Hidden fees on top of huge markups

Beyond the coin markups at American Hartford Gold, I discovered I was paying annual storage fees, custodian fees, insurance fees, and transaction fees that were never clearly explained upfront. The salesman had said "we cover your fees for the first year" but failed to mention what would happen after that. In year two, I was hit with over $800 in combined annual fees on a $40,000 account. That is 2% annually just in fees - on top of the roughly 90% markup I had already paid on the coins. So not only did I overpay for the gold itself, I was being charged to store the overpriced gold in a vault. When I called to close my account, they offered to buy the coins back at melt value minus a 5% "liquidation fee." The total loss on a $40,000 investment held for two years was approximately $19,000.