Jim Davidson made some comments recently on this list concerning E-Bullion customer service that bear some further explanation.
While we are very grateful for his positive comments regarding E-Bullion customer service, it is important to clarify that The E-Bullion Company does not perform exchange functions. The exchange services Jim was referring to were provided by Goldfinger Coin & Bullion, which is the primary exchange agent for E-Bullion e-currency. Goldfinger is well capitalized which is why the company can fulfill exchanges for good funds on the same day that the incoming wire clears, sometimes in as little as three hours, as Jim mentioned. I am sure that the same could be said for OmniPay or any other well capitalized exchange agent. The reason the exchange agent can fulfill the transaction so quickly is that the company already has a large inventory of e-currency to pull from, often more than US $1 million worth. Jim made some vague comments concerning GoldMoney indicating he had some difficulty obtaining GoldGrams. I think the problem he experienced there was that he had to bail in gold rather than purchase GoldGrams directly from an exchange agent. Purchasing a bar off the market and bailing it into any system will take significantly longer than purchasing e-currency from an exchange agent. So, to be fair, Jim was comparing apples to oranges. The problem was the lack of a sufficiently capitalized exchange agent for GoldMoney. E-Bullion does accept direct bailment, but unless the gold comes from a certified member of the chain of integrity, we require a full melt assay to have the gold recast by a certified refinery. If buy a bar of gold from the Hong Kong market and have it shipped to one of E-Bullion's repositories, it might very well take three to six weeks for the whole process including the full melt assay and recast of the bar. The time and expense involved mean that it is usually cheaper to just buy the gold from Goldfinger which has a large stock of physical bullion on hand, as well as direct access to the bullion markets. Goldfinger can acquire LBMA, Comex, or Hallmark certified bullion bars on very short notice and at very low prices. So if an order comes through that exceeds the amount of E-Bullion in Goldfinger's E-Bullion account, Goldfinger bail in more bullion from its physical stock within minutes. If an order exceeds Goldfinger's physical stock (hasn't happened yet) Goldfinger can acquire more physical bullion to bail into the system within a few hours. The main advantage that Goldfinger has in the exchange industry is the fact that the company does two to three times more volume in physical bullion sales than in E-Bullion sales. As a result the company always has plenty of physical bullion on hand to bail into the E-Bullion system when it is needed. The Kilobars and smaller specie that Goldfinger deals in allow the company to provide greater exchange liquidity for E-Bullion clients than is generally found in the industry. Another important bit of information is that any exchange agent, Goldfinger included, will not fulfill an order until good funds from the customer have cleared. Bank wires usually clear the same or following business day. Cash deposits at branches like Wells Fargo or Bank of America also clear the same day. Unfortunately, many people make the mistake of depositing a check into an exchange agent's BOA or Wells Fargo cash deposit account and then expect same-day funding of their e-currency account. CHECKS DO NOT CLEAR FOR THREE WEEKS! Therefore any exchange agent worth their salt will hold any funds deposited by check for several weeks! So don't deposit a check into a cash deposit account and then expect 3 hour funding from Goldfinger or any other exchange agent. It isn't going to happen. If you want to get some e-currency on short notice then cash and bank wire, and in a few cases credit card, will be your only options. I hope this helps clarify the inner workings of the gold currency exchange industry a little bit. Kind regards, Ken Griffith --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
