My 78-year-old father lost $120,000

My father, a retired mechanic, was cold-called by a Goldco representative who spent weeks building a relationship with him before suggesting he move his entire IRA into gold. The rep called almost daily, talking about the economy collapsing and how his savings would be worthless if he did not act fast. He transferred $120,000 from his traditional IRA. They sold him a mix of "rare" and "semi-numismatic" coins at premiums we later learned were between 80% and 200% over melt value. When we tried to liquidate a year later, the buyback offer was $47,000 - less than 40 cents on the dollar. My father was devastated. He thought he was protecting his retirement, and instead he lost most of it to markups that were never clearly disclosed. The sales rep had moved on to a different company by then.