Hacker News Reader

Comment by Brushfire | Hacker News Reader

I hate to say this -- but who didnt know this was a scam? This is like many late night tv infomercials on a variety of topics. Clearly, the issue is that you GIVE them your stuff before they tell you the value. Its part of their system, but its also the key part in the scam.

F- To Cash4Gold, but its no worse than all the other scam companies out there. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.

View on HN

This is why I love cockeyed.com. Not only did he draw attention to the scam [1], he was actually offered money to take down that page - and printed Cash4Gold's contact with him in full [2].

But my favourite (related) article was when turned the scam around on Gold Kit (similar deal) and sent them junk he had spray painted gold. [3] Fun.

[1] http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/goldkit/cheat.shtml [2] http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/goldkit/reputation.shtml [3] http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/goldkit/gold_kit02.shtml

It's a lot harder to believe that a company with a Superbowl ad is an out-and -out scam. At least in my mind, I tend to assume that if they make it to that level, they're legit.

Like a lot of the original dot.coms?

Like if you're as rich as Bernie Madoff you must be legit?

You do realize that the "con" in "con man" comes from the word confidence, right? The most important thing for any scam to work is building confidence.

What better way than with celebrity-ish pitch men and a Superbowl ad?

Probably the people who watched the superbowl commercial?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-HmD3A0GzY

The superbowl advertising sales department should probably be fired.

I had no idea they were that big. Wow. Admittedly, I don't watch the super bowl or have cable, but still, even with big marketing dollars this still screams scam to me.

The fact that they can afford a super bowl ad just proves the effectiveness of their scam. Its kind of interesting as a case study, as long as no one I know, like, or care about does business with them.

on the flip side of that coin, superbowl ads were going for super cheap this year, and i bet they had to scrape bottom, dredging up these guys, just to fill up the slots.

Actually they sold a record amount of ad revenue ($206m), so no they weren't going for super cheap. They had a few last minute cheaper spots, but we're still talking the $2.4m range.

Who doesn't know? Well, my five-year-old is fascinated by these commercials. Of course, he doesn't have any gold to sell, but still...

Actually, I've used it as a good learning experience for him. "Don't believe everything you see on television." Now he wants to make his own TV commercial to warn others!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com