As most of my readers should know, I’m very “pro gold”. Holding a lot of gold should be a major portion of your asset portfolio.
I’ve recommended Glint for quite a while now. I used to really like them. They have a great system and my only major complaint was being forced to do all transactions on a mobile device (no website to do transactions on). It’s nice to have some of your gold sitting safely in a vault in Switzerland.
Well, last year I was forced to buy a new iPad because my old (perfectly good) iPad didn’t support the new OS features that Glint’s new app uses. Okay fine, I don’t mind buying “toys” too much. Although I have to admit that my opinion of iPads has been dropping too.
Last fall Glint mucked up the iPad app so that it only uses half the screen so all your work is done on just a narrow vertical strip of screen space. I’ve been emailing them ever since they made that change and their primary response repeatedly has been “buy an iPhone instead”. They assure me they will eventually fix their app.
Now for the past two weeks I’ve been trying to pull money back from Glint and so far it’s failed the transaction twice. To be fair to Glint, they do email me when it fails (five days later). Glint support is responsive in email. Hopefully this next attempt will actually work.
My view is that people will freak out when they can’t get their money back from a bank. Thus Glint should be falling all over themselves to apologize for this trouble and go out of their way to fix it. Thus with their rather apathetic response I’ve finally decided to write this article saying that I no longer recommend them.
The best alternative I know to Glint is “CyberMetals” where you have a choice about which vault they store your gold in (I believe mine is in Texas). CyberMetals does have higher premiums but a lower storage fee. Not perfect but at least they have a website!
Update: Glint upgraded the transfer to a “same day transfer” and it finally went through. That was good customer service of by them.
I understand that there is physical bullion allocated to customers by Glint, but the part that worries me is if the banking and internet systems collapse as we are warned they will, how do you get your hands on it if it's in a Swiss Bank vault and you're in the USA? I'm always looking at worst case scenarios. I think there is a strong case for holding physical gold, but it must be accessible. I also fear that in the event of a banking system collapse, with gold bullion suddenly being in high demand, it will quickly disappear from vaults without regard or reference to the records of ownership. It will be chaos. Cold storage is the best option in these times, I think.