Provident Metals is a precious metals dealer that was founded in 2019. It offers a wide range of precious metals, including silver, gold, platinum, and palladium coins and bars. The company also provides copper rounds and bullion, as well as wheat pennies. Furthermore, through its custodian, Preferred Trust Company, Provident Metals helps customers establish precious metal IRAs. Surprisingly, there is no transparency concerning the company’s leadership team and no international shipping.
The precious metal dealer has also received several poor reviews, so it has become the topic of much scandal and debate. Investing in precious metals is not a decision to be taken lightly. Therefore, all potential investors should do a lot of research on their precious metal dealers before investing. Here is everything there is to know about Provident Metals.
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About Provident Metals
Provident Metals specializes in precious metals investment options. Similarly, through its three-step IRA plan, it assists customers in quickly establishing a self-directed IRA. The company was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in the North Dallas suburbs.
Its precious metals inventory includes platinum, silver, gold, and palladium bars and coins. Additionally, there are numismatic coins and collectors’ coin options. There are also several products available for those interested in investing in copper. Provident Metals sells gold, palladium, silver, and platinum coins and bars to investors. The company also buys these metals from those who own them, should they wish to sell them. It also sells metals that can be stored in an IRA account.
What Is a Precious Metals IRA?
A precious metal IRA is a type of self-directed personal retirement account that specializes in precious metals. Outside the usual options available in a traditional IRA, self-directed IRAs enable you to invest in a wide range of unique assets such as real estate, precious metals, and art.
Precious metal IRAs are an option some individuals use as a portion of their retirement plan because precious metals like silver, gold, platinum, and palladium tend to increase in value over time. Including precious metals in a retirement plan can help protect your wealth in various ways, including lowering possible investment risk and volatility, acting as a haven in the event of a downturn, and providing potential for gain that is tax-efficient.
How Do Precious Metal IRAs Work?
This Individual Retirement Account is where physical gold or other precious metals are held in custody for the investor’s benefit. It operates similarly to a traditional IRA, except that it involves physical bullion coins or bars instead of paper assets. Gold, platinum, silver, and palladium are the four metals that can be retained in an individual retirement account if they are in the form of IRS-approved products.
Because gold is the most widely acquired metal of the four, the phrase “gold IRA” is widely used as industry jargon to refer to a retirement plan comprising any combination of precious metals. According to Internal Revenue Code criteria, the approved precious metals bought by investors must be stored in a particular manner. A few trustees have their storage facilities, while most investors use a third-party depository.
Provident Metals IRA Fees
When assessing the validity of a company, it is essential to analyze the information it provides, as it can tell you whether a business operates with transparency. Unfortunately, Provident Metals does not offer a fee structure on its IRAs on its official website, which is worrying. The company mentions that fees are all charged by the trust and custodial company, so no clear indication of what potential investors can expect is given.
It is important to note that most IRA companies either have low yearly fees, while some even waiver these fees for the first one to three years. Provident Metals gives little to no indication of what to expect, which could lead one to believe that it can change the fee structure as it sees fit, which is not something a reputable company would do. That being said, the company does provide updated information about its prices, with charts that help potential investors see the performance of the metal they are interested in buying.
The Pros and Cons of Investing in a Precious Metal with Provident Metals
When investigating the legitimacy of a company, it is essential to consider both the positive and negative aspects of the business. Here are the pros and cons of investing with Provident Metals.
Pros
- The company offers a good range of products
- Users can find several reviews online
- A good range of payment methods are available
- Buyback option
- A blog provides more information about investment grade metals
- Great pricing information available, including charts
- Free shipping in the US and for orders over $199
- Great prices on some products
Cons
- No live chat feature on its website
- Products ship only to Canada and the United States
- There are no clear indications regarding the fee structure
- Poor customer service
- Customer complaints are serious, and there are more negative than positive reviews
- The website is not very easy to navigate
- Poor order delivery and tracking system
- No information provided about the company’s leadership team
Provident Customer Service
While the company does offer customer support in the form of e-mail and phone calls, it does not appear to have 24-hour chat support, which is inconvenient. It also provides a physical address for those wishing to voice their concerns. The company also does not seem to provide consistent customer satisfaction, as reviews are mixed. While some have reported outstanding customer service and fast delivery, others were very unhappy with the service they received. Generally, many online reviews are primarily negative, with customers complaining that customer service reps did not listen or act in their interest, which is alarming because customer support is there to do just that – support the customer!
