Saturday, May 8, 2010

The quest for hypothetical gold

It's always been a dream of mine to own a gold bar. Not those little 100g slivers... I mean a 1 kg gold bar. Before my dream becomes a reality, the price of gold would need to drop to historic lows and I'd need to have spare money that I have no practical use for. Neither of those scenarios are likely to happen in the near future.

When I watch TV, I see ridiculous commercials of Russel Oliver imploring me to sell him my precious gold bar... the one I hypothetically own in an alternative universe. If you haven't seen his commercials, you should. His recent commercials are very snazzy, but I miss his earlier commercials of him dressed up in ridiculous outfits (Cashman and the Loan Arranger). His snazzy commercials are an indication that he is making a fair bit of coin from his gold and jewellery purchases, so he is starting to revert back to his classic commercials to maintain his "low budget" image.

Russell Oliver is not the only show in town though. Harold the Jewellery Buyer also wants me to sell him my hypothetical gold bar. You should also check out his commercials. They are hilariously terrible. I've driven past Harold the Jewellery Buyer's store (on Bathurst St, 2 lights south of Lawrence) and it's a tiny little store that I wouldn't think much of. Wonderful terrible commercials, Harold! Keep up the good work.

To top this off, I've been seeing Dollars4Gold commercials recently. They are not as fun as Oliver or Harold. They want me to mail them my hypothetical gold bar, and they will mail me money. Wait a minute... My gold bar is hypothetical, so I can't mail it to you. More importantly, why on earth would people mail them gold without agreeing on a price beforehand? I suppose if I wanted my gold bar back, it wouldn't be possible because they "melted it down in their refinery" already. How convenient...

The truth of the matter is that Oliver, Harold, and Dollars4Gold are preying of people who are in financial trouble. They are vultures that are looking to exploit desperate individuals who need money and are liquidating their "last line of defense" assets. Those being family heirlooms, wedding rings, and my hypothetical gold bar. If you find yourself in this situation, please keep in mind that these people are not your friends. They are jerks that will buy your gold and jewellery for significantly less than it's worth... because that's how they make money.

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