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What do Goldco reviews say about the company?
This gold IRA broker is one of the oldest options in the industry.
That's not why they should be on the shortlist of anyone looking for a place to invest in precious metals, but I can tell you that they've been around so long because they are really good at what they do.
I study plenty of gold IRA companies so I can help people find the right one for their needs and situation. If being treated with white gloves is important to you, then Goldco is a gold IRA broker you have to consider.
They set the standard for customer service in this industry. While some of their competitors offer astoundingly good customer service, no one has yet to catch up to Goldco in this department.
I've looked over plenty of Goldco reviews at a number of different websites and sources. You can certainly go through them yourself, but I have summarized my findings down below.
You'll also find plenty of other useful pieces of information about this particular company and even a few other options to consider.
Precious metals have tremendous power to preserve your wealth and even grow it, and doing so in an IRA format gives you plenty of tax advantages.
You have a lot riding on this, so you need to be sure you find the right gold IRA broker. Goldco might just be the one.
What Is Goldco IRA?
Goldco has earned some of the highest marks across the industry for customer service and integrity, including an A+ Rating from the Better Business Bureau.
- A+ Better Business Bureau Rating
- AAA Rating via Business Consumer Alliance
- Up to $10,000 in Free Silver with Qualifying Purchase
- Easy 3-Step Process to Get Started
"The crew at GoldCo are professional and accommodating, extremely helpful and very easy to work with. My service rep, Tony Pino, was always available and willing to answer/explian any questions. Highly recommend them." -Mark G.
Goldco is a gold broker headquartered in Woodland Hills, California. Trevor Gerszt started this full-service company. They deal in precious metals, primarily gold.
They also offer investments through cryptocurrencies. Since 2017, they've offered that through CoinIRA.com. This is another alternative investment class you can diversify in, although I can't really speak to how successful or risky that is.
Goldco sticks close to the gold and silver coins that the IRS approves for self-directed IRAs. You can fund a precious metal IRA with post-tax income dollars. You can also do a rollover from a prior retirement account.
You'll get a lot of information from Goldco that you can use.
This comes through their website, as e-books, and video content. This client education can help you create your precious metal portfolio and then guide it towards success in your investment objectives.
Trust and support are very important to Goldco employees. In fact, their entire business model is built on developing a good rapport with you with all their gold and silver professionals and experts.
Great customer service is crucial to everything this broker does.
Goldco clients testify to the success of this approach. The company has rave reviews on many platforms, including the Better Business Bureau, Business Consumer Alliance, TrustPilot, and TrustLink.
This broker has committed itself to a specific way of doing things, and they've been executing that vision successfully for quite some time.
If you're interested in learning more, Goldco is currently offering a free Gold IRA investment kit - get it below:
Goldco IRA & Investment Options
You have two options when it comes to doing business with Goldco. You can buy coins and bullion as a normal consumer.
Alternatively, you can open a precious metal IRA with them.
Buy Precious Metals Directly
Buying precious metal products on your own does have two benefits. First, the IRS stipulations won't apply, and you can get whatever you want. Second, you'll get to take personal ownership of your metals without seeing them shipped off to some remote depository that you have to pay for.
Then again, you'll pay full taxes on the transaction. You'll also have to find a place to store them on your own. That can be a risk of theft, and renter's or homeowner's insurance might not cover you.
Goldco Precious Metals IRA
Your other option is a precious metal IRA. Diversifying your portfolio at least a little bit into gold and silver gives you serious advantages over time. They're great hedges against economic uncertainty and inflation, and they grow in value over time.
An IRA account lets you use pre-tax dollars via a rollover from other retirement accounts. You can also enjoy tax benefits on withdrawals or distributions if you wait until the minimum age later in life. This lets you keep more of what you save.
How to Get Started with Goldco
The primary objective of Goldco is to help investors enjoy the advantages of owning gold and silver in a tax-advantaged format. Their gold IRA process lets you do this.
They make it easy with just three simple steps.
Open Your Gold IRA
The first thing you do is just open a gold IRA. All that's necessary here is signing a Goldco agreement in which you acknowledge their specific terms and conditions.
You'll work with a company representative who can walk you through all this and help secure your purchase.
Fund Your Account
The second step is funding the gold IRA.
You can use your own cash, or you can do a rollover from many different retirement accounts, including traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, Simple IRAs, SEP IRAs, 401(k) or 403(b) plans, and even TSP accounts.
Most of the time, these rollovers can happen free of tax penalties or fees that would reduce your overall wealth.
Buy Precious Metals
The last step is choosing the actual metals you want to include in your account.
Goldco's team really stands out here. You can only pick precious metals within IRS guidelines, but Goldco professionals know which ones those are and can help you pick ones likely to retain value or even grow in worth over time.
Goldco has partnerships with mints throughout the country and even around the globe to give you a mouthwatering menu of eligible precious metal products to invest in.
When the time comes to make distributions or withdrawals, they'll even do a buyback to help you liquidate your account for cash.
They're as great to you at the end as they are when you make the first phone call.
