Selling Advice

We Buy Scrap Gold

Our Advice
We will try to keep this simple:

• Know What You Have Got - Do Some Homework
  
  • Either weigh your gold items (in grams) or get somebody with a suitable weighing scale to do it for you. It could be worth asking a friendly local jeweller to do this for you (offer to pay).
  • Know the gold content (purity in carats (cts.) or as a percentage. Pure gold is 24 carat, therefore 9 ct is 9/24 = 37.5% pure.
  • Look Up the Spot Gold Price in pounds (if you are in the UK).
  • Work out the intrinsic (theoretical) value. (Aren't you glad you paid attention during maths lessons in school?). Some other websites will do this for you, we have not got around to adding this facility to ours yet.

• Shop Around
  The proportion of the intrinsic value you are offered will vary from less than 10% upwards.
  Most buyers will tell you a price, possibly approximate. Avoid any who cannot or will not.
• You will probably get a better price if you have everything sorted, weighed and clearly labelled.
  
• If posting gold scrap, send a list and keep a copy. Making a photocopy or taking a photograph of the lot is also sensible.

• Be Careful - some Pitfalls & Traps
  • Beware! Some dealers advertise to pay 10% to 30% more than the actual value or similar misleading and dishonest claims.
    
  • Some of the biggest advertisers are the worst payers.
  • Many of the newly sprung up buyers are "Cowboys".
  • Some of the "post your gold to us" operators are very new, and use sharp practices.
  • Some scrap by post companies will take 28 days to return your gold if you decide not to sell.
  • Some postal gold companies will charge for things like removing a watch movement (we heard £10 from one source), and they are often not capable of putting it back if you decide not to sell.
  • If you only know the weight in ounces, don't forget that gold is weighed in troy ounces, not normal avoirdupois ounces. See our "Weights" page.
  • If posting gold, make sure you know who you have sent it to. Some buyers do not enclose their address details when sending your cheque (to make it harder for you to request its return in time).
  • Beware of doorstep buyers (knocker boys). If you have any suspicions, contact your neighbourhood watch coordinator or your local police.
  • Jewellery Parties. You will probably only get 75% of the intrinsic value at the most, as the party host, buyer, and others get commission and bonuses out of the proceeds. You may feel under an obligation to sell there and then, and may not be able to shop around. You may also have drunk too much wine!

Transparency
Try to deal with somebody straightforward who will tell you important information such as how much per gram they pay.
We try to make our buying policies as transparent as possible, including general advice pages like this one.

OFT - Office of Fair Trading Enquiry
On 21st January 2010, the OFT announced that it was requesting information from gold buying companies.

Money Which Report
On the same date, Money Which magazine published a report "Which? slams cash for gold buyers"

End of Free Advice - Now for a Commercial Break!
We create pages like this largely because we hate to see people get ripped off, and because we are such nice people.
Naturally we also hope you will want to do business with us, which brings us to:

We Buy Scrap Gold
We (Chard) buy scrap gold, prices change constantly, and percentages also change subject to market conditions. Please see our page linked above for more information.

Offers, Payments, & Other Stuff
If you call in to our showroom, we will try to assess you gold while you wait, (please bring suitable ID, and we may ask for proof of ownership).
We normally pay immediately by either cheque or bank transfer (BACS). Same day (CHAPS) transfers attract a £25 charge.
We can and will pay cash, but make a 1% charge for this, except for some small transactions at our discretion. If you want cash, you should visit within normal banking hours.
You may notice we do not advertise "Cash for Gold" as this may attract the wrong type of clientele!
If you post gold to us, we will try to contact you to advise receipt, and also try to make you an offer the same day. You do not have to accept our offer, on the spot or at all, but the price is subject to change according to spot gold prices. Obviously, we prefer to get each deal done as quickly as possible, and move on to the next job and the next customer.
Once you accept our offer, it is mutually binding; we will then process your payment by your preferred method, and adopt your scrap or other items into our stock.
We make a standard £10 charge for returning your items if you do not accept our offer; this is to cover or contribute to postage, insurance, packing, and our administrative costs. It is also partly to deter people from sending us near worthless junk! On the rare occasions when we are asked to return items, we will normally do this without any unreasonable delay.
Although we are a small, private limited company, we have a net asset backing in excess of £1 million. Our latest audited accounts are available from Companies House.
We can also pay in US Dollars or Euros. Your bank may make a charge for handling this. We may also make a small charge for this (typically 1%).

Not Only Scrap Gold
In addition to buying scrap gold, we also buy quality old jewellery, diamonds rings, watches, certificated diamonds, coins, medals, medallions, silver, platinum, and more. Many scrap gold buyers will not pay anything extra for diamonds.

Scrap Gold Buying Rip Off
Many jewellers & dealers advertising to buy scrap gold jewellery in the UK are ripping people off with low prices & misleading claims. We discuss and name a few of them.

Any Quantity
We are happy to buy any quantity of scrap, from a single piece upwards, without limit.
If you have a large quantity of gold scrap to sell, we will accept your instructions on price, or offer you helpful advice on selling. We are one of the longest established and largest gold buyers in Britain.

Fair and Competitive Prices
Our buying prices for gold coins, bars and scrap are fair and competitive, but depend and change based on underlying gold prices, and other market conditions such as supply and demand.

International Buyers
We also frequently buy gold coins from many other countries. There is no import duty or tax on entry to the UK for most gold coins or bars.

Sending Gold Scrap by Post
You are welcome to visit our showroom to sell scrap, but it's also very easy to sell to us using the post. We have a page of advice about sending gold coins and scrap by post.

Other Misleading Gold Adverts
There are lots of them around!
Just one example:-

MyGoldSold.co.uk Laughably Stupid Claim to Pay 30% More for Gold than any UK Buyer
It's hard to believe anybody would make such a ridiculous claim and expect to be believed!

Cash For Gold Scrap Gold Buying Rip Off
Cash4Gold.Com ex employee spills the beans.

Scrap Gold Selling Form
You may wish to print out our form to help make it easy for you to list goods you are posting to us for sale or offer.