The gold price is soaring as a volatile stock market drives worried investors to gold. Meanwhile cash for gold scams proliferate. Flickr photo.

The gold market has been where the action is for investors lately. As a neurotic stock market and the European debt crisis spur predictions of a global financial meltdown, a vault full of gold is like a dose of Valium for stressed out investors. The spot gold price started at more than $1,200 dollars an ounce Wednesday, as investor fear continued to drive stocks lower. As the Euro tanks and the dollar flutters, European investors and banks around the world want to sink their teeth into gold. And investment gurus like Richard Russell are telling people to avoid the stock market like the plague and buy gold stocks instead.

Cash for gold

The soaring gold price and prolonged economic downturn have brought cash for gold scam artists out of the woodwork. MarketWatch reports that as cash-strapped consumers who rely on quick payday loans sell their gold to pay for everyday necessities, complaints against gold dealers are rising. The biggest offenders, according to the Better Business Bureau’s website (BBB.org), are companies saying they’ll buy gold jewelry and advertising heavily on cable television channels.

Gold market price soars

The gold spot price set a record high on May 12 of $1,241–a jump of 2 percent six days after the stock market Flash Crash. The gold price has risen 34.2 percent since May 2009. But Fortune reports that the current gold market price, when adjusted for inflation, pales from the true peak in 1980, when the gold price hit $825.50 an ounce — $2,180.27 in 2010 dollars. The gold spot price is expected to continue rising as gold stocks provide a hedge against risk in volatile markets. Jeffery Nichols, managing director of American Precious Metal Advisors, told Fortune that the gold market price could reach $1,500 an ounce or higher by the end of the year.

Cash for gold scams

Cash for gold scam artists are taking advantage of the soaring gold price. Some cash for gold companies even build websites with the word “scam” in the address, then swear they are honest. Other sites seek to protect consumers. On cashforgoldscams.com, one consumer complaint says a couple went to pawn shops and got offers up to $350. They wanted more and went to Cash4Gold, which offers a “fast cash” option in which customers waive their right to dispute the amount they receive. Two weeks later the couple received a check for $67.70. The rings, a little over half an ounce of 14K gold, would have been worth about $500.

Cash for gold scam law

WXPI.com reports that U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner believes that Cash4Gold, one of the biggest advertisers on TV, is systematically ripping off customers. Weiner is proposing legislation that would require companies to give customers bids on the jewelry and force them to return gold by insured mail.

Gold market rises with inflation

Gold stocks are the ultimate hedge against rising prices. Trillions of dollars in government bailouts in the U.S. and Europe add inflation to the current batch of investor fears. The Daily Reckoning reports that not just inflation, but hyperinflation is the monster under the bed as the Federal Reserve floods the economy with free money. The U.S. National debt is already 12.8 trillion, but it rises to $19.1 trillion when it includes the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac balance sheets. Throw in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the debt is $79.1 trillion — 5.5 times the U.S. GDP of $14.2 trillion.

Expect run on gold to continue

In his latest Dow Theory Letter prediction Tuesday, Richard Russell forecasts a disastrous stock market crash.  Russell advises investors to get out of the stock market altogether, eliminate debt and convert all wealth into liquid assets. Richard Russell’s Dow Theory Letter is taken quite seriously by investors. Chances are his prediction of a stock market crash will encourage a stock market sell-off and a run on cash and gold.

Speedy Cash and Rapid Cash are speedsters when it comes to your payday loan needs.

One of the great benefits of payday loans are their outright speed. When you’re in an emergency situation that requires cash, you want it post haste – you want it fast. Hence, it makes perfect sense that a payday loan company would call itself Speedy Cash (aka Rapid Cash, see www.speedycash.com). According to their Web site, Speedy Cash is “a multi-state, high-quality financial service company” with something different.

How Do We Know They’re Different?

Apparently it’s because they say so. “We pride ourselves in offering exceptional customer service in a safe, clean and professional environment,” which sounds reasonable if not exactly revolutionary. But where Speedy Cash and Rapid Cash claim they truly stand apart is in the act of “designing and investing in visually appealing and well-run stores with a strong commitment to the communities we serve.” Sorry, that isn’t unique to your business. But let there be no mistake that it is an admirable goal.

“We are different because we are better.
We are better because we are different.”

