve a purpose!
BIG BIG BIG scam!!!
ive just had a cheque for £64, i rang and complained as it is over £250 worth, ive sent the cheque back, hopefully i get my jewellery back!!!!!!!!
thank you all for the info! almost sent all my gold there.
I don’t know what brought me here, but I just had to comment. I find it comical that people actually believe they would get a good deal from a place that is willing to appraise your gold and jewelry for you after they have possession of it.
You would have to be an utter fool to MAIL gold or any kind of jewelry in to a refinery and expect them to give you a fair appraisal, 100% satisfaction guarantees be damned.
You might as well put up an auction on eBay where the amount for the winning bid is hidden from you until the winner gets your stuff in the mail.
As an owner of a Gold and Jewelry buying company, i recommend that anyone looking to sell gold run a Google search with the company name followed by the word “reviews”. This will allow you to find reviews posted throughout the web by real people and not by business owners that selfishly recommend their business by sounding like customers!
There are company that choose to operate a real business and value the growth that comes from it, even online!
Thank You
Steven Madar – CEO
Global Gold and Silver, Inc.
I sent off unwanted jewellery to Cash My Gold – and sent off 7 items … 2 pairs of gold earrings – 2 gold chains (1 I brought from a well known jewellers for £189 and the other £100 and summit) aswell as a few gold bracelets which werent cheap!! And I got a cheque 2 days later. Of £15 pounds!! I sent the cheque back straight away and it took like 2 weeks till I received my items back!!! Beware!!!
wOw. Thank you Michael Zielinski and everyone else for sharing! Thank goodness I decided to do some reseach first.
i run my own gold shop in essex harlow so here is abit of advice.
1st befor you concider sending off your gold or taking it to the highstreet always always weigh your gold to get a idear on how much it weighs.
2nd highstreet prices very from 6.50 – 9.20 for 9ct so do your weight on a calculater and times it by how much they claim to pay (bearing in mind the stones as they wont be able to pay out for the weight of them)
3rd never never take your first offer, always shop around even if you are suprised by the price.
4th your best bet is to go somewhere where you can see whats going on and have a face to face chat.
There are people out there that pay a fair price and you really could be pleased with the money you get. We are not all bad
good luck and happy selling
Please please don’t use them – you will get a very poor offer for your gold. Their first offer to me was an insulting £70. Then they ‘re-evaluated’ my items and came back with a second offer £140. I asked for the items back and got £220 at a local company who tested the gold in front of me so everything was upfront.
I knew not to expect much, but STILL want to thank you for sharing your experience with us. I will consider other optioins and will use Cash4Gold as a last resort if I fail. THANK YOU!!!
Cash4gold is the biggest scam. I walk in there with a 14 karat gold ring and the guy offers me $15. I refuse the offer than he increases it to $41, cash4gold empoyees try to take advantage of people.
SCAM SCAM SCAM SCAM THATS ALL CASH FOR GOLD IS DO NOT EVER SEND TO THEM!!