Located in the heart of Los Angeles, California, Oxford Gold Group is a gold and precious metals firm that assists its customers in purchasing and also selling gold and various other precious metals. They also offer other services like setting up gold and silver individual retirement accounts (IRAs), which allow their customers to invest in a variety of precious metals in a tax-sheltered account.
If you are considering spending money with Oxford Gold Group, keep reading this review to find out if they are a good fit for your particular investment goals.
Oxford Gold Group Products & Services
Oxford Gold has a lot of resources on their website from educational to “how-to” articles. Their primary services are physical precious metals, specialized individual retirement accounts (IRAs), and educational materials.
Gold, Silver, and Precious Metals IRAs
IRAs are a special type of account designed by the IRS to encourage folks to save and invest for retirement on their own. To encourage this behavior the money deposited into these accounts is not taxed until the money is required to be removed when the investor reaches retirement age.
While most investors are familiar with these types of savings accounts, the IRS puts certain restrictions on these, especially on precious metals IRAs that investors need to be aware of. Oxford Gold Group can create and manage these specialized IRAs for their clients, as well as offer IRA-approved physical precious metals to fill the account with.
They make the process simple enough. To open an IRA with them all you need to do is fund the account then direct Oxford as to which precious metals you want to be placed in your account. When it eventually becomes time to take your Required Minimum Disbursements (RMD), all you have to do is tell Oxford how much you want and they will mail your precious metals directly to you.
Physical Precious Metals
You don’t have to have an IRA to buy from Oxford Gold Group, they are happy to sell bullion, coins, etc. to investors that want to immediately take possession.
Oxford Gold Group has for sale in both bars and coin form:
Gold
Silver
Platinum
Palladium
These bars and coins come from mints all over the world such as Austria, Canada, the U.K., Australia, and the United States. If you want to purchase these products for home delivery, it is a bit complicated. You can not simply click to purchase like you would with an Amazon product.
You have to fill out a form and list the products you want to buy with your contact information and an Oxford Gold Group representative will reach out to you with the price and the shipping details.
How to Buy Precious Metals from Oxford Gold Group
As we mentioned above, it all starts with seeing something that interests you, maybe it’s a 10 oz. gold bar, or maybe it’s a 1 oz American Gold Eagle coin, and then filling out the contact form.
An Oxford Gold employee will reach out to you and inform you of the different classes of products they offer. During this discovery call, they will which products best match your desires based on your budget and your investment goals. Once you have settled on which products you want, the employee will lock in the prices on the call.
The next step will be for you to fund your account with Oxford Gold Group. Once your account is funded, if you choose to take delivery of your metals, the process of packaging and shipping your products begins. This is the slowest part of the entire process. Your metals are shipped via a carrier with sufficient insurance to cover losses, and you must physically sign for your package. It will not be left sitting on your front door.
If you want to set up a retirement account with Oxford Gold, the process is a bit different. If you want to transfer or rollover an existing account, your representative will walk you through creating a self-directed IRA. It is an easy three-step process.
Once Oxford receives your completed application and your account statement, they will reach out to your current custodian and ask them to wire the funds to your new self-directed account for the amount you specify. Once the funds hit your account, you simply choose which metals you want, and that is all you have to do.
Oxford Gold Group Fees
Due to the nature of precious metals, there are some fees that you should be aware of. If you roll over your 401k into a precious metals IRA, then Oxford Gold will waive some of the standard fees that they charge if you just start an IRA from scratch. Regardless, they also charge annual fees and “administrative charges”.
For setting up an IRA from scratch they charge an initial fee of $325 and then that price is lowered to an annual fee of $180 per year after that.
There are also substantial fees for purchasing physical gold and silver and having them delivered to your home. This is understandable because of the nature of the contents that are being shipped. Gold, silver, and other precious metals that Oxford Gold Group sells have substantial value, because of this, they have to take out insurance on every package shipped.
They also have special instructions with all the shippers to ensure the safe handling of your package. One of these extra measures is to never leave a package sitting on your doorstep. They make sure that it is the person living at the residence before leaving a package. These added safety measures for shipping are nice and there is a cost with this service.
Customer Ratings
Before investing with a company it’s always a good idea to do some research first. Online review sites are a great place to look and see what customers are saying, and these opinions can not be influenced, negatively or positively, by the company.
Trustpilot
On the review site Trustpilot, Oxford Gold Group has 155 reviews with an average rating of 4.8 out of 5.0. The chief complaints seem to be about lack of communication and slowness in delivering products.
“Was told I would receive a notification when my check arrived at Oxford. I was viewing my checking account online and noticed my check had cleared without any notification from Oxford.” – Jack D.
“I gave them 4 stars and not 5 was due to the exceptionally long delivery time.” – Salvatore S.
Overall, the reviews, when looked at as a whole on Trustpilot are not bad.
Better Business Bureau
Oxford Gold Group has only 43 reviews on the BBB, but the good news is the reviews are mostly positive, although there were a few more people that mentioned it took many months for them to receive their metals.
Where does Oxford Gold Group Store Your Precious Metals?
When you have a precious metals IRA, the IRS requires you to have them stored with a custodian, you cannot keep them at your home. Because of this, your gold and silver must be stored in a safe and secure location, and with reputable people.
Oxford uses the services of only two depositories, on opposite sides of the country. The first is the Delaware Depository which resides in Wilmington, Delaware. This depository services the needs of Oxford Gold’s East Coast customers.
The second depository they use is the Brinks Depository which resides in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Brinks Depository services the West Coast clients of Oxford Gold.
Having a depository on each side of the country also helps to keeps costs down when shipping metals to clients for distributions. Also, there is no need to worry about Oxford sending products to and from these locations. They use insured security carriers that discreetly move your precious metals.
Precious Metals Portfolio Performance Reports
Gold and precious metals investing are like any other type of investment in that over a short period, the prices and therefore the value of your investments will fluctuate significantly. So investing for short periods is usually not a good idea. But it is still important to track performance.
Oxford Gold Group has a portal on its website that lets you do this. Simply ask your self-directed IRA custodian to give you access to your account. This will let you see how your portfolio is performing at any time.
Even if you decide not to check on your account regularly, you will still have quarterly performance statements delivered electronically by your custodian. If you want to have paper quarterly statements mailed to you, this option is available, but unfortunately, there is an additional fee for this service.
Pros
-They have a wide variety of products
-Oxford Gold Group has been in business for 20 years
-Good at educating their customers
Cons
-While the fee structure is simple enough, the fees are high for the industry
-If you want paper account statements, there is an extra fee for that
-They only work with two depositories
Summary
Through our research, we did not find anything that was exceptionally troubling about the Oxford Gold Group. They are among the more reputable companies in the gold business. They seem to treat their customers fairly and have reviews that are generally positive.
New customers seem to like Oxford Gold’s no-hassle approach to selling. This is reflected in the company’s reviews which are more or less positive.
Oxford Gold Group also does a decent job of educating their customers on the precious metals market and how to invest in it. There “How To Buy” precious metals section is particularly helpful, the main knock against it being that the text on the website is frustratingly small and hard to read.
Overall, this is an ok company.