Fees
Are you familiar with investing through mutual funds? That might be the case if you've been doing 401(k) or similar investments. In those cases, you pay a percentage of the total assets you have invested each year for the fund management.
Goldco precious metal IRAs are different, as there is a flat fee each year, regardless of the investment amount.
That makes it advantageous to invest more since flat fees would be representatively less of what you have invested. This is even more true if you invest enough to trigger the free silver matching.
Goldco administrative fees usually start at $80 per year but might be waived for the first year.
Custodial fees will vary based on the depository you choose. Whether you choose segregated storage or not will also have an impact. As a general rule of thumb, total fees should be $200 to $250 per year, which is in line with industry averages.
Goldco BBB Ratings and User Reviews
Goldco does have 17 complaints on record with the Better Business Bureau, which might seem a little surprising given their reputation for great customer service.
Of those 17 complaints, eight of them have been completely resolved. The other nine have all been responded to, and in each case, Goldco provided a custom response attempting to make things right for the customer in question without resorting to impersonal template responses.
Among BBB customers, 335 of them have left reviews for Goldco. The collective average is 4.84 on a 5.00 scale. That's far more reviews than many other gold brokers receive on the BBB platform, and that average number is nearly perfect.
The BBB themselves give Goldco an A+ rating. There is nothing higher on their scale. Goldco has been an accredited BBB member since 2011.
Goldco Pros and Cons
For the most part, Goldco is a great company. By most accounts, their customer service is second to none in the industry. Many consider them the best in the business overall, but they're not perfect, because no one is.
Goldco Complaints?
Reviews about Goldco can be posted on numerous platforms. However, the Better Business Bureau is the best place that I know of to check for such information.
The BBB is an organization dedicated to being a space where consumers can resolve differences they might have with businesses, and Goldco is a paying member that has been accredited with the organization since 2011.
At the time of writing, Goldco had 17 different complaints registered against them on the BBB platform. Of those, eight of the complaints were eventually marked as resolved, which meant the customer in question was satisfied with the response from Goldco. Among the other nine, Goldco had at least answered every complaint and attempted to reconcile the differences.
- Delivery Issues
This was listed as the nature of three of the complaints. One seems to have involved miscommunication about the free silver bonus. Goldco did get to the bottom of it, and the customer eventually marked that they were satisfied with the outcome.
Another complaint under this category was about a coin that had not been shipped. Goldco communicated several times with this customer that they needed the correct mailing address to be provided. The customer eventually did this and was shipped the coin they ordered plus a second free coin for their troubles, but they did not mark their complaint as resolved.
- Advertising/Sales Issues
Two complaints were filed under this category, but only one was visible through the BBB website. The customer's complaint was getting multiple texts or calls per day from Goldco when they didn't want to hear from them. Goldco answered by saying that it's not their policy to communicate sales to customers who wish to be left alone.
It would seem Goldco made good on its promise because the customer marked the complaint as successfully resolved.
Many businesses will communicate sales messages or materials to previous clients known to be interested in their products and services, but Goldco's team is also known for not using pushy techniques or high-pressure sales tactics. This particular resolution doesn't surprise me at all.
- Billing/Collection Issues
This is another category with two complaints filed. Both were answered. One was marked as successfully resolved, but the other one was not.
In both complaints, the customer made allegations about being overcharged or mislead about the value of particular precious metal products that they bought. In the first case, there was an employee involved that is no longer with Goldco.
That seems to have slowed down the resolution of that situation, but the customer did mark that they were satisfied.
In the second case, the complaint was answered. However, the customer had yet to mark resolved. According to the most recent Goldco statement, the company had bought back the product in question at a substantial profit to the customer.
That's actually what happened to both customers. They paid for certain precious metal products but at prices or values that they found to be misleading or questionable. Then, they were able to get Goldco to buy the metals back at higher values.
The reason that happened was that the values of the precious metals in question rose substantially from the initial transaction to when the buybacks happened. That happens a lot in the precious metals industry. It's a huge reason why you should look to invest in precious metals, whether it's through Goldco or someone else.
- Problems With Product/Service
This is the category where most of the complaints were filed. In fact, there were 10 in total when I looked. Three of them were listed as resolved by the customer, saying that they accepted Goldco's response.
That's something important to remember. Goldco answered every single complaint. Some businesses don't bother looking at their BBB complaints, and some will just cut and paste form responses asking customers to contact them.
Most of the complaints simply revolve around unwanted communications. In each case, Goldco tried to make sure the customer phone numbers were taken out of their database, although some cases might have been calls from third-party advertisers promoting Goldco products and services instead of it being from Goldco themselves. I get that this can be really annoying, but the broker in question does try to get to the bottom of it.
Goldco Alternatives
There are obviously a lot of positive things to say about Goldco, but they might not always be the right choice. It's worth considering at least three other alternatives so you know you're making the right choice.
All three of these companies specialize in things that Goldco doesn't, although their customer service levels are still way ahead of most of the industry.
1. Augusta Precious Metals
Augusta Precious Metals has some of the highest marks across the industry for customer service and integrity.
