Because of the latest condition of the North American economy and the ever increasing surge in gold and silver prices , it is obvious why people are getting out their old gold and silver jewelry and are unloading them to cash 4 gold industries in an effort to come up with some more dollars to get rid of their debits as a way to make ends meet.Assuming you are experiencing the same situation you will need to carefully do your research before giving away your precious metals to just any gold buyers for the reasons that there are an ever increasing number of unethical players in the precious metal buying industry who will gladly prey on your desperate situation and reward almost nothing for your precious metal.Although this way of doing business may not be a scam, it is in any case, very wrong and I want to warn those of you who may be considering trading your used gold or silver to be sure to avoid businesses that are posing as middle men and to conduct business only with metal refineries or cash for gold companies that have their in-house metal refineriesThe truth is, cash4gold businesses are being middle men between you and a precious metal refinery and as a result they will reward you in the neighborhood of 1/3 of the true value for your gold, silver or platinum and easily trade it back to a precious metal dealer themselves and they will be keeping the lions share while you keep a couple lousy dollars.In recent days, Fox news implemented a sort of undercover sting, where they brought in three replica items of jewelry to three separate cash for gold dealers and waited for the payment and while all of the businesses did in fact give them a payment for the old jewelry, only 1 of those cash for gold businesses actually paid the real value of their gold while the other two companies payed approximately 1/3 of today’s current market value.The 2 gold buyers that that payed out 1/3 of the market value were acting as a middle man while the third cash for gold company that payed the most value did in fact own their own metal refinery, so it is customer beware in this industry and I strongly suggest that you do your homework before parting with broken gold or silver jewelry so that you can not fall prey to the cash for gold scam