Fool's Gold

I don't know about your town but around here, there are a lot of "We Buy Gold!" shops. In fact, there are more popping up every day. There's one by my house that I thought was just a regular jewelry store (even has "diamond" in the title) but they've got an obnoxious sandwich sign in the parking lot about how they're just dying to buy my gold. And I hear lots of radio ads about "We'll buy your gold! It's okay if it's damaged or old!" (Okay, that's not the exact wording but they might want to use that if they come across this.)

Now I get that there could be establishments that sell jewelry AND buy it. But when a place pushes the "buying" part that hard, it makes me suspicious. I mean, a business can't survive from buying alone. So is the catch that they want you to come in to sell your gold and then they sell you some more gold and/or jewels?

I've decided to launch a full on investigation of this alleged gold scheme. And by "alleged" I mean I'm the one making the allegations and by "investigation" I mean I am going to Google it. Right now.

Okay, I'm back from my sleuthing. I was right that it's a con but wrong about why. They want to buy your gold and pay you less than what it's worth. You're thinking, "But I don't know how much it's worth." That's what they're counting on.

I had trouble even finding information on the internet about it because when you Google things like "We Buy Gold Scams" all you find are all these websites that talk about why they're the best place for your gold dealings and why the others are scams.

Oh, and the gold-selling parties might be fun but they're shady too. Sure, it's cool to walk away with $100 but what if you could really get $200? One article I read said it's better to shop around locally and see who will you give you the best deal. This is preferable to mail-in places. Mail-in? I don't have any fancy gold jewelry but I sure wouldn't send what I do have through the mail and expect to get top dollar.

I hope that my expose on the gold-buying industry has opened your eyes, both to the scandal that's behind those sandwich signs and to the blood, sweat and tears it takes to work in the field of investigative blogging.