Trustee briefing: GoldPaid for charity retail.

Executive summary for trustees

A charity retail operation receives donated speciality items every week: gold, silver, watches, antiques, collectable coins, and items of uncertain value. Without a specialist route, those items are sold on the shop floor at well below specialist value, sold in bulk to a weighbridge scrap buyer, or stored indefinitely at the back of a stockroom. Each route destroys a meaningful amount of value the charity is entitled to, and the loss is invisible because there is no audit line on it.

GoldPaid is a UK-based postal valuation and buying service built around charity governance. It gives shops a free WhatsApp valuation channel before anything is posted, a free prepaid Royal Mail Special Delivery label for approved parcels, a written XRF-based valuation on arrival, and Faster Payments direct to the charity’s registered bank account once the offer is accepted. Every parcel produces a written itemised valuation and a trustee-friendly PDF summary. There is no contract, no minimum volume, no exclusivity clause, and no setup fee.

This briefing answers the seven questions a board should be asking before approving a pilot.

1. Who controls the money, and where does it land?

Every payment is made by UK Faster Payments to the charity’s registered bank account only. The account is verified at onboarding against the Charity Commission register, OSCR for Scottish charities, or CCNI for Northern Irish charities. GoldPaid will never pay into a personal account, a shop till account, a consortium account, a staff member’s account, or a suspense account. The account of record cannot be changed without a written request from the charity’s head-office contact, using the registered charity email domain.

GoldPaid pays only the account verified at onboarding.

2. What does the audit trail look like?

Every parcel is logged under a unique parcel reference. Against that reference the charity receives the sending shop, the date posted, the date valued, the itemised valuation, the offer made, the offer acceptance confirmation, the Faster Payments transaction reference, and the date of settlement. A trustee-friendly PDF summary of every parcel is emailed to the charity’s designated head-office contact.

At month-end, a roll-up report aggregates all parcels across the estate, broken down by shop, by category, by value, and by exception. A CSV version is available for direct import into the charity’s management accounting system in whatever format the finance team requires.

3. How are precious metals priced, and how does the board know the price is fair?

Gold and silver are tested by XRF spectrometry, a non-destructive reading of the alloy composition, and priced under GoldPaid’s separate charity terms against the live precious-metal market on the day of valuation. The XRF reading, the weight and the figure for each item are shown on every itemised report.

The charity’s finance team or auditor can check every line against the purity and weight recorded on the report and the metal market on the day of valuation. This is deliberate: the method is designed to be checked by someone with no specialist knowledge.

4. How are watches, antiques and collectables priced?

Watches, antiques and other items that are not bought for their metal are assessed individually rather than by weight. Each one is listed with its own figure on the written, itemised offer, so the charity can set it beside an auction estimate or another buyer’s written figure before deciding.

This is the same method used by reputable antiques dealers and auction-house valuers. The difference is that the working is shown on paper to the charity rather than asserted verbally.

5. What happens if the charity does not accept the offer?

The parcel is returned to the sending shop, tracked and signed for, at GoldPaid’s cost. No fee for a returned parcel, no re-stocking charge, no delay. The items come back in the same condition they arrived, and the charity is free to dispose of them through any other route.

GoldPaid’s commercial model depends on charities continuing to use the service over time, not on a single transaction. The incentive is aligned with making offers the charity considers fair on the first pass.

6. Data protection and UK GDPR

The only personal data processed in relation to the charity is the head-office contact name, role and work email, used solely to manage the service. Donor personal data is never requested or processed; the charity handles donor records as it does for any other disposal route. The lawful basis for processing is Article 6(1)(b) (performance of a contract) for onboarded charities and Article 6(1)(f) (legitimate interests, B2B) for initial outreach.

A full privacy notice and a data processing agreement template are available on request. GOLDPAID LTD is registered in England and Wales. ICO registration ZC214216 (data controller: Rocco Clayfield, trading as GoldPaid): a trustee looking it up will find it under his name rather than the company’s. See privacy for the standing notice.

7. Exit, continuity, and what happens if GoldPaid ceases trading

There is no lock-in. The charity can stop using the service at any time, with no notice period and no penalty. Any parcels already in transit at the point of exit are valued and paid as normal; any parcels the charity chooses not to send are simply not sent. No data is held by GoldPaid that the charity cannot retrieve on request.

If GoldPaid ceased trading, no charity balance would be caught up in it: GoldPaid pays for accepted items straight to the charity’s registered account, aiming to pay within one working hour of the charity accepting the offer, and keeps no charity money in an intermediate account.

Recommended trustee action

The proportionate trustee action is to approve a five-shop pilot for a thirty-day period. Pick five shops across different postcode profiles in the charity’s estate. Give those shop managers the GoldPaid WhatsApp number (07944 014111) and instruct them to send a photo of any donated item they are uncertain about for the pilot period. At the end of thirty days, review the monthly roll-up report with the retail director and the finance director, and make an informed decision on whether to extend the arrangement across the whole estate, continue at the pilot scale, or discontinue.

The commitment required from the charity during the pilot is: an onboarding call (about thirty minutes), bank account verification (one document exchange), agreement of the named head-office contact, and a briefing note to the five shop managers. No financial commitment. No contract. No exclusivity with respect to any existing disposal arrangement.

Conflict of interest disclosure

GoldPaid does not pay referral fees, commissions, or any other form of inducement to charity staff. No charity trustee, officer, or employee will receive any personal benefit from approving, recommending, or using the service. Any trustee, officer or employee of a charity retailer who has a relationship (commercial, personal, or familial) with GoldPaid is required to disclose that relationship on the onboarding call so it can be recorded against the charity’s onboarding record.

Contact for trustee questions

A trustee reading this document because a retail director has forwarded it does not need to contact GoldPaid to make a decision: the information here is sufficient to judge the proposal on paper. If a 20-minute call would help, it is always available on request. Call or WhatsApp us on 07944 014111. Email via the contact form.

Why sell by post with GoldPaid

Three differences from a counter sale. You see a measured valuation in writing, not a verbal estimate. You decide at home, with nobody waiting. And if you decline, the return is free, tracked and signed for, so obtaining the valuation costs you nothing.

Common questions