Is Cash 4 Gold a scam?

Of course it is. This is one of those random posts that I feel I need to make because I understand SEO and this company makes me ill. I am SO TIRED of seeing companies that prey on the uninformed. Cash4Gold.com Cash for Gold Cash 4 Gold.  This is a post I found on another site that needs to be re-broadcast to as many sites as possible. I will print the post in its entirety. You can read the original at:

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/cash-4-gold-c87309.html

I am a former employee of Cash 4 Gold. I did not know much about the company before being hired. On my first day of being hired, I was taught the “Cash 4 Gold Scam” from beginning to end.
1. The “refiner’s pack” that is used for you to put your jewelry is “insured for UP TO 100 dollars, ” according to how much they feel your items are worth, NOT appraised at
2. We receive your “Refiner’s Pack” within 3-4 days, but we are instructed to tell you that it takes “7-10 business days, for us to receive your pack, ALTHOUGH your package has already arrived.
3.Your jewlery gets appraised by hand/magnifying glasses/
a small weight pad, and a bottle of mystery fluid, which your items are then give a value for. Not million dollar equipment or specially trained jewelry experts.
4. Although the payment (check) for your item is dated within 24 hrs of testing your jewelry, we sometimes DO NOT actually send out the check until up to 3-4 days later.
5. We claim a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee or your jewelry returned, BUT THE CATCH IS, that the guarantee is contacting us within 10 DAYS from when your check is DATED. (This begins with the time it takes for the accounts payables dept. to issue the check and also including the transit time for you to receive your check in the mail. **** NOTATE THE COMMERCIALS THAT STATE U GET YOUR CHECK IN 24 HRS.***
5. IF you are lucky you will receive your check around the “7th-10th” bus iness day, AND more then 97% of the time Customers are outraged when they lay eyes on the amount of the check. Some Customer’s even receive a check for 0.01 cents. (TRUTH) Thats including items of great value (Diamonds, Platinum/ Gold and Sterling)
6. They sometimes even receive your valuables and like them so much THAT we CLAIM to not have received the items just so the “TOP” people or even “FAVORED” people can get first dibs on your items. From which point we issued an INSURANCE CLAIM for UP TO 100 dollars. GOD FORBID your items are worth more then a 100 dollars, and when you call in to check on the status of your items, we tell you ” YOU SHOULD”VE ADDED EXTRA INSURANCE ON YOUR ITEMS.” We do not have an actual Insurance company, they use customer service reps as the claim department agents.
7. For those who receive there check within the 10 day frame, GOOD LUCK with trying to get in touch with a cust. srvc. rep before your 10 days are up. Which after your 10 days, your items are “ALREADY MELTED” or NO LONGER AVAILABLE FOR RETURN.”
8. For the “LUCKY” people who do get in touch with us within the alloted time frame, we already know what you are calling about. Customers want their items returned, because there
check amount is so insultingly LOW. The first thing a Rep will ask you is “HOW MUCH WERE YOU EXPECTING TO GET BACK?” This way we can know how much to “BONUS” you.
Definition of a BONUS: We issue low checks just to have you call us back if you are smart enough to realized that you just got scammed. For the smart one’s we are paid to offer u a bonus up to 3x the original amount of your check and you accept. For ex: Sally Smith receives a check for $27.86 for a rolex watch(which we dont issue value for), a class ring, a ring with diamond chips, a pair of earrings with emeralds, as well as a few sterling silver pieces, and maybe a few items that were really of no value. Now Sally Smith calls the cust srvc dept, where she speaks to a rep who seems so concerned and will see if she can do better with the amount by speaking to a “SUPERVISOR”. We then place the caller on Mute, and speak to our neighbors or doodle on a sheet, or twiddle with our hair for about 45 seconds, while we are supposedly speaking to our supervisor about Ms. Smith’s complaint. We then come back with an offer to “BUMP UP YOUR MELT DATE or any other lies the cust srvc reps can think of, and offer you a total amount of $53.20 which is a little under double the amount of your original check. In which case if you accept, the cust srvc rep makes a 15.00 bonus off of your transaction. If the cust srvc rep offers you under triple the amount of your orig check, she makes 10.oo in bonuses.
9. If you accept the offer, the deal is done, and you are told that the call is recorded(which most of the time, the record button does not work.)Just a way to make your feel binded by a verbal contract. IF you do not accept the deal, you have to return your check, and it takes sometimes up to a month to receive your items back after we receive the check.
10. If you only want the items that we do not find of any value back, you have to pay a 10.00 shipping and handling fee to have your own items returned, which varies depending on sales for that week. IF sales are good, there is no fee, when we are slow, you must pay.
Cash 4 Gold is definitely not a trustworthy or credible company to do business with. You are almost better off taking your items to a local pawn shop or shopping around for other companies. With the economony the way it is, Cash 4 Gold seems to be a way out of financial stress for some, but in actuality becomes a stress of its own. I would advice you to think twice before sending in valuables or items inherited and of sentimental value. Its not worth it. I am not doing this as a way of Bashing their money making process but more so to warn everyone.

