Gold Scam
Posted: Wed 19 August, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Thoughts 3 Comments »Sometimes, adverts on daytime TV are worthy of comment and/or incredulity. Today’s example covered both in one thirty-second slot.
It was an advert for some kind of “Money for your gold” organisation – yes, they had a web address on-screen, but I’m not going to promote the scam any more than I have to.
Anyway, the basic premise was as follows :
- Contact us, we’ll send you a “Free” postal packet insured for up to £2,500
- Send us your gold
- We’ll send you a valuation on it
- If you accept it, we’ll send you the cash.
- If you don’t, we’ll send you back your gold. (Honest, guv)
Now that just screams “Scam” to me – there’s so many healthy options for “lost in the post” excuses, plus (even if it’s legit) a nice little side-earner if one were to (for example) pawn the gold,have cash for it – always more than the “valuation” – and it’s in your account ’til you have to pay it to either the customer or back to the pawn-shop.
I’m tempted to see if the company directors are Derek and Rodney Trotter…
Is that the ad with the really dodgy looking guy fronting it? I honestly thought it was a spoof ad when I first saw it, mainly thanks to that guy’s wild staring eyes.
Um, possibly. It had a couple in it, looking like they were owners of a stately house and going round manically trying to collect all their gold to send off.
I was concentrating more on the details for it, to check I wasn’t hallucinating them 🙂
They do not give you a price on the phone, So you do not know what you will get per gram , I would be very carfull sending your gold via post route, Take it to your local pawn shop so you can see it getting weighed at to days date you should get a min of £6.80 per gram of 9ct gold.