I bet virtually no-one noticed the incredibly subtle punning in the headline of ‘gold’ and ‘fish’. Those that did probably thought it was a rubbish pun. You can’t win with you sneering gits.

Anyway, what’s all this about golf and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT)?

It concerns those TV commercials you will have invariably seen that ask you to send in your unwanted gold in exchange for cash. The OFT have requested information from some of these companies because they have a hunch that they might not be complying with consumer protection legislation.

What the OFT are particularly interested in is their business practices and want them to explain some of the claims they’ve made in their advertising and on their websites. One thing that sticks out like a sore golden glans is whether consumers’ rights to reject an offer for their gold and receive it back are being honoured.

The folks from The OFT have said: “No assumption should be made that any companies involved in gold buying have broken the law”.

Juliet Young, a Director in the OFT’s Consumer Market Group said: “Buying gold using the postal service is a relatively new business model, and while innovation often brings benefits for consumers, we want to check that the market and businesses operating in it are developing in a way that treats customers fairly.”

This move comes on the back of a Which? report which stated that these firms are offering terrible value. One firm offered a paltry £38.57 for the three pieces of new jewellery purchased for £729.

Which? found the TV gold buyers consistently offered the lowest prices, with CashMyGold offering just £38.57 for all three pieces of jewellery, including quoting just £9.64 for a 9 carat bangle that had been bought for £215, and for which an independent jeweller offered £54. In another case, Money4Gold told the Which? researcher that a £399 carat gold necklace was not gold and demanded they paid £10.95 to have it returned.

Basically, these new companies that are advertising on TV are making offers much lower than what is being offered by pawnbrokers and high street jewellers, who paid an average of 25% of the items’ retail price.

Peter Vicary-Smith, Which? chief executive, said: “The poor value for money that these TV gold buyers are providing is simply shocking. The cash for gold market is unregulated, and this investigation has raised some serious concerns about the fair treatment of consumers. People should be wary of buyers’ adverts as they could almost certainly get more money for their gold elsewhere.”

[Telegraph]

Yesterday we warned you of the perils of flogging your unwanted gold off to shifty online nugget-buying nuggets. Today, the other end of the precious metal market has reared its proud head like an ecstacy-fuelled ox – Harrods have started selling gold bars.

Britain’s most glamorous corner-shop proprietor Big Mo Al Fayed has linked up with Produits Artistiques Metaux Precieux (whoever the hell they are) to pedal shiny gold bullion and coins over the counter.

But the move comes just as gold prices reach a record high (£662 an ounce), thanks to a weak American dollar. No doubt there’ll still be hordes of rich idiots queuing up for a nugget of their own.

Your move Dixons…

[Oxtail Retail Week]

In these trying times, more and more desperate punters are looking to raise extra cash by flogging their unwanted gold items. But it’s becoming an increasingly murky business and the angry sound of dissatisfied customers’ voices is becoming harder to ignore.

Recently we featured Cash4Gold, one of the major players in the growing flog-your-gold-by-post industry. Not only have they attempted to sue a whistleblower who revealed some of their dubious business policies, they have also tried to buy the silence of a dissenting writer who alleged that it is standard practice for Cash4Gold to offer just one third of the actual value of gold items submitted by their customers. (It should be pointed out though that Bitterwallet’s silence cannot be bought, although we’ll be happy to take a good hard look at any sensible offers.)

Now, the similarly-named Money4Gold are in the spotlight – the spotlight of shite that is. The Moneywatch site featured them a couple of weeks ago and since then, the gripes from pissed-off gold-sellers have steadily mounted up.

Testimonials included…

“The pieces I sent had been evaluated at just over 300 pounds for insurance purposes. I sent it off and within a few days received my cheque for 25 pounds!”

“I eventually got through to a human being on their phone line Wednesday last week – was told that a manager would phone me back within two days!!! well surprise surprise – no one has phoned yet.”

“I also looked at their address on Google Maps and it is a derelict-looking building in the middle of countryside. Be warned.”

Over on MSE, another poster says…

“I recently sent off over 100 grams of gold to Money4Gold using their Goldpak and got a cheque for £108!!! I sent it back immediately and sold the gold on my local market for £650!!”

So, does anyone actually use these distance-buying gold merchants and more to the point, has anyone been satisfied by their service? Anyone at all?

The message seems to be; people – don’t sell your gold to these companies. Instead, give it to Bitterwallet, and we GUARANTEE we’ll send you an exclusive signed pencil drawing of a drunken goblin in return.

Zee Germans are sooo damn clever. Not only did they invent pornography, but they have now come up with the ultimate recession-proof business: gold vending machines.

Nicknamed ‘Gold to Go’, the creation from Stuttgart based company TG-Gold-Super-Markt is to tap into the current increased interest in buying gold following poor returns in investments from the economic landslide.

