Why GoldPaid exists
I started GoldPaid because most people who want to sell a piece of gold have a perfectly reasonable question, "what is this actually worth?", and the existing routes do not answer it well. The high street guesses on the spot. The big postal buyers send a pre-paid pack, then a take-it-or-leave-it figure with no working shown. Both rely on the seller not knowing the maths. GoldPaid is built on the opposite idea: explain the maths, weigh and test every item, put a written breakdown in front of you, and let you decide at home in your own time.
The dishonest economics in this category
A lot of postal gold buyers advertise "best price guaranteed" or "highest price paid in the UK". Read it carefully and there is no maths behind it. No one can guarantee the best price without knowing every competitor's margin, every day, and no one publishes that. The phrase is a marketing claim, not a fact. The same goes for "we pay 95% of spot" headlines, the percentage is real for one item, on one day, at one purity, after one quiet assumption. Outside that, it is not. We are not going to make those claims because they are not true, and the people who do make them know they are not true.
Why we do not claim "highest price"
A postal assay service costs real money to run. The XRF spectrometer, the Royal Mail Special Delivery cover on every parcel, the free tracked return when you decline, the time to write up an itemised offer rather than blurt a number over a counter, the bank fees, the AML checks, none of that is free. We have to take a margin to pay for those things and to make GoldPaid sustainable. So we will not pretend the margin does not exist. What we will do is keep it honest, show the working, and let our offer compete on transparency rather than on a slogan.
The four operating principles
- Ask first. Message GoldPaid on WhatsApp with a photo or a question before anything else. Nothing has to leave your hands until you are ready, if ever.
- Photo first. A clear photo and a weight gives us enough to send back an indicative figure. That is the start of the conversation, not a commitment.
- No shop. GoldPaid has no high-street branch anywhere. No counter, no opening hours, no overhead in the offer.
- Decline free. If the offer is not for you, your items come back free of charge, on a tracked, signed-for, insured Royal Mail service. There is no fee for declining and no follow-up.
Why we will never publish fake reviews
GoldPaid is a young service. Real customer reviews are coming in slowly, because real customer trust grows slowly, that is how it should work. We will never buy reviews, write reviews, or pad a star rating. Anything you see on the reviews page will be from a real customer, attributable, and we will say so. If we ever have to choose between an empty reviews page and a faked one, we will choose the empty one.
Why we publish documented assays
Every offer we make comes with a written, itemised breakdown: each piece, the XRF-confirmed purity, the weight in grams, the per-gram rate we used that day, and the figure we are offering. You can check the arithmetic. If it does not add up, tell us. We would rather you push back on a sum than feel quietly suspicious about it. The full method is on how we value gold.
The Royal Mail Special Delivery cover
Every parcel we ask you to send travels on Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed, fully tracked, signed for, and arranged with compensation cover of up to £2,500 per parcel. We pay for the label in, and we pay for the tracked return out if you decline. Higher-value consignments are handled differently, and we will tell you exactly how before you post anything. See postage and insurance for the detail.
How we will know we are doing well
We are not going to put up a "10,000 happy customers" counter. We have no way to verify a number like that and neither does anyone else who prints one. Instead, here is what we are watching:
- A growing corpus of genuine, attributable customer reviews, written by real sellers, published as they come in. No padding.
- A growing B2B partner network, the small jewellers, charity shops and probate solicitors who refer sellers to us, because that only happens if the service is good.
- Returning customers and recommendations to family. Repeat sellers and word-of-mouth are the only honest measure of whether a service like this is working.
Rocco Clayfield
Founder, GoldPaid
Common questions
Why does GoldPaid not guarantee the "highest price"?
Because no postal buyer can verify that claim. No one publishes every competitor's margin, every day. We will not print a slogan we cannot defend. What we will do is publish the per-gram rate we used, the XRF-confirmed purity, the weight and the arithmetic, so you can check it.
What is the margin you take?
It varies by item, weight and carat, and it pays for the XRF spectrometer, Royal Mail Special Delivery cover both ways, free tracked return if you decline, AML checks and the time to write up an itemised offer. We will not pretend the margin is zero. We will keep it honest and shown.
How do I hold GoldPaid to its position?
Push back on any figure that does not add up, purity, weight, per-gram rate, total. Use the complaints procedure if a response falls short. Tell us on WhatsApp or write to hello@goldpaid.co.uk. We would rather hear it and fix it than miss it.
What happens if I am not happy with the offer?
You decline and your items come back free of charge by tracked, signed-for Royal Mail. No fee for declining, no follow-up pressure, no "discounted" second offer to manipulate the decision.