Red flags: how to tell a postal gold buyer is not worth using

The four that should stop you posting

• No written, itemised offer. A verbal or lump-sum figure with no working cannot be checked and cannot be compared. You should see the purity found, the weight and the rate used, per item.
• Unclear return charges or arrangements. Establish the cost and method before posting. A disclosed charge is not itself fraud, but it can affect whether comparing offers is worthwhile.
• A right to process items on receipt. Terms permitting melting, cutting or unsetting before acceptance may permit irreversible alteration. Clarify the proposed work before posting.
• Silence treated as acceptance. A clause that deems you to have accepted after a set number of days needs clarification before posting; do not assume that every such term is legally effective.

Ten-minute checks to do before you post

1. Find the company number and check it at Companies House. A UK limited company must display its registered name and number. Search the register: does the name match, is the company active rather than dissolved or in the process of being struck off, and are accounts and confirmation statements filed on time?
2. Look at the incorporation date against the marketing. A recently incorporated company may have a predecessor business or experienced staff. Ask what a history claim refers to instead of assuming the incorporation date proves it false.
3. Check the address. Many legitimate businesses use a registered office that is an accountant or a formation agent. What matters is whether there is also a real trading address, and whether the business will tell you where your parcel is going before you send it.
4. Phone the number. A number that is answered by a person who can explain the testing method is worth more than any trust badge on a website.
5. Read the review pattern, not the score. Look at dates and detail. A cluster of near-identical five-star reviews posted in the same fortnight, or a review count far larger than a young company could plausibly have earned, is worth more scrutiny than a mixed but detailed history.
6. Search the company name with the words complaint, not returned and did not pay. Two minutes, and it surfaces most patterns worth knowing about.
7. Check the terms exist at all. A postal buyer with no published terms and conditions is asking you to send valuables into an arrangement with no published terms.

Check that the website belongs to the business you found

A copied company number is easy to display. Finding that number on the register establishes that a company exists; it does not establish that the website, message or collection request comes from that company. Compare the trading name, contact details and destination across the sources you have independently opened. A mismatch is a reason to pause and obtain an explanation, not something to overlook because the number itself is genuine.

Look at the actual domain in the address bar, particularly if you arrived through an advertisement or a message. A familiar logo and a reassuring page title can be copied. Save the address you checked so that you can return to it without using a later message link. If someone asks you to change the parcel destination, verify the change through the contact route you already established before using a replacement label.

A trading address can differ legitimately from a registered office, and a trading name can differ from the legal name. What matters is a coherent explanation of who will receive your property and who will owe you payment. Write those names beside one another. If the business cannot explain the connection, you do not yet have enough information to make a confident posting decision.

Distinguish an unanswered question from an adverse answer

Use three categories for your checks: confirmed, needs clarification, and unacceptable to you. For example, a clearly disclosed return fee might be unacceptable because you want to compare offers without expense. That is a valid reason to choose another buyer, but it is different from discovering a charge only after sending your items. Keeping the categories separate prevents a preference from becoming an unsupported accusation.

A missing answer should stay missing until it is supplied. Do not fill a gap with the most favourable interpretation of a slogan such as secure, guaranteed or hassle-free. Ask what the phrase means for your particular parcel. Equally, give the business an opportunity to correct an ordinary mistake or explain an address change before treating it as evidence of dishonesty.

Prioritise gaps that change your control over the items: the recipient, permission to alter them, how an offer is accepted and what happens if you decline. A weak photograph on a website is less consequential than unclear processing terms. This approach lets you decide on the substance of the arrangement without trying to judge a whole business from its design or the friendliness of one reply.

Test a promise against the terms that would govern it

If a prominent page says free return but the terms mention charges, ask which wording applies to the proposed transaction and retain the reply. There may be an explanation, such as a separate paid service, but it should be resolved before posting. Do not assume the shortest statement overrides everything else or that a long document automatically makes the less favourable term enforceable.

