Thoughts on Investing Money with GoldMoney.com

Please Note: This is a review of GoldMoney.com and this article DOES NOT contain any affiliate links. It is not my intention to drive traffic towards or away from GoldMoney.

The notion of investing in Gold & Silver was an interest that preceded my move into the cryptocurrency world, and I was particularly interested in GoldMoney.com as it appeared to be a relatively simple entry point into the world of precious metals.

The website enables you to transfer fiat currencies onto the site with the proposal that the money will be used to reserve Gold bullion at the vault of your choice. Essentially you are leveraging your fiat against the price of Gold.

One of the advantages is that you have the option at any time to 'cash out' your Gold and receive physical Gold or Silver which is shipped to your door. Alternatively you can go to the vault in person with ID and pick up your precious metals directly. This involves a cash-out fee plus shipping costs. More on that later.
There is also the option to send and receive money to/from others using your account (basically the same as Paypal) and obtain a GoldMoney Credit Card for use in the real world.

GoldMoney is a Canadian company launched in 2001 as a 'consumer gold storage company', in 2015 it was acquired by BitGold who stated "the acquisition will lower its operating cost and give them a ready-made vault storage operation for the company's in-beta gold payment system." The plan being that the GoldMoney infrastructure which had direct deals with worldwide vaults could be bolted into BitGold's payment infrastructure to create the platform we see today.
Given BitGold's history with Bitcoin and blockchain technology, there appears to be very little influence or reference to those technologies being incorporated into the new look GoldMoney.

The platform has a record of some controversial investors, primarily Alex and Gregory Soros’ fund, Soros Brothers Investments.

I have recently started moving money out of GoldMoney and have cashed in a percentage of my holdings for physical Silver.

My experience in withdrawing the silver was the precursor to starting to remove the rest of the funds.

While processing the withdrawal was super easy, it was the complete lack of clarity regarding the process at their end that I was disappointed with. When depositing funds in the first place you then have the option pick the Vault that you wish to deposit your money, there are around 7 across the World. BUT when withdrawing the revenue in precious metals the bullion is always posted to you from Canada.

---- alarm bells ringing yet? ----

So, this means that regardless of which vault you deposit the money the revenue/metals come to you from the GoldMoney HQ in Canada. It does beg the question, do these vaults really have a record of your deposit 'with them' and does the Gold that you buy into physically exist on depositing?

This is also important because if you are a resident outside of Canada then naturally you are likely to be liable to pay import tax on the precious metals you receive. In my case, being in the UK (and having withdrawn from a UK vault - So I thought!) I was greeted by a postman requesting a payment of £135 before handing over the package to me.

It is this situation that has left me with a severe lack of trust in this company. It might look all flashy and interesting to be able to pick a vault to store your precious metals but when it comes down to it the Gold is very likely not stored there to start with and your deposit simply amounts to a number on a computer in Canada.

A quick search on TrustPilot at other customers reviews confirmed my feelings, and there are many people having the same issues with this company, as well as an amass of reports of extremely bad customer service.
When your instincts tell you that something is not right, then those instincts should be followed.
I don't believe that my money is safe with this company.

To conclude:

I would strongly recommend to anyone thinking of investing in Gold and considering putting money in GoldMoney to do your research first. There are good aspects to the service but ultimately there are a lot of questions that need answering too. I personally would not be putting any sort of figure that I wasn't prepared to lose in an account with them.

Interested to hear from anyone who has an account with GoldMoney about their experiences.

Thank you so much for reading.
@jonboka [SteemIt]
@ JonWilderness [Twitter]