The Big DumpTruck

I keep hearing these radio commercials for a company where you can send "your unwanted gold jewelry" and they will pay you for it. So many, many things wrong with this. Where to begin?

Okay, first off, who has unwanted gold jewelry? Even the stuff I don't love I will hang on to, because, well, it's gold jewelry. Really, let's just be honest and say the target audience is people who are very hard up for money and happen to have some that they can sell. Or worst case (and you know this is happening) some little crackhead is stealing from grandma's jewelry box for drug money.

Now gold has value, and given the quality of it, you can bring it to many jewelers who will weigh the gold and tell you what it's worth. Some of them will even buy it from you (maybe not for full value - I wouldn't know, I haven't been selling my jewelry). And you can go to a pawn shop for the same thing. In both of those cases, you are right there in front of someone making the transaction. At what point do you figure you'll put three necklaces in an envelope, send it to the radio company, and they'll pay you for 2 necklaces? They say that all shipments are insured, but how does that work? How can you prove that you sent three? Does the person at the UPS store have to sign something as a witness?

I'm sorry, but does anyone really think that sending something in the mail to the company name advertised on the radio isn't going to be noticed by anyone handling the envelope? There are dishonest people everywhere. Anyone who has ever heard the commercial is going to know there is gold in the package. I'd say the chances of you getting ripped off (by any definition of the phrase) is pretty high.

So let's solve that problem. If you have unwanted gold jewelry, you send it to me, and I'll send you back an autographed photo of me and my dog. Because the autographed photo is priceless, you will definitely be making a good decision to unload all that "unwanted" jewelry in my direction. Oh, and if you have unwanted diamonds or sapphires, I will throw in a 2 minute phone call to your cell phone. I am so giving.

Labels: commercials, money, scams, scary