Au ✓ Safe Gold IRA

Methodology

How the desk verifies a claim

Every guide on this site follows the same five-step method. The current verification month for all pages is October 2026.

  1. Primary record first. Before anything is written, the editor reads the record that decides the question: the SEC or CFTC enforcement release, the court opinion, the FTC rule, the IRS publication, or the statute. Dealer blogs, news roundups, and forum threads are used to find questions, never to establish facts.
  2. Dated checks. Each page carries the month its claims were last verified against the primary record. Regulators publish constantly; when a release or opinion changes the picture, the affected pages are corrected and re-dated.
  3. Plain statement, then source. Each claim is stated in plain English and linked to the document that decides it, so you can check the desk's reading in one click.
  4. Allegations are allegations; findings are findings. This is the desk's language rule, and it is not negotiable: an unresolved complaint is reported as a complaint, a charged case as a charge, and a final judgment as a judgment — each labeled as such, with its date and source. The desk publishes no scam verdicts about named companies, and company responses run alongside the record where they exist.
  5. Where advice is needed, say so. Guides explain records and rules; they do not tell you whether to act. Questions about your tax position, your specific account, or a contract you have been handed go to a qualified CPA, enrolled agent, or attorney — and the pages say exactly that.

Sources used across the guides

Federal courts and the U.S. Tax Court

  • Swanson v. Commissioner, 91 T.C. 213 (1998) — first full-dress rejection of the home-storage LLC structure
  • Ellis v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2013-245 — home-stored bullion held a prohibited transaction; IRA disqualified
  • Moynihan v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2018-148 — safe-deposit-box storage through an LLC held a prohibited transaction
  • PACER and CourtListener for federal dockets; U.S. Tax Court opinions for memorandum decisions

Securities and Exchange Commission

  • SEC Press Release 2022-17 — fraud charges against Safeguard Metals LLC and its owner; 450+ investors, ~$67 million, deceptive markups of 51–71%
  • SEC Litigation Release LR-26307 — final judgment in the Safeguard Metals matter (2025)
  • SEC investor education materials on self-directed IRAs and fraud red flags (investor.gov)

Commodity Futures Trading Commission

  • CFTC Press Release 6935-14 — $108M restitution and penalties against the Hunter Wise companies for selling metal never purchased
  • CFTC Press Release 9139-25 — $51M+ in restitution and penalties with 30 state regulators in the Safeguard Metals matter
  • CFTC advisory "Lies Versus Facts: The Truth Behind Gold and Silver IRA Scams" (Metals IRA Lies, updated 2024)

FTC and consumer protection

  • FTC Telemarketing Sales Rule (16 CFR Part 310) — disclosure and do-not-call rights relevant to gold IRA cold calls
  • FTC ReportFraud.ftc.gov as the reporting channel for deceptive metals sales
  • Investor.gov red flags of investment fraud checklist

Internal Revenue Service / Code

  • IRC §408 (IRAs) and §408(m) (prohibited collectibles; fineness standards; custodial holding requirement)
  • IRC §72(t) (10% early-distribution tax)
  • IRS Publication 590-A and 590-B (rollovers, distributions, prohibited transactions)

The complaint record

  • BBB profiles, Trustpilot, ConsumerAffairs, and Trustlink — read for dated patterns, with the check date noted
  • State securities and consumer-affairs regulator lookups; several states license precious-metals dealers directly
  • Company responses are reported alongside complaints where they exist

Standards for any company references

The desk names no dealer as a recommendation and sells no rankings. Where the verification checklist describes what to check (written fee schedules, custodian and depository names, complaint records), it describes checks you can run yourself — regulators' databases and public records, not a ranked list. Companies are named on this site only from public enforcement or court records, with dates and links. If the desk ever accepts compensation from a company, that relationship will be disclosed on the page where the company appears and on the disclosure page — and no amount of compensation changes a fact sourced to a public record.

Corrections

Errors are fixed at the top of the queue. Send the page URL and the primary record that contradicts it through the contact page; verified corrections are made and credited within days. Companies named in the record get the same channel.