I have never purchased from them but thought some of you might want to know. Hope they do not owe you any PMs. TC http://www.coinweek.com/bullion-rep...r-bullion-biz-bankrupt-vault-virtually-empty/
"As shocking as it is to find out that almost none of the metal supposedly stored for customers ever actually existed. At least there is hope that creditors might be made whole, if the intellectual property has the value that Bullion Direct thinks that it does" It wasn't shocking to me. More likely SOP. Did we think bullion sellers are the "good guys' ? Sad they set up the IRA link. If members didn't check their IRA accounts, shame on them . If Bullion Direct sent false info to the Feds on the IRA accounts, they may be in bigger problems than just bankruptcy.
Here is the rub with this company. A few years ago this was a good place to buy and sell. Their nucleo exchange gave you a buy and sell with peers and they were the intermediary. You'd pay them a commission and they'd mail the goods to the buyer once they took delivery from the seller. A few years ago, they made the shipping outrageous, therefore pushing customers to have them to "hold" the goods until the buyer had a good enough "vaulted" metal for shipping to be economically feasible. Once they raised the shipping rates, almost forcing customers to "vault" the goods, they chased many of the buyers that wanted delivery away. Most or many buyers of physical metals aren't comfortable with vaulting services, and this just solidifies their stance. Those that didn't take timely delivery are caught in a very bad spot. While they were a seller, their main business was intermediary, or at least a major part of their business was.
How would people check their PM IRA beyond a provided statement though? I assume the company sent people account statements claiming they had x amount of metals stored. Since these PM IRA's don't allow a person to actually take possession until retirement age and require the metal be both purchased by and stored with a custodian until then. Isn't there really no way a person could make sure the metal is there beyond viewing their computerized statement saying x,y,z is stored in the vault. How anyone ever thought this was a good idea is beyond me as it seems the perfect cover for a ponzi scheme type operation.
I suspect this will cast a pall of doubt upon most bullion dealers whose majority business is in stored metals.
Perhaps the investors can be paid back with the Liberty Dollars confiscated from Bernard Von Nothaus.
In the body of the link that TC posted: "At least there is hope that creditors might be made whole, if the intellectual property has the value that Bullion Direct thinks that it does." Judging by the way this company ran its' operations, I don't think any 'intellectual property' exists.......
Has everyone already forgotten the Tulving Fraud? http://www.justice.gov/usao-wdnc/file/478051/download The latest Trustee's report: http://about.ag/pics/bk/TrusteeReport6.pdf
Actually they would of made a lot of money (at least over the last 3-4) by not hedging. (and not actually buying the metal)
The problem for serious silver stackers is how do you safely store the stuff. Numerous Safe Deposit Boxes? bury it under the house ?
This is awful. I guess if there's a 3rd party vaulting company, this might work - however if there were collusion - it would probably affect even more people. And I suppose none of these are FDIC insured - or anything close. I thought about doing this once, and decided that the fees just didn't make sense, and having someone else's hands on my metal (or NOT on my metal) was cause for concern. If I was seeking justice, I'd be looking to who ran the company and chasing them down personally. I understand the corporate veil very well - but this is a criminal action - fraud. They ought not be allowed to walk away without penalty after lying about a retirement fund held in trust.