Brad Hicks vs Ron Burgandy

I was just going through my webstats and noticed I got some Google traffic for people looking for Brad Hicks. It was probably Brad Googleing himself, you shouldn’t do that Brad. Anyway, I make no secret of what a joke I think local news is, I am not alone in this and I don’t have much to say that hasn’t been said before. I did find something pretty funny however. I had mentioned Brad Hicks in a post about a couple trash stories on the news lately that were messing with local business. The only reason I mentioned Brad was because of his garish ties and the fact that he just looks like he would smoke weed. Which is totally fine by me. Anyway, I googled Brad Hicks and came across this page.

http://chickaboomer.blogspot.com/2008/03/anchorman-legend-of-brad-hicks.html

There are no original thoughts left….

Incoming search terms:

• Where does news anchor brad hicks buy his ties?

Unproductive

I had a really unproductive weekend. I hate that. Some days I just cant seem to muster up the energy to do anything, let alone be creative. I am still mulling over a couple options in my head regarding career choices (clients really). I really want to get involved in this online auction project, but I have worked with the guy in the past and he’s a real live wire. He moves fast with little planning and  aside from me, he doesn’t hire the best help.  In the past I have really felt hindered when trying to get something done. The problem is that if this takes off, and I miss the boat – the kicking I shall give myself is really going to hurt.

The local business marketing thing is plugging along at a decent pace, but its certainly not exciting. In order for me to stick around a boring gig, there better be a TON of money involved.

The day job almost came to a boil on Friday, 5 minutes before close. My dissaproval for the way things are handled here is becoming more and more obvious and I am not holding back. I would imagine they are shopping around for my replacement. Good luck with that.

Outdated marketing methods – the dinosaurs still walk among us

It’s my birthday today. I am exhausted as usual. I’ve been in the office for 40 minutes and already my blood pressure is up. The decisions that are made here are based solely on speculation and outdated ideas. One bad decision after the other and a completely reactive environment. Every suggestion I make is shot down, it almost seems deliberate, like no matter what, go against the employee. More wasted money, more sub-par results.

Without going into too much detail, we are working on a project that is potentially really cool, however my enthusiasm has already been squashed because the way we are going about things is wrong, and I am tired of being ignored. The only reason I would make any suggestions now is to have the “I told you so” opportunity at the end.

I could write a novel on the wrong way to go about things. Whether you are marketing your own business or marketing someone elses, the steps that are necessary to succeed are the same.

1. Know your audience

2. Know your content

3. Know what works and what doesn’t

4. Know when to pull the trigger and when to pull the plug

Today I watch a fairly nice budget slowly get chipped away,  you could do a hell of a lot with $60,000. Let me give you an example. If you are promoting an event that is recurring, say it’s an annual event.  You should set up your marketing methods so that it builds on what you did last year. If you pay attention at all,  you should know that 85% of search marketing is reputation. A site reputation is no different than a persons reputation. To make it simple, reputation is based on age, history, and what people are saying about you. Simple enough right?

So, using those 3 pieces of reputation, which would you ithink would be the best idea?

a. Create a solid website that can be modified to fit the event each year. Build links to it, get reputation through social networking, let the site age, use it to showcase the event AFTER it happened so that the site generates traffic through out the year untl the date of the next event year? Oh yeah, and HOST THE SITE???

or would you think it was a good idea to:

b. Build the main (money site) as a profile page on a social networking site, then promote that website with paid search, viral marketing etc.  I guess you wouldn’t care that since you don’t own the site, you cannot control the uptime, you cannot harvest the email addresses or contact information directly to your database or email list. The paid search you are doing is actually promoting the network that is hosting the page, not the website, so any links that are built are actually pointed at the social network site that is hosting the page, thereby increasing the reputation of that social network (which is already the top 5 website on the internet). I don’t really need to continue here right? It’s obvious why this is an incredibly stupid idea, right? Apparently not.

There is a reason that Carl Icahn says that all CEO’s are morons.  Personally, I am totally OK admitting when I don’t know something, and if I don’t know something, I will defer to someone who does. Never assume you are the smartest guy in the room and there is no room for hunches in marketing. The beauty of marketing is that there is no shortage of stats, plans, metrics and methods that show exactly what you need to do.

Regardless of whether or not you want to be involved in the marketing of your business, you owe it to yourself to at least know what questions to ask.

1. What are you going to do to make people want to come to my site?
2. What are you going to do to get people to stay?
3. What are you doing to make them want to come back?
4. Is there a call to action on every page of the site?
5. What methods are you using to capture visitor information? Just because they aren’t interested now doesn’t mean they wont be in the future.
6. Are you taking advantage of social marketing methods? Do you understand them?
7. Are you paying attention to usability?
8. Are you leaving room to explore new avenues as they become available? Do you keep up with changing technology and trends?

Obviously, there are more but this gives you some idea. Internet marketing is interesting and fun. The ability to be able to modify campaigns at any time, stop on a dime and change directions, tweak and fine tune. There is no reason to fail.

Writing this rant gave me the idea to write up a list of questions to ask a potential search marketing company. I can give you 10 questions that will immediately tell you if the person is full of it or out of touch. I will try to get that up in the next couple days or so.

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