My Story
August 2023
The financial markets are in pretty bad shape. Inflation has done a pretty good job of decimating people's income. That being said in my view there were two ways to bolster a portfolio in the event of a major downturn. First would be land and second in my view would be precious metals. There are many precious metals dealers and finding a trustworthy one seemed to be the first step. I looked at, at least 5 different companies and settled on Oxford Gold Group of Beverly Hills CA. I called and spoke to a representative to start my process. Storm Nieto was my first contact. He was very helpful in assisting me with a rollover from my company sponsored 401k.
We contacted Fidelity and started the process to roll over $125k. After a week the check was signed and sent to Oxford for deposit into an account at Equity Trust. Once the money was accounted for at Equity they then cut a check to Oxford for the purchase of my precious metals order. My second point of contact was a guy by the name of Jack Carvalho. He processed the order and I was told four to six weeks for the metals to arrive at the pre-selected depository. This was on or about August 8th of 2023.
Two weeks go by and the market was indicating that gold was going to make a run so to speak. I thought that this would be a good time to make another purchase to round out my position. I called and spoke to my third contact, Leila Gharache. I bought another $100k and was satisfied with the transaction to this point. Leila was very helpful and patient with me and all the questions I had. She also told me that because of minting and shipping time frames it would be at least 6 weeks for the metals to arrive at the depository that I had chosen in Delaware.
October came and went and as far as my Equity Trust account was concerned my purchases were shown as "unsettled metal purchase". Not too alarming but concerning so I gave a call back and spoke to Leila then Jack and was assured that the order would be fulfilled. A few more months go by, the holidays and the turn of the New Year. To be honest I didn’t think to make another call until February 2024 when I received the separation letter from Equity Trust stating that they will no longer do business with Oxford Gold because of poor business practices and I should contact them about any issues with the metals purchase.
I immediately called Oxford and spoke to Leila about the letter and what to expect going forward. She said that they were as shocked as I was to find out that Equity Trust took this position without first contacting Oxford Gold. She said not to worry and that it would be a month or so for the lawyers to settle this out and everything should be fine. She equated this to a divorce where Oxford and Equity were the parents and the customers/account holders were the kids.
The Equity letter came February 18th and I called Oxford the second week of March to see what the status is with the current situation. Again I was assured by Leila that it will all be settled it just will take some time. She told me that when it gets all straightened out she would give me a call and an opportunity to leave Equity Trust and sign on with whatever custodian they end up doing business with. This was the last time I had been able to speak to anyone at Oxford. The phones had an answering service up until 6 weeks or so ago, but now are all shut down. No one will answer and as the news report states the office is vacant.
Federal Agency Links
Sound Familiar?
I made a complaint to the BBB and reading what people have posted my situation is pretty common when dealing with Oxford. Although they had great reviews early something went wrong in the end of last year and myself like so many others paid the price.
I am only making this page so I can tell my story and maybe others can share their experiences so that maybe we can get a resolution to this. I will be linking the federal organizations complaint pages below that way everyone can register a complaint if they haven’t already done so.
What's Next?
I will add links to the CFTC, SEC and FTC so that people can submit complaints and maybe if there are enough one of those agencies will pick it up. I have also written to all the major news organizations to submit a tip/story in the effort to shed more light on this robbery. Finally I will be trying to set up an email account so that if anyone has any information or would like to add to this I would be happy to facilitate that. I will post anything I receive in the blog section of this page to keep all updated best I can. I’m not going to lie, I don’t have much faith in the feds but maybe if we can pull something together then maybe we can get a resolution to this for all of us.