Cash4Gold Lawsuit Against Whistleblowers Over; Florida State Investigation Just Beginning
from the be-careful-what-dirt-you-kick-up dept
You may recall that, a year ago, the company Cash4Gold got into some hot water after some rather unflattering stories were written about the company and its practices. Some former employees acted as whistleblowers to explain some of the more questionable practices the company adhered to. In response, rather than proving them wrong or cleaning up its act, Cash4Gold threatened and then sued Consumerist, a complaints website, and two whistleblowers. Of course, the lawsuit just encouraged Consumerist to dig deeper and find even more questionable practices on the part of Cash4Gold. Late last year, the company seemed to realize that suing Consumerist was not a smart move and dropped the lawsuit against the site, though it continued its suit against the whistleblowers.Consumerist is now reporting that the lawsuit against the whistleblowers is now over as well, but they don't explain exactly what happened. The implication is that Cash4Gold has finally dropped the lawsuits, though it doesn't say that exactly. Plus, the two former employees are reasonably upset that their names are splashed all over the news as being involved in a lawsuit over "breach of contract" from a former employer. Of course, in suing for breach of contract, the company was effectively admitting that what the whistleblowers said was true rather than false.
Separately, Consumerist notes that while this lawsuit is over, things keep looking worse for Cash4Gold, as the Florida state Attorney General has now started an investigation into the company's practices.
So, good work, Cash4Gold. Not only did your actions lead to significantly more attention to your questionable practices, your lawsuit against those who exposed you didn't accomplish anything other than giving them an opportunity to expose more of your practices, and the end result is an investigation from state officials. Maybe next time focus on improving your business, rather than suing those who expose your shady practices.
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Filed Under: whistleblower
Companies: cash4gold
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I'm sure that their further exposure to the public helped spur Florida's action against Cash4Gold, but it didn't start it.
Cash4Gold was being investigated by Florida at least a year prior to the Consumerist article. Florida received complaints about Cash4Gold's illegal activities from thousands of other jewelers across America, including a large group in Florida, virtually all of whom have to conform to stringent and expensive licensing and sales procedures, most of which are being skipped by Cash4Gold.
As a matter of fact, Florida has waited to act on their findings because a bill with additional legislation for secondhand precious gems and metal sales was planned in 2009. The bill was successful, and now Florida can pound Cash4Gold much harder than they could have before.
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It actually looks like the investigation that you're talking about is for fraudulent activities concerning checks, which is new, and does seem to be spurred by customer complaints, where I'm talking about action from the state concerning Cash4Gold's lack of licensing for their sales processors, and complete lack of disregard for the state's identification laws.
RoseFail.
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Heh. Seems like a lovely company, doesn't it?
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failure to disobey?
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SCAM!
I don't think there's much "business" to be improved. This seemed like a totally sketchy scam the minute I saw the infomercial. Who would be stupid enough to send their valuables away without any guarantees anyway?
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Re: SCAM!
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You Can'.t Make Up This Stuff
I watched the first commercials for Cash4Gold with disbelief when they first appeared. 'Who would be so silly to send valuable jewelry to a post office box in Florida?' I said to myself. Well, many people it seems. Now there are several companies offering what Cash4Gold started. Hopefully these will be far more fair and honest.
Th problem is that this unlikely business model practically begs for the operators to cheat people sending in the gold. The consumer laws don't apply because the public are the sellers. Most people can't quote gold prices and have no knowledge of the percentage of gold in the jewelry sent in. Th buyer could claim it was all cheap plated junk or that the 18 karat rings where 10 karat - an easy theft of one third of the gold (purity is 1/24 for each karat so 8/24). Then there is the question of the alloy. Although most alloys are copper and nickel much good gold jewelry is an alloy of gold and silver, palladium, or platinum, themselves valuable metals. These could be "overlooked" by the gold buyer. The fox in the hen-house and assigned as egg counter and the guard by the farmer model comes to mind.
