I opened accounts with Sterling Trust Company & Superior Gold. It was for my Roth and regular IRAs. At the time gold was selling for about $880 per ounce (Im not exactly sure now but this is close). I instructed and was assured that the gold would be in bullion. I was also assured that when the gold was purchased from Superior Gold, that it would be at the price when I transferred my account to Sterling Trust. About a month later, I called Sterling Trust to see if the gold had been purchased and was told that it had not been yet and I voiced my concern about the gold being purchased at the price when I transferred from my last broker, but again was assured that it would be and not to worry. For some reason, I was told that there was an unavoidable delay. I was concerned because gold was going up in value fairly quickly.
For several months this went on and the gold was not purchased and placed in my account. After about one year, I was told that the gold had been purchased and was in my accounts. But then I was told that the gold was purchased in coins and not in the bullion that I wanted. I was assured by the lady I spoke to that this was actually a better way to invest and that the actually value of my accounts totaled somewhere about $18,000. When I received my next couple statements, I saw some conflicting figures. On one statement it looked like the values of my accounts had gone up significantly roughly in line with the increase in the price of gold, but on the next statement it looked the values of my account wents down.
Again I called Sterling Trust and voiced my concern over these conflicting statements. I was told that the gold that was in my accounts was purchased at about $1,640. I reminded the person I talked to that I was assured that the gold would be purchased at the initial $890 per ounce. I was told by this person that she would look into it and get back to me. Well, she never got back to me and even with my super-numerous calls and leaving messages, I could not get any response. When I finally did get through, I was told that my accounts were now being handled by someone called Rex. I explained to him the situation and he said hed look into it and get back to me. He never did. Again after numerous calls and now months passing, I finally got through and spoke to some lady and she said that she would look into the matter.
The numerous people that Ive spoken to over the course of these three years are a Carl Lacy, an Erica in Client Services, Mirriam at Sterling, Larrin at Superior Gold, Rex at Sterling and a couple others that unfortunately I didnt write the names of. The returning of phone calls and the so-called client services of these companies is horrendous. All during this time my accounts were accruing storage charges. The first year I paid these charges. But into the second year when there had not been any gold purchased and placed in my accounts, I disputed the charges and was told that I didnt have to pay them since there had not been any gold in my accounts. I was also told by this lady that there was an error and that actually not enough gold had been purchased and placed in my accounts. Again it took a couple months to finally get the amounts adjusted and when I finally got a statement showing the amounts, there still wasnt nearly enough. Again I was sent charges for storing the gold but I argued that I didnt think that I should be charged because they still didnt have the right amounts in my accounts. I was told that I would not be charged storage fees. But after the new year I discovered that some gold had been sold to cover storage fees even though I reminded them that they told me they would drop the storage fees because of the problems that Id had with my accounts. I know this is a little lengthy, so Ill cut to the chase. Recently I just found out that more gold was sole out of the second account, again to pay storage fees which I was told were not going to be levied. All the time that I was told that the storage fees didnt apply because there has never the right amount of gold in my accounts, I was still continuing to get them. I am not an expert in financial affairs, but when I transferred my accounts to Sterling Trust, I did it in good faith. I sent in $10,200 because I was told that to open the accounts, it would cost about $200 total and I wanted $10,000 total in the accounts to start with. Well, the fees actually totalled $500 and I only started with $9,700 between the two accounts. Today, with what I call deceit, misleading statements and mismanagement of my accounts, they are worth approximately $5,000. Considering the price of gold when I opened these accounts and the current price, my accounts should be worth at least $15,000 I figure. I was thinking of just pulling out whatever was left before its all gone, but I didnt want to close the accounts and then be told afterwards that because they had been closed that there was nothing that could be done anymore except to sue them. And I just dont have hardly any money left, let alone to bring a lawsuit against a multi-million dollar company.
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