International and Domestic Bullion
One of the biggest pros of investing in a precious metal with Provident Metals is that they offer a wide variety of both international and domestic precious metal products. Here are some of the most popular domestic and international products Provident Metals offers:
- Gold Canadian Maple Leaf
- American Gold Buffalo
- Silver American Eagle
- Palladium Canadian Maple Leaf
- American Gold Buffalo
- Platinum Canadian Maple Leaf
- Platinum American Eagle
- Silver Austrian Philharmonic
- Silver British Britannia
- Palladium American Eagle
- Gold Australian Kangaroo
Customer Complaints
As mentioned previously, there are many complaints about Provident Metals that can be found online through Google searches. While there were some upstanding reviews, most of the complaints were negative, relating primarily to shipping issues, missing metals, and counterfeit goods.
False Promises
One complainant claimed that as compensation for a poor quality product, the customer would receive free shipping on their next order and not a refund. Still, after paying for the following order, provident customer service started demanding that the customer pay the shipping fee.
Counterfeit or Damaged Goods
Another red flag is that customers have reported receiving counterfeit products and junk silver that appeared to be plated, so customers can never have full assurance of exactly what they may receive. Some users claimed that Provident is a horrible company to deal with because their metal products were damaged when received, which is another alarming issue.
Issues with Deliveries
One of the issues that Provident Metals customers were most disappointed with was the delivery or lack thereof. The bullion dealer appears to have paid little attention to tracking its orders, and getting them to the customer efficiently, as it claims on the company website.
Lost Orders
Another claimed that their order did not include a shipping label, so USPS lost their package. A claim was filed with their affiliated insurance company, but the insurance underwriter denied the claim. This is alarming because all packages of this nature should be shipped fully insured, as they are with other companies. One loyal customer had their order lost in delivery and received little to no help from Provident, claiming they could not refund their money unless the Provident claims department could prove that the customer had not received the goods.
While this may be understandable, there seem to be many cases where clients’ packages have been lost during delivery, and Provident was unable to track what went wrong. Therefore, the customers suffer the liability without so much as a follow-up phone call to let them know that the company is getting to the bottom of it, or to inform them of any progress made.
Delayed Deliveries
Deliveries also appear to take a long time, with several customers claiming not to have received their orders at all. One customer posted a review to warn other potential investors that the delivery company put their package into the mailbox the way a post office service would deliver a letter. This is dangerous, as anyone could take an expensive order of precious metal products.
Hidden Fees
Provident also appears to charge the customer a penalty fee for returns, even when the fault seems to have been on Provident’s part. This is one of the main reasons why it has received such a negative response from the public. To improve its customer satisfaction and public perception, the company should change its policies, including how customer complaints are dealt with. When reading some of its policies, terminology such as “cannot cancel the confirmed sale” and “shipping charges are non-refundable” stand out. This gives the impression that all the power is in Provident’s hands and not the investor’s hands, which is precisely how someone who owns a precious metal should feel.
Is Provident Metals a Scam?
Based on the evidence found, Provident Metals is, in fact, a legitimate company. It has been registered with the BBB since September of 2019 and currently has an A+ BBB rating. No company that is a scam would be in existence for a long period. However, potential investors should use this company for their metal investments at their discretion. Poor support on the website, poor customer service, lack of care in tracking orders all contribute to lousy service and the reason why this once reputable dealer has taken much criticism. For this reason, we recommend working with GoldCo.
Ratings
Here are some of the overall ratings Provident received from well-known sites or organizations:
BBB
- Overall rating – A+
- Review rating – 4.79-star rating
- Number of reviews – 12
Trustpilot
- Review rating – 9.7 of 10
- Number of reviews – 3511
Yelp
- Review rating – 3.5-star rating
- Number of reviews – 7
The Final Verdict
Provident Metals are legitimate bullion dealers that offer a wide range of precious metal products, including gold coin, bar, and bullion products that customers can purchase or invest in through an IRA. It also allows users to sell back their metals should they wish and offers competitive prices on products compared to other dealers.
However, the company seems to be more focused on making sales than attaining a happy customer each time a deal is made. More care must be taken to track orders efficiently, prevent defects to products, provide fast shipping, and better customer service to match the standard set by other reputable dealers, such as JM Bullion.
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About Tim Schmidt
Tim Schmidt is an Entrepreneur who has covered retirement investing since 2012. He's also a published author, and his views on investing have been featured in USA Today, Tech Times, The Huffington Post, Nasdaq, and many more.
