The Gold Guys are the TopTenREVIEWS Gold Award winner because they offer more customer service and location options than the others in our reviews. They say on their website that they are the number one gold buyer in the Midwest. The company’s founders, Joe Beasy and Shane Maguire, want you to feel like you’re their friends and not just some random, nameless, faceless entity seeking their cash for gold services. On the company’s website, the two are constantly referred to as “Joe and Shane” and they talk about the American Dream and mixing their “entrepreneurial spirits along with their desire to bring opportunity to others.”
With their headquarters in suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota, The Gold Guys also manage retail outlets in California, Hawaii and Iowa. At these locations and through their website, they give immediate payment for damaged, unwanted and old jewelry, coins and a wide variety of other gold items.
In order to make it to the number one position in our rankings of cash for gold services, the company should offer something unique; something that none of the other companies offer. The Gold Guys leapfrogged over our second-ranked company, GoldFellow, and third-ranked company, Cash for Gold Co, for a number of reasons, but the deciding factor was what The Good Guys call a “gold party.” The way a gold party works is that you invite friends and neighbors interested in selling scrap gold. Then a company representative comes with a gold tester, loupe and scale to the host person’s house. The representative evaluates the partygoers’ gold and makes an immediate offer to buy. Guests walk out with money and the host gets a percentage of the total gold bought at the party. Contact a store location nearest you, if you are interested in throwing a gold party.
Even though The Gold Guys offer multiple ways for you to sell them your gold – mobile service, in-store service, gold parties and mail-in service – the basic process is the same. On the day they receive your gold, they evaluate it by using a scale to weigh it, test it for its precious metal content, make an offer to you, either on the phone or in person. At this point you can decide to take their offer or reject it and keep your gold. If you choose their mail-in service, you can still reject their offer and have your gold returned to you within 48 hours.
Most companies that provide cash for gold services, including The Gold Guys, use the current value at which gold is being traded on the open market. A large amount of gold buyers melt down the gold in order to create new pieces or similar items. This is likely one of the reasons that some companies use a retail value for assessing the gold items’ worth, which often includes a mark-up for the buyer.
The Gold Guys have some tell-tale indications of their legitimacy on their website. They explain their pricing, purchasing and policies in a clear, up-front manner. The information is not masked through legal jargon or tucked away on some obscure, no-man’s-land-type page with an obscure name that you probably would not associate with the company’s policies listing.
Perhaps the quickest and most reliable way to determine a company’s reputability is through watchdog organizations. The Gold Guys and other cash for gold services sites we researched and examined for building this review site will have a home page link to a page on their site that explains in detail how you can avoid being scammed out of getting the money to which you are entitled for your gold. These pages are normally given headings like, “Avoid Rip-Offs” and “Warning!”
A simple rule of thumb to use when researching a company’s legitimacy is to ask yourself if their practices are listed in a straightforward and transparent manner. Surprises can be great on your birthday or during the holidays, but not so great during a business transaction. The Gold Guys do a fantastic job of explaining their policies and warning their customers, so you're not likely to be surprised with them.
Any time you are handing over valuables to virtual strangers, you are entering into a trust agreement with that person or company. In this agreement, both parties – you and the company – have a certain amount of responsibility to ensure that the transaction is fair and honest, thereby building the trust that is essential for a good relationship. What does this have to do with help and support? Good question. The answer can easily be explained by this simple, albeit overused, cliché: whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.
The Gold Guys have taken a number of steps to try and avoid any mishaps, blunders or mistakes. They provide comprehensive help and customer service options, such as email contacts, a simple form for inquires, comments and messages, and clear definitions of what they buy and how to sell your gold to them. Also, their policies that allow customers to reject their offer and have their gold sent back to them sets them apart from many of the other gold buyers out there.
A company that has more than one location to display and sell their products and services typically has an inherent advantage over companies with only one location option. It is a simple numbers game: the more ways and means a company gives potential customers to come in contact with their products and services, the more opportunity there is for a high volume of sales and other business transactions.
The Gold Guys not only have a neat, uncomplicated and comprehensive website available for the word to see, but they also have physical, “brick-and-mortar” retail stores in Minnesota, Hawaii, California and Iowa. Another reason why this company is at the top of our rankings is that they take the location issue pretty much out of the equation by offering customers the options to host a gold party at their home, utilize their mail-in or mobile services or bring in their gold to one of their retail locations.
The Gold Guys cover all of the bases, and more importantly, all of our criteria for cash for gold services companies, but what sets them apart from the pack is how they go out of their way to offer their customers extra features and options. They employ the unique idea of having a layperson host a gold party in his or her house, provide multiple physical locations and an all-inclusive virtual location (website), and give their customers the ability to say no to their deal offerings and receive their gold items back within a reasonably quick period of time (48 hours).
