Precious metals can be a fantastic choice for those looking to diversify their portfolios and get away from the stock market's volatility. Whether you're looking to invest in gold, silver, palladium, or platinum, you can choose one of these metals to help give yourself a bit of a buffer when investing.
Getting that buffer does, however, require you to find a company from which you can purchase those precious metals. You'll need to work with the right company to maximize your investments; there are certainly many choices out there. One company at which you might want to look is the American Precious Metals Exchange, also known as APMEX.
Before you invest, you'll need to learn more about APMEX. You'll want to know how they do business and how long they've been around and whether they can meet your needs as an investor. Fortunately, we've done the research to help bring you the information you need to make a more informed choice.
IMPORTANT NOTE BEFORE STARTING:
We understand that selecting a company to invest with is a critical decision. Our team has spent thousands of hours researching and reporting on the good, bad, and ugly of thousands of gold dealers.
We take great pride in providing the most in-depth, researched, and comprehensive information as possible so you can make the best decision for yourself and/or family.
Out of the thousands of dealers that we've reviewed, there are only 5 companies that we'd personal choose to invest with ourselves.
-----> Find out which companies made the top 5 gold companies this year
Did APMEX make it to the top 5? Read the above review to find out. Or continue on.
Who is APMEX?
Founded in 2000, APMEX currently leverages over twenty years of experience in the precious metals market to help consumers better. Though the company started relatively small as a tiny brick-and-mortar location, it's currently grown to employ over two hundred people and sell over one hundred million ounces of metals.
The company was founded by Scott Thomas and has a unique mission. Thomas grew up dealing with significant food insecurity and made it a mission to donate the company's time and money to the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma. As such, they're one of the most notable precious metals companies with a genuinely charitable spirit.
APMEX, like many other precious metals companies, does put a premium on customer service. Everyone who works with the company will be able to get their questions answered by the company's trained representatives. All customers can also get advice about the various products the company sells and the processes involved with buying and selling precious metals.
Customer Experience
If you buy precious metals, you need to do so from a company you can trust. After all, these are high-value items, and you have to have faith in the company you buy from. One of the best ways to determine if you can trust a company is to look at what others say about them. The more feedback you can see, the better picture you will be able to get of the company in question.
The great news, in this case, is that APMEX has an excellent reputation among those who have worked with them. The vast majority of reviews that we have found are positive and have glowing praise for the speed of shipping after purchasing precious metals and the ease of going through the buying process. Many customers also have positive things to say about how materials are packaged when shipped.
There are complaints, of course, and to its credit, APMEX tends to take care of those complaints without much delay. The company has a customer service line that consumers can contact if they have any problems. Most have noted that the customer service team is not only quite competent but also very understanding of the problems consumers face.
APMEX also gets high marks from its customers for offering products that tend to be very high quality but are still very reasonably priced. The entire company seems to be very focused on keeping its customers happy, even if doing so doesn't always seem to be in the best interest of APMEX's bottom line. Given the reputation of many other precious metals dealers, it says quite a bit that so many people are happy with the quality of the metals that APMEX sells and the quality of service they receive.
The final praise from most consumers concerns the company's online presence. Most people are pleased that their funds transfer securely and quickly. There aren't any reports of consumers losing money when they're attempting to make purchases, and there really isn't anything that shows that the online system has any notable flaws.
It's as important to look at complaints as it is to look at praise, though, and there are some complaints about APMEX. Some customers have complained that their orders have been canceled, while others note that precious metals are costly to invest in and that APMEX's prices are too high for the current market.
Another major complaint is that the resale value of some of the gold they've been sold isn't as high as they would like. These customers note that they take significant losses on the items they've tried to resell, even if they bought them at what seemed like a fair price at the time. An unrelated complaint has to do with the fact that the company uses the USPS for shipping.
Finally, there are some complaints that the company doesn't accept all potential buybacks and that buyback prices aren't as high as these customers don't like. There are also a few notable complaints of consumers receiving the wrong coins in the mail.
None of the complaints APMEX has received are particularly out of the ordinary for a company in this field. The biggest thing to remember when looking at the complaints is repetition; if you notice the same complaints repeatedly, it's a sign that the company isn't fixing its problems.
Product Offering
By far, the most popular product that APMEX offers is gold. Gold is an incredibly valuable material used not only as decoration but as a store of value worldwide. As you might expect, APMEX has a great selection of investment-quality pieces.
APMEX also has a great number of silver pieces. Silver is in very high demand, especially as it sees broader use in various industrial and technological settings. As with gold, APMEX does offer a significant number of investment-quality pieces for their customers.
APMEX doesn't just focus on the most common metals. It offers platinum and palladium, for example, metals that are very likely to increase in value over time. Palladium is a less well-known metal by investors, but its rising price makes the coins and bars sold by APMEX a great investment opportunity.
Precious Metals
One of the great things about working with APMEX is that many of the items discussed above can actually be stored in a precious metals IRA. To be eligible, those items must meet specific purity standards that vary by type of metal.
APMEX has a fairly similar model to many other investment companies regarding these IRAs. APMEX works with several different IRA custodians to help their customers set up new accounts or roll over their existing retirement accounts into precious metals IRAs. APMEX works with some of the top IRA custodians, giving their customers access to higher expertise than you might expect.
However, working with multiple companies does mean that it's tough to figure out what the fees for an IRA might be. Every custodian has its fee structure, so you'll have to research what you'll pay ahead of time.
Pros and Cons
While APMEX is a solid company with many good things going for it, it isn't perfect. Like every other company out there, it excels at some things and isn't so good at others. It's up to you as an investor to look at its strengths and weaknesses and to decide how they balance out. Simply put, you need to know whether the pros for this company outweigh the cons.
Pros
Cons
Is APMEX a Scam?
One of the things that we tend to point out is that there's a difference between a company you want to avoid doing business with and one that is a scam. APMEX is certainly not a scam, but you might not want to give them your money.
Simply put, APMEX's low rating from the Business Consumer Alliance is something that should give any consumer pause. This is a warning sign for most because they only have a D on the F to AAA scale.
The company has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, but even this is balanced out by the fact that they have thirty complaints against them. Some of these complaints are the usual issues that have more to do with advertising or billing, but the issues with delivery and products really cannot be ignored. Even worse, many of the customers who have complained aren't satisfied with the steps that APMEX has taken to solve those problems.
Customer reviews on Trustpilot are likewise quite negative, with an aggregate 2.8 out of 5 stars. That's not the worst rating in the world, of course, but it's also something that should make most investors stop and think.
Final Verdict
APMEX has a more complicated reputation than many might think. Given the fact that they have a great selection of metals and that they do some great charitable work, it makes sense to want to give them a try. When you look at the reviews, though, you will want to stop and think about why the company has its reputation and if you wish to spend your money with them.
Our verdict is that APMEX is a reasonably solid company, but it's not one of the best. If you're going to invest, you'll want to look elsewhere. We cover the best of the best below.
-----> See the complete top 5 list here
Or continue on to APMEX by clicking here.