Investing in gold and silver may seem simple and straightforward, however it is not.

There are many types of (quote, unquote) investments in gold and silver you will want to avoid.

Gold and silver dealers are no different from any other industry or crowd of people.

Within our industry you will find many good honest professionals and organizations, but you will also find some bad outfits whose practices can be described as underhanded, even criminal.

Being the Managing Director of one of the world’s largest gold and silver bullion dealerships, I have had the pleasure of speaking with and serving thousands of our clientele.

Through the years I have both researched and heard firsthand accounts from some of our very own customers who had previously fallen prey to some unscrupulous precious metals dealers.

These folks learned the pitfalls in gold and silver investing the hard way.

You don’t have to learn these lessons the hard way.

My goal in writing this article is to give you a short tutorial on the many gold and silver investing pitfalls out there, so you can avoid them right away.

Knowing what not to do when investing in gold and silver is just as important (if not more important) than knowing what to do.

First I will expose some tactics unscrupulous gold dealers use, then I will describe for you many of the products or investment vehicles you should avoid.

By the end of this report, you should also be able to perform some fast and easy steps of due diligence in order to quickly recognize the types of organizations you and your hard earned savings should steer clear of.

So let’s begin by studying some of the crooked practices and tactics utilized to separate you from your hard earned savings.

The Bait & Switch

Often in magazines, newspapers, and especially in internet display advertisements you will find promotions of bullion products at very competitive, low prices:

So. What’s wrong with that?

Many of the largest bait and switch shops utilize flashy, low product price, internet display advertisements to entice you to click on them. Ultimately these low price banner ads are aimed to retrieve your contact information in order to get you on the phone.

BAIT => Your phone number to a dishonest dealer is pure gold, and they will use numerous tactics to mine that information. For instance, many dishonest dealers run low cost bullion advertisement campaigns in order to get your contact information. If you were to click on many of these internet banner ads for instance, there will eventually be a squeeze page with a value proposition (a free report of some sort) asking for your phone number to complete the order.

SWITCH => You might then find yourself on the phone with a broker who at some point will try to persuade you to buy products (for example: numismatic collector coins) which are in their interest alone, not yours.