Features of Speedy Cash Payday Loans

Here are just some of the reasons that Speedy Cash and Rapid Cash keep the tradition of payday loan service alive through their offerings:

• Receive up to $1,000 in some states
• Quick online application
• Find out if you’re approved, 24/7
• Applications are secure and confidential
• Bad credit does not preclude you from receiving a loan
• Faxing application info is rarely if ever required
• Brick-and-mortar payday loan store locations nationwide (See www.speedycash.com/payday-loan-store/)

What You Need to Apply at Speedy Cash

If you want a Speedy Cash/Rapid Cash payday loan, you’ll need to be prepared with the following items:

• Active checking account
• Income documentation
• Verifiable contact info

Services Speedy Cash and Rapid Cash Offer

Diversity is vitally important for the success of any modern payday loan business, be it online or a physical storefront. Speedy Cash and Rapid Cash are no different, so they have invested in the following consumer financial services:

• Payday loans and cash advance
• Cash for gold
• Check cashing
• Automobile title loans
• Automobile equity loans
• Pre-paid debit cards

How People Access SpeedyCash.com

Thanks to data from Compete.com, we know that Speedy Cash received 115,986 unique visitors in November of 2009, which is a 20 percent increase over the previous month. In total, there were 175,313 visitors, which is a 14 percent increase. Google.com was the most used search engine guiding consumers to SpeedyCash.com (12 percent), but Yahoo.com was close behind (11 percent). In terms of what payday loan customers were looking for that brought them to SpeedyCash.com, “speedy cash” was the obvious leader at 20 percent of traffic, while “payday loans” (14 percent), “speedycash” (four percent) and “Speedycash.com” (three percent) round out the field

Speedy Cash and Rapid Cash Live Up to Their Names

That is, if you want to apply for and hopefully receive a payday loan – be it online or in person – speed is the operative term. Personal Money Market finds it comforting to know that the convenience of payday loans is alive and well.

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(Photo: autos.blackvoices.com)

Were you able to take advantage of Cash For Clunkers when it breezed through town? That’s what it seemed like: a breeze that came to call for but a moment. Once that moment was gone, the government put the entire thing on hold. Things like that happen when you burn through $1 billion in less than two weeks – particularly when the plan was for that money to last four to five months. Now the president feels the auto industry needs the cash advances and short term loans Cash For Clunkers provides to keep them going.

Want to know what’s on the Cash For Clunkers car list?

At the moment, it really doesn’t matter, does it? There’s a great deal of question as to whether the program will be approved by the Senate for another $2 billion, even though opponents of Obama’s original plan like Sen. Dianne Feinstein are now in support of the $2 billion expansion. The president is going to attempt to rally senate support this week, but there is a strong possibility that another $2 billion in taxpayer dollars going toward putting more cars on the road (instead of improving mass transportation) won’t fly.

No guarantees after this Friday

In a recent Los Angeles Times story at http://www.latimes.com/classified/automotive/highway1/la-hy-auto-sales4-2009aug04,0,4883093.story, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was quoted as saying that Cash For Clunkers would be guaranteed through the weekend of August 8-9, but only a positive vote in the Senate would extend the program beyond that.

“If the Senate hasn’t acted by this Friday, I would not give people the same assurances of going into a dealership this weekend,” Gibbs said.

Yet there are those who are positive that the Senate will pass the additional funding. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said to MSNBC, “We’re encouraging senators to listen to their car dealers and the people they represent. If they do that, it will pass the Senate.”

Oh really? Listen to the people?

And what is it you think they’re going to ask for? Why, indefinite extension of the program – that’s what. People love free money, yet the catch here is that it’s taxpayer money. So it isn’t free money, is it? Let’s go crazy, folks! That’ll save this economy – fiscal irresponsibility.

And Chrysler was doubling the discounts

Chris Woodyard writes in his “Drive On” column for the USA Today that while Chrysler had been matching the government’s $4,500 Cash For Clunkers car list incentive, that program is headed for the station. It was simply too effective.

Yet it differed from the Cash For Clunkers car list program in that you didn’t even need to trade in a car to get Chrysler’s $4,500 incentive. “It cut through the clutter,” said spokeswoman Kathy Graham. And it caused Chrysler vehicles to fly off the lots, including the PT Cruiser, whose sales beat last years at this time by more than 24 percent.

Here’s Chrysler’s new deal

The double incentive will remain in effect for the PT Cruiser and bigger SUVs and trucks. However, the matching will no longer apply to “some of the bigger clunker incentive replacements,” says Graham.

In those cases, Chrysler will provide  $3,500 for a Dodge Avenger or Chrysler Sebring sedan. It will put up $3,000 for Dodge Nitro SUVs and Jeep Liberty. The Dodge Caliber will net $2,500 in incentive discounts. Jeep Wrangler, Dodge Sprinter, Dodge Challenger and SRT vehicles were never part of Chrysler’s incentive program.

Cash For Clunkers? That money should be going to healthcare!

That’s right. One shot was enough. If more taxpayer money is going to be thrown around, it should be thrown at universal healthcare. People cannot be trusted to escape from their own greed; let’s not make it an official mandate by making the Cash For Clunkers car list program a perpetual monument to our love of debt. If short term loans or cash advances can help now and again with a down payment, that’s fine. Apply below!

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