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Re: You Can'.t Make Up This Stuff
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Also, that's just plain incorrect. The point of alloying gold with other metals is to make it hard enough to wear. Silver is just as soft as gold. (Well, pretty close.) Only an idiot would alloy a soft metal with a soft metal to try and make a hard metal. I can't think of a single manufacturer who does that.
Next, platinum is not a metal. Platinum is a family of metals. Palladium is a member of the platinum family. So you can't do anything with 'palladium or platinum'. You'd just be doing something with platinum.
What most people mean when they say 'platinum' is 950 platinum, which is one of the rarest varieties. Until recently, it was the only platinum metal available for use in casting jewelry (other kinds of platinum got bubbly during the casting process), so it's what people think of when they think of platinum.
In 2000, Tyler Teague of Jett Research came up with a new way to cast platinum metals, specifically palladium and ruthenium, thus sparking the use of palladium in jewelry. Palladium is about par on cost with fourteen karat gold, so there wouldn't be any point in alloying gold with palladium when you can just sell the palladium and have a better metal.
Last, but not least, most high-end companies have stopped using nickel, since most people are at least slightly allergic to it. In fact, white gold is by far more popular in the US than yellow gold, and white gold doesn't have nickel at all, even in cheap varieties, because it's alloy metals have to be white to make the gold 'white'.
Now, all white gold has a rhodium layer that's electroplated on (Rhodium being yet another kind of platinum...) to give it a bright-white look, but that can't be removed for profit. In fact, the rhodium-plating rubs off and has to be reapplied many times throughout the life of the jewelry.
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You see, 950 platinum (the oldest and most popular platinum jewelry metal) isn't purely one element. It's a combination of two members of the platinum family, hence the designation 950 platinum, and the habit of referring to the metals as 'platinum'.
People don't wear jewelry made 100% of PT. They wear jewelry made of a mix of metals from the platinum family, hence my assertion that platinum isn't one metal, it's multiple metals. It is, when it's used in jewelry.
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Platinum is a transition metal in Group 10 of the periodic table of elements. Its chemical symbol is Pt and it has an atomic number of 78. Platinum bullion has the ISO currency codes of XPT and 962.
Palladium is also a transition metal in Group 10 of the periodic table of elements. Its chemical symbol is Pd and it has an atomic number of 46. Palladium bullion has ISO the currency codes of XPD and 964.
Platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium form a group of elements referred to as the platinum group metals. The group is simply named after one of its members, platinum, but this in no way means that the other members are forms of platinum even though they share some similar characteristics. Each is a separate element.
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You see, 950 platinum (the oldest and most popular platinum jewelry metal) isn't purely one element. It's a combination of two members of the platinum family, hence the designation 950 platinum, and the habit of referring to the metals as 'platinum'.
People don't wear jewelry made 100% of PT. They wear jewelry made of a mix of metals from the platinum family, hence my assertion that platinum isn't one metal, it's multiple metals. It is, when it's used in jewelry.
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what about Portuguese gold Rose? That stuff is essentially pure (correct?) and it seems to stand up as well as any other jewelry.
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If they do offer 24k products, then no, it does not wear 'like everything else', if 'by everything else', you mean the standard 10k - 18k gold that's worn in most of the world.
Some countries do tend to use higher karats of gold, and some use lower (8k gold in Europe, really), but the softer it is, the more damage it takes. Don't believe me? Go purchase a 22k ring and wear it every day, and see how beat up it is at the end of the week. Imagine setting a diamond in that and then whacking it on something, as people do every day.
In a 14k ring, you're fine. Every few years, you need to have your prongs retipped or your stones tightened, but no problem. In a 22k ring, you're looking at maintenance every few months, minimum. My store wouldn't offer a warranty on that purchase, but would be happy to charge you for the maintenance. Of course, we would honestly tell you what to expect before you made the purchase...
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THEY'RE SCAMMERS - BEWARE
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Re: THEY'RE SCAMMERS - BEWARE
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THEY'RE SCAMMERS - BEWARE
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No, just.. No.
Know what else is just an element? Palladium. Another, pure, singular, transition metal element. Not any combination of other things.
