Today I’d like to review one method of buying precious metals such as gold and silver, and that is through the company called “YOUnique Wealth”.
First of all, I am not a part of YOUnique Wealth (you’ll see why shortly). This blog post is not one of those fake review posts where I pretend to “review YOUnique Wealth” but really I am trying to sell you on the concept and product. Far from it. I’d actually like to point out the pros and the cons of a few companies, starting with reviewing YOUnique Wealth.
YOUnique wealth is a network marketing company offering the ability to sell gold and silver as it’s product. Lately, I’ve been seeing the emergence of many network marketing companies (aka MLM) that have been offering gold and silver as their product. This is because precious metals are hitting all time highs. But you might not know that. However, you are more likely to get pitched on one of these MLM ways to buy gold and silver, because quite frankly they pay referral fees for people to promote it. I am not saying referral fees are bad, I am just saying that it makes it more likely for someone to tell you about it to make money.
The Pros. The major pro of YOUnique wealth is really not that unique at all. The pro is the fact that the product is gold, and you get paid a commission when someone joins to buy gold. However that’s pretty much where the benefits end, and it’s hard to explain why without getting right into the cons. So let’s get into the cons.
The Cons. Gold isn’t the only product. Gold isn’t even the first product. Con #1. Actually, the first thing you need to buy in order to purchase gold from YOUnique Wealth would be the $149/month package in order to “get into” YOUnique Wealth. This is just for the privilege to buy their gold.
The usual problem with paying commission on the sale of gold and silver if the fact that there is not a lot of margin. Basically, there is a market price (also called “spot price”). Then there is the “Asking Price” of what people are willing to accept if you want to buy their metal, and the “Bid Price” for what they are willing to buy the metal back for. Because this buy/sell (bid/ask) margin is so slim (under1%) they can’t really give you commission on the sale of gold itself, so there has to be something ELSE that you spend money on, and THAT is what the commission is paid on. Thus, we have start-up and administration “fees” essentially arbitairily created in order for the company to be able to pay out commissions. I hope that is clear!
Start-up fees. Because there isn’t a whole lot of margin in the metal, companies such as YOUnique Wealth need to charge a monthly fee just for the privilege of purchasing their overpriced gold and silver. For YOUnique Wealth, this will cost you $149 per month. That translates into about an ounce of gold (of COSTS) each year! Yikes. Ouch. Wow.
With all MLMs, you soon find that you need to recruit enough people (soon) to make it worthwhile for you to stay in the program. I believe they say you need to recruit 2 people in order to be “in profit” (ie. make more money than what it costs you in monthly fees).
Non-Standard Gold. The other major con to Younique Wealth gold is it is not standard forms of bullion, such as Canadian Maple Leaf, American Buffalo, South African Krugerrand, etc. This will be a hassle when it comes time to sell, as the buyer on the other end will have to assay the metal to verify it’s purity and because it has a smaller market, you’ll probably get less money back for your gold when it comes time to sell.
So now you are aware of the costs involved with YOUnique Wealth Gold. You’re probably better off just buying gold through the Bullion Exchange, and if you want to earn money for referring people to buy gold you could simple join Your Leverage Rewards then refer them to the Bullion Exchange and collect your points. It is certainly a cheaper and less risk option than joining YOUnique Wealth.
My $0.02!
