Accurate Records Give Peace Of Mind With Your Gold
To some precious metals investors, Hard Assets Alliance has one drawback: they are U.S. based, and, as such will send out 1099’s for sales of your precious metals stored with them. True enough.
The upside, though, is that this U.S. based, professionally run company treats your wealth with the importance that you do.
They do that by automatically providing you with a monthly statement that is clear, concise, well detailed – and automatic.
Big Deal, Every Company Provides A Statement
“So what?”, you say? Every company provides their investor clients with a statement.
To which we would respectfully differ.
Not only is the investment realm, despite all of the money thrown and back office operations, personnel and technology widely known for confusing account statements but one glaring example exists of a gold storage company with no statements of any kind provided.
And that company is none other than GoldMoney.
Yes, we promote GoldMoney, we use them ourselves. And I was just walking my daughter through generating a manual statement of her holdings and a separate statement of activity just this morning. Those statements she created were not very pretty, and they did not have a convenient cut off of year-end like I would prefer.
As we have written before, GoldMoney, the oldest name (we know of) in the Buy and Store Gold offshore/online business; well respected with top industry names as founders and partners, does not provide a periodic statement of your holdings for you automatically nor a statement of activity for a set period of time.
So when I received an email from Hard Assets Alliance just after the first of the year stating:
Your Secure Storage and Service Fee Invoice is now available for the following account:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, account number ending in XXX-XXX.You will be receiving these invoices quarterly. This all-inclusive service fee covers vaulting, insurance, audit, and record keeping for your metals. This fee was posted to your account on Dec-31-2012 and will automatically be deducted from your financial balance on Jan-15-2013. If your available funds are insufficient to cover this fee, you may add funds by following the instructions on the “Funding” tab in your trading account.
To view your Invoice, please click on the following link (or cut and paste into your browser) to go to the Statements page, where you can find your recent invoices {link to portal}.
Should you have any questions, please feel free to email or call us anytime.
Sincerely,
Hard Assets Alliance Customer Support Team
And at the end of the email was complete contact information including a toll free telephone number – another advantage (to U.S. clients) of a U.S. based company.
What Makes BuyAndStoreGold Special
BuyAndStoreGold.com is not the fanciest or best-funded website you have ever visited.
What makes us different, though, is that this very article can only be written by us because we have PERSONALLY INVESTED OUR OWN MONEY at Hard Assets Alliance. And at GoldMoney. And at BullionVault. And others.
We are speaking from experience, not just promoting a company that will give us a commission if you open an account based on our recommendation.
That is what sets us apart from other GOLD websites on the internet.
And as clients of these companies, we know what WE want in an offshore gold storage account and have very clear opinions of what is provided and not provided by those out there.
Hard Assets Alliance Monthly Statements
I must admit that I was somewhat impressed by the monthly statement from Hard Assets Alliance. It was auto generated and available for download in convenient PDF format by logging into their client portal and selecting “Statements” from the top menu.
Isn’t it strange how so many online brokerages make you HUNT for what you are looking for?
While we obviously are not going to reprint our entire statement here, let’s just run down the basics of what’s provided:
- Financial Summary – Cash balance starting, additions, subtractions, ending balance
- Portfolio breakdowns (with color coded pie charts):
- by Metal Type
- by Location
- by Product (specific type of metal, like 10 oz. bar)
- Monthly Activity Summary
- Monthly Activity Details
- Position Bar Details
There may likely be Position Coin Details if there are coins in the account, we presume, but since we have bars, it’s bar details on ours.
The only thing I would like to see, on page one, is a total value of both metals and cash for a total account value. But this is so much far and away better than what we are used to from other providers we will simply make the suggestion and be happy.
Quarterly Invoices For Storage Fees
There are a couple of things I will say about the Hard Assets Alliance invoice for quarterly storage fees.
First, I like that the fees are in cash, like BullionVault and not taking a piece of my gold or silver like GoldMoney
Second, notice that they will take cash straight from my account balance so I don’t have to bother writing a (quite reasonably small) check. Yet, if I prefer to write a check, I can do so and the cash balance in my account will not be affected. With a 2 week grace period it’s not AMPLE time but should be ADEQUATE time if you choose to go that route.
Third, it’s clear what I owe, for what time period and when it’s due. No guessing.
Fourth, as alluded to above, the storage fees are not onerous.
Fifth, for my meticulous record keeping, the invoice is, again, automatic, PDF, easy to understand
The invoice is detailed by product so you know exactly what you are paying for, again with a color coded pie chart.
After the invoice detail is a page of brief but clear explanations of terms and charges. What more could you ask for?
Summary
Again we reiterate our satisfaction with every aspect of Hard Assets Alliance. We are glad the service is available, they really fill a needed niche.
Our money is trusted with them and suggest you perform your own due diligence and consider buying and storing gold there also.
