Is it worth it to purchase precious metals from Hard Assets Alliance? If you’re going to invest your hard-earned money, you need to enlist the services of a company you can trust.
Many people have been turning to precious metals as a form of investment and a safe haven from the dollar's devaluation. That’s because typical cash-based investments are losing their appeal.
In fact, most economic experts forecast bad things for fiat currency (paper money) around the world. However, precious metals are so much more stable. If there’s a recession or depression, you should feel relieved if you own or have precious metal investments.
Lots of financial advisory services have promoted Hard Assets Alliance. Many people have asked us if we think they’e worth doing business with. With this article, we’re going to run down everything important you should know: the good, bad, and the ugly.
First Glance
Specialists in gold and silver
Only 13 total reviews on Trust Pilot
Competitive fees
About This Firm
Multiple firms for financial research formed to become Hard Assets Alliance, a brokerage service specializing in precious metals. This is referred to by them as a SmartMetals platform.
It’s helps investors with purchasing precious metals. They’re also very thoughtful about their pricing strategies and how they design their online site.
Hard Assets Alliance doesn’t just offer purchase and sale of precious metals. They also provide storage around the world as well as different forms of delivery.
There are also lots of choices for accounts, including IRAs. You can also choose to buy, sell, and store actual precious metals.
Further Information:
It’s a little perplexing to find information on Hard Assets Alliance. In my research, I saw that over 60 investment advisory services were part of this company.
Some of these are Peak Prosperity, Street Authority, Eagle Publishing, and Rich Dad. That still didn’t tell me who had the actual idea. They’re pretty non transparent with this information.
I don't know why they would want to keep that to themselves. It's a little suspicious.
FAQ's
1. What are the main benefits of using this company?
The biggest reason to join is because of how easy it all is. They also have fair prices. However, they’re not the absolute cheapest around.
2. What products do they offer?
Hard Assets Alliance sells platinum, palladium, gold, and silver. The last two are the most popular, as you’d likely expect.
- Gold -Examples are Krugerrand gold (from South Africa), American Eagles, and Great Britain Britannia.
- Silver - Available silver products are silver bars, American Eagle, Buffalo Nickels, and Austrian Philharmonics
- Platinum and Palladium - Both platinum and palladium are limited to one ounce bars.
3. How competitive are their prices?
It’s important to know this firm isn’t a dealer. They just serve as a marketplace for professionals and professional entities who are competing for business. This helps to ensure prices are kept at a competitive level.
For an immediate example, we can look at the Hard Assets Alliance site. A single one-ounce Credit Suisse gold bar costs $1,873.
While these are competitive prices, there are other places offering cheaper gold. The US Gold Bureau has bars of the same size listed in the neighborhood of $1,830.
Is Hard Assets Alliance A Scam?
We haven’t seen any clear evidence of this company being a scam.
With that being said, they could do a lot more to earn the trust of their customers and potential customers. Among the biggest problems is how hard it is to find out vital information about them.
You know, things like their physical address or even who found them.
It’s really not asking for too much, just basic information that any business should have readily available. How can you feel any sense of confidence working with a company that’s so cagey with that kind of information?
However, that’s just our perspective. What are other people saying about them?
Hard Assets Alliance Reviews and Ratings
Before making a big decision, you should do some research to see what the general consensus is about them.
It’s a lot harder for companies to hide behind their big promises when we have so many outlets for consumers to voice their views and opinions.
We’re going to see how important sites have graded Hard Assets Alliance. That way, you can feel better about making your final decision.
Better Business Bureau (BBB)
They are not accredited by the Better Business Bureau and have an overall C rating, both of which are red flags. Here's their BBB page.
TrustPilot
Their TrustPilot ratings are much better at an overall 3.7 stars, however they only have 13 total reviews. This is pretty concerning since this company has been in business for quite a while. Other competing companies have minimum 500 total reviews with the best gold companies having nearly 2,000. Here's their TrustPilot page.
Rip Off Report
Ripoff Report has zero complaints reported so that's definitely a positive.
Here are some of the specific customer reviews, both good and not so good.
Are There Any Red Flags?
Since the Better Business Bureau doesn’t consider Hard Assets Alliance to be an accredited business, that should immediately tell you they’ve got at least one red flag.
It’d be great if other assessments were available for comparison, but they just aren’t. A lack of information makes it easy to suspect the worst. It certainly doesn’t make working with them seem like the best idea.
What Are The Main Complaints?
Everyone’s a critic, but critics can steer you away from bad decisions. Hard Assets Alliance has quite a few complaints, but they don’t have a lot of reviews in general. Proportionally, having as many complaints as they do is a little worrisome.
The majority of Hard Assets Alliance complaints are on Trustpilot. Here are some of the main ones.
Poor Transparency
No one likes "beating a dead horse", but it’s still really weird that Hard Assets Alliance doesn’t say who their owner is. Yes, it’s made up of multiple companies. However, that doesn’t mean there would’t be someone at the top.
It doesn’t seem like a scam to me, but that’s probably not the most reassuring thing to hear about a precious metals company. Imagine reading a review of a bank and it not being entirely clear whether or not it was a scam. With your money at stake, you don’t want to take any chances.
Lots of Moving Parts
Are you wondering why there are so many companies involved with Hard Assets Alliance and what they’re all doing? So are we. There are definitely lots of companies, and they must be doing something to warrant being a part of it.
Most of the business doesn’t seem to be handled by them. There actually appears to be a lot of outsourcing going on. They use third-party sources for storage and IRAs. Another company takes care of IRAs. While we imagine they do an excellent job with them, it still seems a little weird that this business is outsourcing so much.
Lackluster Customer Service
Although there are reviews from customers who say the customer service is great, the most-frequent complaint about Hard Assets Alliance is about how bad it is. Strong customer service can make up for some imperfections.
When customer service is poor, everything else looks so much worse. So what we would say is that the consistency of their customer support is lacking, even if they do great sometimes.
Hidden Fees
There are also numerous complaints about hidden fees with this firm. We don’t know exactly how hidden they are, but there have been accusations of misleading tactics that result in customers being charged greater sums than they anticipated.
Are There Better Alternatives Out There?
There are over a hundred precious metal investment firms out there so it can be difficult to distinguish which ones to consider from which to absolutely stay away from.
There are things that some firms do much better than others, but overall what you want to look for is reputation, quality of their products, how responsive and attentive their customer service reps are, and the consistency to which they deliver on their promises.
The best overall company based on what over 1500 customers are saying, is Goldco. They have an average of 4.9 stars BBB, Consumer Reports, and Trust Pilot. That's almost unheard of.
Goldco offers gold, silver, and other precious metals and assists customers with setting up Gold IRAs. They have had a thriving and reputable business for ten years plus and they have very few complaints.
We love that you can request a 100% free gold investing guide from them without the pressure sales tactics that lots of companies use. If you want a customer service rep to reach out to you, you can request that also, but on your time. Watch this video from Goldco to learn more.
Final Verdict
While we are here to provide you with guidance and hope we have, ultimately who you decide to trust with your savings and retirement is not our decision to make.
Hard Assets Alliance does a good job of making precious metals investment simpler. However, there are also companies who do that without so many complaints and red flags. Additionally, they charge more than is reasonable, given their quality.
Once again, we must stress that this is your decision, not ours. We just want to ensure you have all of the proper information.
We hope reading this has helped you get a few things clarified. If there is anything else you’d like to know about this company, feel free to reach out.
If you would rather get information from Goldco, you can click here to download your free gold investment guide.