Rutheium - element. Rhodium - element. These are not "types of platinum". They are a completely seperate elements that are at times alloyed with others. Just like we alloy Nickel with Steel, but that doesn't make Nickel a type of steel, even if we continue to call the end product "steel".
Please go take a chemistry class. Please.
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Re: No, just.. No.
To recap - they are all "types of platinum metals" not "types of platinum" Pt is 'A' metal. The "platinum group" is 6 metals.
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Re: No, just.. No.
You see, 950 platinum (the oldest and most popular platinum jewelry metal) isn't purely one element. It's a combination of two members of the platinum family, hence the designation 950 platinum, and the habit of referring to the metals as 'platinum'.
People don't wear jewelry made 100% of PT. They wear jewelry made of a mix of metals from the platinum family, hence my assertion that platinum isn't one metal, it's multiple metals. It is, when it's used in jewelry.
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Re: No, just.. No.
You see, 950 platinum (the oldest and most popular platinum jewelry metal) isn't purely one element. It's a combination of two members of the platinum family, hence the designation 950 platinum, and the habit of referring to the metals as 'platinum'.
People don't wear jewelry made 100% of PT. They wear jewelry made of a mix of metals from the platinum family, hence my assertion that platinum isn't one metal, it's multiple metals. It is, when it's used in jewelry.
Please, take a jeweler's course.
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Cash4Gold
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palladium - symbol Pd 46 on periodic table
If you're going to claim platinum and palladium are "the same metal" simply because they are vertically aligned on the periodic table, that also means you're saying calcium and magnesium are the same (not to mention nitrogen/phosphorus or your apparent confusion between oxygen and sulphur (which must lead to some interesting scuba diving sessions!))
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Guess what? They're all made up of neutrons, protons, and electrons too. Hate to tell you this, but that doesn't make them the same thing.
Claiming that they're totally different is like claiming that you and your siblings are genetic strangers.
Claiming that they're totally different
So who said that? As said above, they have similarities, but that doesn't make them the same thing.
is like claiming that you and your siblings are genetic strangers.
Claiming they are the same thing is like claiming that my relatives and myself are all the same person.
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You see, jewelry made from 950 platinum (the oldest and most popular platinum jewelry metal) isn't purely one element. It's a combination of two members of the platinum family, hence the designation 950 platinum, and the habit of referring to the metals as 'platinum'.
The writer was talking about the metals in platinum or palladium jewelry and I explained that for jewelry purposes, those metals were the same thing.
People don't wear jewelry made 100% of PT. They wear jewelry made of a mix of metals from the platinum family, hence my assertion that platinum isn't one metal, it's multiple metals. It is, when it's used in jewelry.
For an additional clue, look on the inside of the ring. Unless it's a custom piece, it should say PLAT or 950, not PT. PLAT means platinum family, and 950 most commonly means 950 parts PT and 50 parts PD, although other combinations are available. It might even say Pt950Co50 or Pt950Pd50, and tell you what it's alloyed with.
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Selling gold is as easy as picking up the phone and calling area pawn shops, jewelry stores that buy gold etc. You ask what they're paying per pennyweight of whatever your selling (14k, 10k, 18k, etc) and you go with the highest payer. An honest buyer will usually take between 5-10% of the total value based on what ever the market is paying that day.
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Kind of like "she deserved to get raped because of the way she was dressed", huh?
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"in suing for breach of contract, the company..."
"...in suing for breach of contract, the company was effectively admitting that what the whistleblowers said was true rather than false."
I don't agree. It is probably wiser as a legal strategy to bring a suit for breach of contract, even if a suit for libel or slander would win. These involve proving different issues. If a written employment contract has a 'gag rule' in it forbidding the discussion of disclosed information outside of the employment relationship, then it will be much easier to prove breach of contract than it will to prove libel or slander. Truth is a defense to libel or slander...but is no defense if you have a duty not to discuss an issue in the first place.
Carol Ruth Shepherd, Attorney
Arborlaw PLC
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and then there is the infamous - I was just following orders
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ethics
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trust
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Copper Earrings
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