- A+ Rating and Zero Complaints Registered with Better Business Bureau
- No High-Pressure Sales Tactics
- Welcome Webinar from Harvard-Trained Economist
- Simple 3-Step Process to Get Started
"I diversified my retirement with precious metals from Augusta. You can count on them."-Joe Montana, Hall of Fame Quarterback
You would think that client education and customer service go hand in hand. With Goldco, they do. If you're one of their clients, you'll be constantly updated about your account, the industry at large, and how to make money from it.
With Augusta Precious Metals, customer service and client education are actually entirely different departments. Their customer service is still really good. Even if it's not as good as Goldco's, it's still better than the majority of their competition.
RELATED READING: Augusta Precious Metals vs Goldco
The specific dedication to client education is what distinguishes them. You can spend time on their website reading content and watching videos. Their team also does social media engagement, podcasting, and guest blogging.
However, with Augusta, you'll also get to spend personal time with their analysts. That includes their Harvard-trained head analyst.
This particular facet of their services convinced NFL legend Joe Montana to become a private client before being a public ambassador of the company.
2. Regal Assets
- The first year of fees can be waived
- Customer satisfaction rate better than 98%
- Broad variety of different bullion products
- Free investing kits
- BBB rating of A+ for the customer service
- $25,000 minimum investment for an IRA
- A younger industry member
Regal Assets is a company with a name that inspires feelings of being treated like royalty. In fact, I personally kind of like their name better than Goldco. They're both very appropriate names, though.
Regal Assets is another broker that doesn't have customer service as highly rated as Goldco. However, they're easily in the industry top 10 in that category, if not top five. They're making Goldco work hard to stay on top of that hill.
There are two things that Regal Assets does that distinguish them from Goldco and the rest of the industry. First, they have made a name for themselves as rollover specialists.
Any gold broker can do a rollover of IRA or 401(k) assets into a gold IRA, but Regal Assets has more experience and skill at it than anyone else.
Secondly, they offer a unique IRA option. You can choose to set up an IRA that includes both precious metals and cryptocurrencies. Goldco has a sister company that does cryptocurrencies.
However, Regal Assets has a hybrid IRA that lets you diversify into both alternative asset classes in the very same account for utmost simplicity.
3. Noble Gold
- Leadership has more than two decades of experience
- The leaders are focused on helping people grow their own wealth
- The company has a strong emphasis on education so you always know what's going on
- Multiple services are provided and not all of them are IRA accounts
- You can buy your own physical gold
- Noble Gold does have a few things that might make you think twice.
- They're a more recent entry into the industry
- Fees aren't always obvious
Goldco and Noble Gold have very similar names. In both cases, the customer service is really good. Both gold IRA brokers want clients to grow and preserve wealth for retirement through precious metal investing.
The difference is that Noble Gold makes it possible for more investors. Goldco, for all their high-level customer treatment, requires a minimum investment of $25,000 in order to start a gold IRA through them. Noble Gold only requires $5,000, and sometimes they require even less.
I don't mind high investment levels for gold IRAs sometimes. This is something investors should often be doing later in life when their portfolio has grown enough that they want to preserve some of their wealth by diversifying into precious metals.
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Doing a rollover of a previous IRA or 401(k) plan is a great way to fund a gold IRA.
However, what if you don't want to overdo it? Many financial advisors recommend starting precious metals at just 5% of your portfolio. To do that with $25,000 and Goldco would imply your portfolio is already at half a million in total wealth.
Congrats to you if you're that well off, but Noble Gold means investors could start investing properly into precious metals when they simply hit $100,000 overall.
Key Takeaways
I have no idea if the founders of Goldco decided their name based on the idea of being the gold standard for customer service in the precious metals industry, but that's what they've done.
You'll get treated astoundingly well if you open a gold IRA with them. Even the customers who do single transactions with them receive the royal treatment.
That can be very comforting when you're putting thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars into a company's hands.
It's great to know they treat their customers and their money as important because they are.
Goldco reviews also demonstrate that the customer service level doesn't drop off after you start an account, and they're just as golden to deal with when you liquidate your account at retirement time.
This is important, and not everyone in the industry does it.
While Goldco excels at customer service better than anyone in the industry, they're not the only ones who are good at it.
Other industry players are also very adept at treating their clients well, and they might have specialties to offer you Goldco won't be it client education, rollover expertise, or just lower investment minimums.
FAQ
Trevor Gerszt is the founder of Goldco. He was originally born in South Africa and immigrated with his family before growing up to be an entrepreneur.
His family has many experienced coin dealers, and growing up around them helped him learn valuable insights that helped him start a company helping so many make money or preserve wealth with precious metals and collectibles.
Goldco is absolutely a legitimate company. They've been doing gold IRAs for nearly 20 years.
Their ratings and reviews are nearly impeccable with only a small number of complaints with the BBB, and they've been upholding the industry's highest standard for customer service for as long as they've been around.
If you open a precious metal IRA with Goldco, qualifying accounts can get free silver products to add to your investment. The silver is usually a 10% match to your own investment amount.
The company caps the benefit at $10,000 worth of silver products.