Check the scope of each assurance. A promise not to melt is incomplete if another clause permits cutting or removing stones before an offer. A promise to return the parcel needs an account of which items will be returned and in what condition. Ask about the operation that matters to your object rather than accepting a general reassurance that leaves that operation unanswered.

The same method works for payment. Prompt assessment, prompt dispatch of a payment instruction and cleared funds are different events. If a date matters to you, ask what event starts the stated period and whether any outstanding identity or ownership check could delay it. Clear conditions are more useful than an impressive time claim that you cannot connect to your actual circumstances.

Keep a small decision record rather than collecting trust badges

Before posting, save the relevant terms, the confirmed recipient and the reply covering any exception you asked about. Record the date and the address of the page. This is a compact account of the arrangement you chose, not a guarantee that a dispute cannot happen. It also makes it easier to notice if later instructions differ from those originally agreed.

Finish with one question: can you explain, in your own words, what will happen if you decide not to sell? If the answer remains uncertain, leave the items where they are while you clarify it. The questions guide turns those unresolved points into a message you can send before making a commitment.

Red flags in the terms and conditions

Open the terms page and use your browser’s find function. These specific phrases are the ones that change the balance of the deal, and they are usually buried rather than hidden. Every one of these questions has a published answer on selling gold by post, which is the standard any buyer should be held to, ours included.

• “deemed to have accepted” or any variant tying acceptance to the passage of time.
• “may be melted, refined or processed on receipt”, which may permit irreversible alteration; ask what is proposed before posting.
• “return postage will be charged”, or an administration, restocking or handling fee applied to declined lots.
• “we do not accept liability for items sent to us”, which is a broad disclaimer over goods that are still yours.
• “at our sole discretion”, and whatever follows it.
• No stated timescale at all for testing, for the offer, or for the return. Ask for the expected timing rather than assuming why it is absent.

Red flags in how a buyer talks to you

• Artificial urgency or unexplained pressure. A genuine offer can expire, so ask what happens afterwards and do not accept before understanding it.
• Claims to pay the highest price, guaranteed, before anyone has seen or tested the item. Nobody can guarantee a figure before inspection.
• Refusing to name the testing method, or describing it only as “our experts assess it”.
• Refusing to put the figure in writing.
• Asking for banking passwords, PINs or security codes. Basic payment details can have a legitimate purpose, but verify the recipient and why they are needed.
• Pressure to send more once the first parcel has arrived, particularly framed as improving the rate on the lot already held.
• A different figure each time you ask, with no explanation tied to the market or to the item.

Red flags in the offer itself

• A single total with no per-item breakdown, so a mixed lot cannot be checked.
• No purity stated. Without it there is no way to know whether a 9ct chain was priced as 9ct.
• No weight stated, or a weight given only to the nearest gram.
• No rate stated, and no date on the offer.
• A total that has changed from an earlier written figure with no reason given.

What a complete written offer looks like is set out in how we value gold, and the deduction side is covered in what fees a postal gold buyer charges.

Things that look like red flags but are not

• Being asked for photo identification. Identity or ownership checks can be legitimate. Verify the recipient and the purpose before supplying documents; an ID request alone does not prove that a business is trustworthy.
• An offer well below an insurance valuation. An insurance valuation is a replacement-at-retail figure. It is not a resale figure and never has been. The two are answering different questions.
• An offer below the gold price you saw on a chart. Published prices are for pure refined metal. Jewellery is an alloy containing solder, stones and fittings, and it has to be refined, see spot price versus scrap price.
• No shop to walk into. Postal-only is a cost structure, not a warning sign. Check the documented process and the return method and any charge.
• Being asked to split a high-value lot across more than one parcel. That is a buyer keeping each parcel within its postal cover level, which is in your interest rather than theirs.

If you have already posted and something feels wrong

Do not wait to see whether it resolves itself. Put your position in writing straight away, keep every message, and read what to do if something goes wrong when you sell gold by post, which sets out the escalation routes and the time limits that apply. Some of those limits are short, and a claim made late is often a claim refused.