Controversy
There are many complaints that Cash4Gold grossly undervalues jewelry sent to them by customers. Channel 10 News in San Diego did an investigation where they sent in a ring containing over 2 grams of gold worth $17 in weight to three different sites. The payout from Cash4Gold was $7.91. Consumer Reports, using its "mystery shopper" team, sent 24 identical gold pendants and chains (purchased for $175 each) to Cash4Gold.com and its competitors. The determined melt value of the jewelry was calculated at around $70 each when gold was above $900 an ounce. In comparison with Pawn shop and Jewelry store quotes (which ranged from $25 to $50), Cash4Gold.com quoted between $7.60~$12.72 melt value for the jewelry. Similar low quotes were also given by Cash4Gold.com competitors GoldKit (around $7.81~$20.59) and GoldPaq (around $8.22~$13.11).
After Rob Cockerham, a blogger, detailed drastic changes in Cash4Gold's valuation of jewelry after a complaint is made about an initial undervaluing, a search engine optimization consultant offered "a few thousand dollars" for Rob to remove the criticism. Cash4Gold CEO Jeff Aronson stated they had nothing to do with the incident, though the consultant stated "everyone (at Cash4Gold) was well aware of what was going on." On Cash4Gold’s blog, the company afterwards posted a “clarification statement” allegedly by the consultant contradicting that quote: “Cash4Gold was not aware of all of the tactics being using (sic) in my reputation management services.”
After a whistleblower posted on ComplaintsBoard.com discussing the inner workings of Cash4Gold.com, The Consumerist and other blogs were hit with a defamation suit by Cash4Gold.com after running the postings. In September 2009, Cash4Gold.com dropped Consumerist from their lawsuit.
Read more about this topic: C4g
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