Instead of purchasing a bag of Maltesers to sow sorrow from the poor financial markets, world class investors can now purchase gold coins and bars at 500 locations around that Deutschland.

Investment banker Jens Willenbockel told the FT that he believed there could be a market for the venture.

“It is also a great gift for children – for them getting gold is like a fairytale.”

We’d argue that a child’s fairytale would probably involve a Nintendo Wii but never mind. Nevertheless, the queues of passengers lining up at Frankfurt airport where the machine is installed suggests that it’s a whole different wet dream for grown adults, as they fork out a rip off €30 (£25) for a 1g wafer to €245 (£200) for a 10g bar.

And why so expensive? Simple reason: the gold prices from the machines have a 30% markup above market prices. This even gets automatically updated every few minutes. But before you decide to commit any sort of crime, know that the machines have gold armour plated casing, and high res CCTV cameras watching you. Like hawks.

Do you think gold is still just a passing fad, or is the money revolution becoming more real? Would a machine like this do well in the UK? Let’s hear your thoughts.

[Telegraph]

Apparently some bloke is trying to trek around the world at the moment relying solely on the help and hospitality of people on Twitter. The fool – he’s almost certain to be eaten alive in a dingy basement somewhere in Lithuania. Is that what he wants? You know what, it probably is.

So, as wacky challenges like that are all the rage, we’re going to commit ourselves to one too. Bitterwallet hereby announces that we’ll be entering a team in this year’s Tour De France. That’s right, the toughest endurance event on Earth (cue list of contradictory comments)

And what’s more, we’ll each be doing it on one of these – a 24k gold plated bike with Swarovski crystals. And blogging while we’re pedalling. Only problem is we can’t quite afford the $102,418.60 price tag per bike, so if you’d all like to chip in, we can make that Tour De France dream a beautiful reality.

No? Hello? Anyone on Twitter like to help us out then? No?

[The Presurfer]

This is perhaps the cruelest thing we’ve ever seen done to a computer. For all you Burberry-wearing, Fiesta-revving, potty-mouthed, chain-wearing brain surgeons with your names inexplicably tattooed to your necks (presumably in case you forget it), then this is the Apple MacBook for you:

A MacBook Pro coated in 24kt gold, courtesy of Computer Choppers. Yours for $2,000, on top of the price of the laptop. Don’t worry, you can also get your MacBook coated in white gold, y’know, if you want it to look really classy.

[Computer Choppers] vis [Likecool]

You might find THIS in your u-bend.

Where there’s muck there’s brass. Or to be more precise, where there’s sewage there’s gold. That’s the news that’s emanating from International Crazy Central, better known as Japan.

The beautifully-monikered Nagano Prefecture Suwa Construction Office have revealed that approximately 1.9 kilograms (4.2 lbs) of gold can be found in every ton of molten fly ash that is generated when they incinerate sludge at their Suwa-based facility.

What’s more, this is apparently something they’ve known for a while but haven’t bothered to pursue as the effort involved outstripped the potential rewards (we’re not so cool and businesslike here at BW – we’d do the Riverdance in the nip for a speck of real gold, but only if it was in one of those little black velvet pouches.)

But now that the price of gold is rising, it’s suddenly become worth their while and the Nagano Prefecture Suwa Construction Office have got themselves a brand new shit-sifting department as they bid to bring in a few extra zillion yen.

Don’t try it at home kids – get yourselves down into the sewers with a carrier bag, a strong pair of tights and a clothes peg for your nose instead.

[Pink Tentacle]

£3 billion in gold… Don’t let Gordon Brown see this photo, or he’ll mess up and flog it off again like he did a few years ago.  Photo from The Daily Mail, taken from the vault under the Bank of England.

“There are around 15,000 bars in this picture alone – that’s about 210 tonnes of pure gold, with a value of nearly £3 billion,” According to The Daily Mail, “and there’s plenty more out of view.” Maybe it’s indeed time to get a bar or two.

Our new chancellor must be furiously masturbating at this sight.

[Daily Mail]

In times of economic instability, no other market in the world has the universal appeal of the gold market.

But before I pull a Michael Scofield with you lot and rob the central bank Prison Break style (tatooing hurts, apparently), I decided to first do some ground work research.

I have put together this 2 part series article to explore whether gold is a good investment now, and if so, how to go about getting some.

In Part 1, I will start with a very brief history of gold, to give you a better understanding of its origins and why it still holds value today. We will then move onto more recent times, to put some figures and statistics in perspective, rounding off with some introductory resources for you.

In Part 2, we will take things a step further, discussing the investment pyramid and discuss how you should allocate gold in terms of your own assets and investments. We will also delve into more specifics, such as how much gold should you buy, how to go ahead buying it, and conclude it with some decent resources to do so.

So let’s mine some gold together. Yes, just you and me, my friend. Because sharing is caring.

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