melchizedek
12-01-2003, 04:59 AM
I just tried using GoldMoney, and they seem to have a lot of annoying account restrictions, a la Paypal -- but worse. They have a Customer Acceptance Policy which limits you from spending more than $500 worth of gold from your account per month without verifying your identity and address. Basically, you have to send them a notarized copy of your passport or driver's license and a utility bill. Well, since I'm staying at my parent's house while looking for a permanent place, and will most likely be living on a boat anyway once I get thing sorted out, I'm not paying any utilities and don't have anything to show them.... So for the high-tech nomad of the future like me, this is impossible.
At first I thought they would be good because they were the only system that allowed you to fund your account by electronic check and they were the only major player that was completely offshore, but I guess I was wrong. I went ahead and tested things out by buying the minimum $50 of gold by electronic check and a few days later I had my goldgrams in the account.
The only problem is now that when I try to exchange it for e-gold, suddenly this message comes up saying that the payer's account does not have sufficient grams available. It turns out they're in my account, but not "available." This little link opens a pop-up window that tells me they may not be available for up to 90 days as a security measure.
So I spent about $8 of gold, about 90% of what was available to exchange to e-gold, and that was it. I couldn't find anything in the User Agreement about this limited availability of funds, and I read the whole thing. True, I have not verified my identity, but I should still be able to transfer at least the minimum 500 USD out of the account.
I just wrote an e-mail to customer support asking what's going on and we'll see what happens.
I would not recommend GoldMoney to anyone out there. If you have a small holding, there's no reason you really need it to be offshore -- the Feds aren't interested in small fish -- and if you have a big one, you have to go through all sorts of hoops to use it.
At first I thought they would be good because they were the only system that allowed you to fund your account by electronic check and they were the only major player that was completely offshore, but I guess I was wrong. I went ahead and tested things out by buying the minimum $50 of gold by electronic check and a few days later I had my goldgrams in the account.
The only problem is now that when I try to exchange it for e-gold, suddenly this message comes up saying that the payer's account does not have sufficient grams available. It turns out they're in my account, but not "available." This little link opens a pop-up window that tells me they may not be available for up to 90 days as a security measure.
So I spent about $8 of gold, about 90% of what was available to exchange to e-gold, and that was it. I couldn't find anything in the User Agreement about this limited availability of funds, and I read the whole thing. True, I have not verified my identity, but I should still be able to transfer at least the minimum 500 USD out of the account.
I just wrote an e-mail to customer support asking what's going on and we'll see what happens.
I would not recommend GoldMoney to anyone out there. If you have a small holding, there's no reason you really need it to be offshore -- the Feds aren't interested in small fish -- and if you have a big one, you have to go through all sorts of hoops to use it.