Goldmoney Review

Goldmoney is a precious metals dealer with more than 20 years of industry experience. Rather than being a typical online dealer, they offer some unique features. You can use their online platform to purchase precious metals, but then Goldmoney takes care of all of the storage and allocation for you.

The company's goal is to help more people invest in precious metals. By taking the hassle out of the portfolio, they make precious metals more accessible to new investors.

But despite the hype, there have been some concerning online reviews. Is Goldmoney really everything it claims to be? Are their practices actually legitimate?

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About Goldmoney

Goldmoney was created in 2001. The company's main service is their Goldmoney Holding system, which allows people to purchase precious metals and store them directly with the company. Your precious metals belong completely to you, but you don't have to worry about where or how to store them.

When you sign up for a Goldmoney Holding account, you are able to buy and sell precious metals. You can look at your account holdings in real time and access data about the value.

Goldmoney stores the holdings of their clients in vaults scattered across seven different countries. If you've wanted your investments to be secure and separate from any government or banking entity, their solutions will appeal. All accounts have a full insurance policy.

Audits are regularly performed of each client's vault to make sure that the person's listed holdings match up to what's actually inside their vault. You can liquidate your metals at any time by selling them back to Goldmoney, and then you can transfer the cash to your bank account.

That said, there have been quite a few customer complaints from people who say that they were not able to properly transfer their funds. It seems like Goldmoney's staff is very slow to process any transaction that takes money out of your account instead of putting money into it.

Features of Goldmoney Holding

When you make a Goldmoney Holding account, you get access to the following features:

There are just three steps to get started with a Holding account. You also don't need to meet any minimum purchase requirement. All you have to do is take a few minutes to fill out the application, transfer funds into the account from your bank, and then begin buying and selling metals to your heart's content.

Storage and Exchange Fees

Goldmoney has a section on their website where they talk about the various storage and exchange fees for account holders. Fees are calculated based on a percentage of your holdings or the transaction.

There are some disadvantages to this type of fee system. Flat fees tend to be better because you pay the same amount no matter whether you're transferring a lot or a little. By comparison, percentage fees mean that you pay a higher amount when your transaction involves a larger amount of precious metals.

As mentioned, you can use nine different currencies to pay your fees and liquidate your assets. You can also exchange between these currencies. Goldmoney claims that they have very competitive buyback pricing when you want to liquidate your holdings, but there are some customer complaints that seem to say that isn't actually the case.

Every time you make a purchase or sell your precious metals on the platform's general marketplace, you will pay a fee of 0.5% of the transaction.

There is a different fee for times when you access Goldmoney's Active Trader marketplace and place a limit order instead. This is a separate action from working on the general marketplace. With limit orders, the fee increases to 1% of the total transaction.

You also have the opportunity to exchange precious metals with each other. This is a principle that's very similar to exchanging currencies based on their market value. You can shift your funds from gold to silver to palladium in order to maximize the growth and returns of your holdings.

If you want to exchange between metals, this is considered a discount transaction. That helps to streamline the process and reduce the number of fees you'd otherwise pay. Every metal exchange transaction has a fee of 0.75% of the holdings.

Another option is to exchange precious metals between vaults. This involves selling the metals that you have in one vault and using the funds to buy metals in a different vault. Traders sometimes do this to take advantage of the different prices in different global markets.

As with the metal exchanges, Goldmoney has streamlined and simplified this process into a single transaction. In these cases, you will pay 0.75% of the exchanged holdings, exactly the same rate as a metal exchange.

When Goldmoney first started out, they didn't have monthly storage fees. But then they changed their structure. Everyone with precious metals in a Holding account must pay a monthly fee to maintain their vault.

You can store up to $100,000 in precious metals for just $10 at minimum. Some accounts might have higher rates depending on the exact holdings. Your storage fee is either $10 or a certain percentage of your precious metals holdings, depending which number is higher.

As mentioned, every storage vault comes with a full insurance policy. These storage solutions are preferred to safety deposit boxes because there is no limit to the insurance coverage.

If your Holding account has a balance of any kind, you will be charged a $10 fee monthly for storage. This even applies if your vault has less than $10 worth of precious metals in it. You will still need to meet the minimum requirements to have your storage open.

When you fund your account by transferring money into it, several methods are free of charge. You can transfer money through a direct bank transfer or bank wire transfer completely for free. However, you do need to pay a fee to withdraw the money. Some customers have been disgruntled about this, although the website is very transparent about it.

The fee is deducted from your account balance prior to the transfer being made to the bank account. When you set up a transfer, your account representative should let you know about the fee up front.

Another note is that the transfer cost is calculated based on the currency you're using. For example, it costs 3,000 yen to transfer yen currency, but it only costs $25 USD to transfer US dollars. This is because of how banks evaluate currency with varying global exchange rates.

