Well now, without further delay let’s get to the conclusion of Money Metals president Stefan Gleason’s recent interview with Alan James on Sustainable Money. And we’ll pick up the conversation with Stefan giving some incredibly important advice on what to look for when choosing a precious metals dealer and talks about the dangers of what can and has happened to those who don’t do the proper due diligence.

Stefan Gleason: It is quite rare, but there have been a few horror stories, Tulving being an example of that. We are very competitive, I’m not going to say that on every product at every moment we’re the lowest price, that's definitely not the case. However, I guarantee you that with our company, you're going to get delivery, you're going to get it fast, you're going to get added value of content and we always over deliver on our promises, not under deliver and that is extremely important. Particularly when you're asking somebody to send money somewhere else with the expectation that they're going to receive their gold and silver.

Now some people will go to local dealers and I don't want to discount that because that's certainly something that people are able to do successfully. I would say that a lot of times the local dealers are at a disadvantage because they're not as sophisticated as a company like ours or some of our competitors. They may not be hedging. They may be exposed to market more than they should be and they may not have access to the lowest cost inventory, so the pricing may not be the best. Now in some states, also local dealers unfortunately have to collect sales tax on the sale of precious metals and that's something we oppose. We oppose those laws, we're actually working to repeal some of those laws but it does put a lot of local dealers in certain states at a significant disadvantage to an out of state dealer such as Money Metals Exchange.

And we're based in Idaho and so even customers within Idaho because there's an exemption for sales taxes on precious metals in Idaho, we don't even have to collect it on people who live in Idaho.

Alan Stroup: Stefan, I know there are some consumers that are concerned about several thousand dollars let's say worth of gold and silver being shipped to them in one by one either UPS or the United States Postal Service or Fed Ex or whatever. How does your company ship and how reliable is it?

Stefan Gleason: We ship virtually everything by the US Postal Service. And of course these are boxes that are not marked with their contents. You can't source it. It'd be very difficult to determine where it was coming from exactly. The return address isn't tied directly to our name. So, there's some anonymity there and I think most wholesalers and retailers also are pretty smart about their shipping practices. Most do use US Postal Service. Some use FedEx or UPS. That's not the most cost effective and it's also not even the most secure. Believe it or not, US Postal Service has been extremely reliable when it comes to delivering precious metals. We've shipped tens of thousands of orders every year and had very few losses.

Now I'll also say in our case and I think our competitors are similar. We ensure everything we ship and so we have a big insurance policy. If anything gets lost, and it isn't received and signed for by the recipient, then there's an insurance claim and we've had some of those of course. But it's remarkably reliable and I hate to say that because it's a quasi-government enterprise. It kind of rubs me the wrong way to say that the Postal Service does a good job. I don't think they do in general but when it comes to our success and getting things successfully shipped quickly and cost effectively, the US Postal Service has done very well.

The other options are UPS and FedEx and they're not bad either but they are more expensive and not necessarily faster. And fast delivery is actually quite important to people and important to us. We don't like people to wait for their precious metals. I think people are already a little bit anxious particularly on the first purchase. As one of the reasons is that they're buying previous metals is they're concerned about what's happening, they're concerned about the dollar, they're concerned about our country and if it's their first experience buying precious metals, they're probably nervous about that too. So, we are really trying very hard to not only delivery quickly but hold the person's hand, make sure the communication is very clear, very frequent so that they understand where their order is and when it's arriving.

Alan Stroup: How does the average person learn to trust the dealer or organization that supplied the coin or bullion? And doesn't that have something to do with the conversations that take place during the purchase? In other words, the phone consultation?

Stefan Gleason: Yeah. Well, our company and we're not the only ones, but again I think we're one of the best when it comes to this is that we're not trying to make a sale. Our sales associates are really just they're people there to educate and guide the person. There's no pressure. It's not a commissioned situation where they're trying to sell something to you. They're there to help you understand the choices and make the best decision for you. So, I think that tone is definitely one thing that has done, has been a very important part of our growth as a business. We are not into making a sale, selling somebody something they don't want and of course we don't even deal with and actively really crusade against this whole rare coin thing. This bait and switch thing that's been giving our industry a bad name and has been ripping a lot of people off. We won't even sell those types of items. We don't stock them. The only time that you'll see any kind of rare or numismatic coin being sold by us is when the price on that has fallen to basically its melt value, at which time it's actually a pretty good deal to buy.

So I think education, content, communication, no pressure, meeting your commitments… just developing that relationship so look for companies that do that.

Alan Stroup: Okay. So, people have invested, they've got their gold and silver or gold or silver or both, insurance policy if you will, the big question is when do you liquidate? When do you know when to sell?

Stefan Gleason: Right. Well first of all if you're buying this because it's financial insurance, I think you'll probably always own some of it. Now, it just so happens as priced in dollars, still we think that precious metals are way undervalued to what they will be at in the coming years as things unfold. But I would think that you know people will always own, once they understand why they own it, they'll always own some. Now that doesn't mean that they may want to liquidate some of it if the price rises or if they need access to cash. Some might even you know at some point in a really bad situation, you might even instead of selling it, you might be spending it. It's certainly possible. It's happened in other countries.

Read or Listen to the entire interview here: (source)