You have the option to register silver, gold, and platinum bars in your own name. You'll talk to your vault custodian about doing this. There will be a metal fee in grams or ounces.

The website has a full chart of the fees. One example is that you'll pay 2 grams of gold for a 100 gram gold bar, or 1.5 grams of gold for a 1 kilogram gold bar. Silver fees are calculated in ounces rather than grams.

Is Goldmoney a Scam?

Goldmoney isn't a scam in the traditional sense. The company offers products and services, and then it delivers. There are some customers who report that they've had a perfectly pleasant experience. So by that metric, there isn't any scam issue happening.

But Goldmoney's customer reviews are atrocious. Almost all of them are overwhelmingly negative. There are dozens of reviews on both Trustpilot and Sitejabber, both of which give the company a rating of less than 2 out of 5 stars.

The Better Business Bureau website gives them a 1.2 out of 5 star rating based on 5 customer reviews. Though they have an A+ with the organization, they are not accredited. And there have been a stunning 26 total complaints filed against the company in the past three years.

All of that indicates, just at a glance, that Goldmoney isn't a good company to work with. Nearly every customer who left feedback said that they were extremely upset and unsatisfied. Obviously there's no way to explore every single complaint that's ever been written, but let's take a look at a few of the issues posted on the BBB website.

Customer Complaints

Of the 26 total customer complaints, 19 were related to issues with a product or service. Another five were related to billing problems. One complaint was related to advertising and sales, and one was filed over delivery issues.

Right away, that gives us a picture of a company that isn't necessarily providing the level of quality that they claim they will.

Transfer Nightmare

In January of 2020, a customer left a complaint. They had signed up for the service in 2019. The customer invested about $1,800 over the course of six months. Then they were informed that there would be a change to the company's fee structure, so there would now be monthly storage fees.

The customer stated that they didn't have any issue with that, aside from mild frustration. They chose to remove their funds rather than pay the extra storage fees. So they liquidated their assets and tried to withdraw the cash. Toward the beginning of December, they were told it might take six days for the transfer to work.

It was the end of January when they filed their complaint. The transfer still hadn't gone through. During the weeks between, they had tried multiple times to contact Goldmoney, only to receive no reply.

When they were eventually able to get on the phone with someone from the company, they were told that there were issues with the account number. So the customer clarified the information. But the transfer still didn't go through.

Goldmoney responded to say that the transfer eventually went through on January 29. The customer stated that the issue had been resolved and that they believed they may have judged the company too harshly initially.

Another complainant indicated that they were having a similar problem. They wanted to withdraw their funds in Australian currency and close their account. But there was some kind of issue keeping Goldmoney from verifying the account information.

Goldmoney responded about two weeks later to say that the problem was resolved and the transfer was completed. The customer confirmed that this was true.

Missing $15,000

There was a complaint from someone who alleged that they had lost $15,000. The customer created a Goldmoney account in order to invest in bullion. Then they funded it using $15,000 from their bank account. Using the money, they purchased gold bullion.

Like the previous complainant, this person's issue started when the company decided to change their fee structuring. Because they did not want to pay monthly storage fees, they chose to liquidate their precious metals at a loss so they could get their money.

Goldmoney told the customer that a wire transfer had been sent on January 3, 2020. This complaint was written on the 22nd of January in 2020. Apparently the company said that the transfer arrived at the bank, but the customer didn't receive any funds. When the customer contacted the bank, they were told that no funds had ever been sent.

The customer followed up four days later to say that they'd finally received the wire transfer, so the issue could be closed.

Many other complaints are related to slow wire transfers and issues with products. There seems to be a consistent pattern in that it's very easy to set up an account and fund it, but trying to get your money back out is a nightmare. This pattern of complaint also remains consistent across the other third party websites where negative reviews have been recorded.

Final Thoughts

Goldmoney is a company that looks promising on the surface. In theory, their services are a great way for people to invest in precious metals without needing to jump through complicated hoops. They make it quick and convenient to purchase precious metals and manage your holdings.

There's nothing wrong with the premise of the company. Many of the services that they offer are valuable. But the customer feedback has been so negative that all we can say is: stay away!

It seems like almost everyone has had a terrible time in trying to get their money back. In fact, even though there are hundreds of reviews online, you have to really search to find any glowing praise.

While Goldmoney has responded to many of the complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau, they also don't appear to reply to private customer service requests. For many of these aggrieved customers, it was only when they took their issue public that they received any kind of response from the company.

You shouldn't have to write a public complaint to have your needs heard. In a well managed company, the customer service team will care about your satisfaction from the beginning of your working relationship to the end. There are quite a few precious metals dealers that do function like this. We recommend working with one of those instead.

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