Welcome to my "Is Provident Metals Legit?" review!
(UPDATED FOR JUNE 2023)
Investing in precious metals has been proven to be very effective as a protection for your investments. But how can you protect yourself from precious metal scammers?
That's right. You make a thorough research and one of them is to read reviews.
So, before you decide whether you would work with Provident Metals in 2023, you might want to read this review first.
Is Provident Metals legit? Or is it a scam? You are about to find out the shocking answers to these questions!
If you want to jump straight to knowing our top-recommended precious metals company, click here.
Provident Metals Review Quick Summary
Name: Provident Metals
Founder: Joe Merrick
Price: Varies depending on your investments
More...
What is Provident Metals?
Provident Metals is an online precious metals retailer and precious metal IRA services provider based in Dallas, Texas founded in 2009. It generally serves clients from both the United States and Canada.
It provides a wide range of products for investors to choose from. Moreover, the company values education for its customers, recognizing how important it is to also inform them about the market and the investments.
In fact, Provident Metals has created the Precious Metal Investor’s Knowledge Center to teach investors about the precious metals and how to invest in them.
Provident Metals is also recognized as an authorized member-dealer of the American Numismatic Association and an Associate Member Firm on the Certified Coin Exchange.
Interestingly, it is one of the few online retailers that has started to accept crypto currencies as a form of payment such as Bitcoin.
Provident Metals Management Team
According to LinkedIn, Provident Metals has 51 to 200 employees, with 11 of them on LinkedIn. However, the company's website does not have any page that introduces the people behind Provident Metals.
But there is a page that shows a message from the CEO of the company, who is Joe Merrick.
Further research found that the following people hold significant roles in the company:
- Drew Ulberg (Director, Retail Sales & Customer Service)
- Franklin Wilson (Director, Human Resources)
- Joshua Merrick (Creative Director)
What are Provident Metals' products?
The company offers a variety of precious metals ranging from gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and copper bullion, bars, coins, and rounds.
Among the most popular products that they sell are the following:
- American Gold Eagles
- European Gold Coins
- Pre-33 Gold
- PAMP Suisse Gold Bars
- Canadian Maple Leaf Gold Coins
- American Silver Eagles
- Silver British Britannia
- Platinum American Eagle
- Palladium Canadian Maple Leaf
If you are new to the gold investing industry, Provident Metals offers several starter packs to guide you, as well as buyback products.
Provident Metals Product Pricing
Provident Metals' product is either a hit or a miss. As an example, at the time of writing this review, the company's cheapest silver bullion ounce (SilverTowne Prospector) was priced at $25.08. This is +31% over the silver spot price which is, $19.13 per ounce, as of July 11, 2022.
Moreover, the cheapest gold bullion was priced at $1,820.83, which is +4.9% over the gold spot price of $1,736.
Based on these comparison, Provident Metals' silver price is a bit higher than the market price. Whereas its gold products are market rate, or sometimes, even below the market price.
Does Provident Metals offer IRAs?
Yes. IRAs are one of its main services, and Provident Metals has a selection of IRA-eligible products for those looking to invest. Better yet, they feature a tax-free ROTH IRA, which is good news for account holders.
As for added fees involved in the setting up a precious metal IRA investment account, these are not disclosed as it’ll greatly be determined by the custodian you select.
Provident Metals has partnered with Preferred Trust Company – although it’ll still be up to your discretion.
According to Provident Metals...
However, if you prefer a company that specializes in IRAs, then you are looking for Goldco.
What precious metals are IRA-approved?
Most precious metal products offered by Provident Metals are 99.9% pure. However, only a few of them are IRA-eligible. In case you did not know, there are lot of specific criteria for a bullion product to be considered as IRA-eligible.
First, they must have a purity of at least 99.5%. Only the American Gold Eagle can be exempted from this criteria, which has a purity lower limit of 91.67%.
Moreover, gold products must have a refiner hallmark which indicates that they are approved by NYMEX or COMEX. Some examples are the following:
- 1 ounce Canadian Maple Leaf Platinum Coins
- 1/10-1 ounce American Eagle Platinum Coins
- 1 ounce Australian Platinum Koala Coins
For silver products, they must be at least 99.9% pure to be considered as IRA-eligible. Some examples are:
- 1-ounce Australian Philharmonic Silver Coins
- 1 ounce American Silver Eagle Coins
- 1 ounce Mexican Libertad Silver Coins
- 1 ounce Canadian Silver Maple Leaf Coins
- 1 ounce Chinese Silver Panda Coin
Lastly, both platinum and palladium products are required to be at least 99.95% pure to be used for IRAs. The following are some good examples:
- 1 ounce Canadian Maple Leaf Platinum Coins
- 1 ounce Canadian Maple Leaf Palladium Coins
- 1/10-1 ounce American Eagle Platinum Coins
- 1 ounce Australian Platinum Koala Coins
- 1 ounce Russians Roubles Palladium Ballerina Coins
How does it work?
If you wish to purchase non-IRA precious metals from the company, you simply need to create an account on its website so that you can add items to your cart.
After that, you will proceed to your payment and then they will send your products to you.
To avail their IRA services, you need to contact your chosen IRA custodian. Provident Metals has a preferred custodian, which you can also call.
Once your account is set-up, you can inform Provident Metals that you wish to purchase IRA-eligible precious metals. Once confirmed and paid for, they will send your precious metals to your IRA custodians and they will store it for you.
Payment Methods
Provident Metals accepts various payment methods which are the following:
- Credit Cards (Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover)
- PayPal
- PayPal Credit
- Bank wires
- Paper checks (personal check, money order, cashier’s check, online bill pay, bank draft, and traveler’s check payments)
- ACH
- Bitcoin
Shipping Policy
Currently, Provident Metals only ships to the United States. They do not offer any shipping for international orders.
Orders are usually shipped within 5 to 10 business days from when the funds are received by the company if they are paid via bank wire, credit card, Bitcoin, cashiers check, or postal money orders.
If you paid via personal check, it would take at least 5 business days for your products to be shipped.
Free shipping is offered to orders that are $199 or more. Orders less than $199 must be a shipping fee of $9.95.
All orders are shipped via USPS or UPS and all of them are fully insured.
Frequently Asked Questions
You may, however, this will happen through third-party depository partners. Again, the fees and steps will differ based on the chosen depository.
Yes. Whether you purchased your precious metal through Provident or not, you may sell this to the company provided it meets the minimum amount of $1,000, and you’ve contacted their purchasing department.
It works in three steps:
1. Call in to set up a selling account
2. Ship your items
3. Payment is released
Furthermore, you need to meet the minimum requirement of $1000, to be able to sell your products to the company.
If your products do not cost a total of at least that amount, you will not be able to sell them.
The company support system lacks a live chat box on its website, which is a shame.
Instead, the website offers a phone number, an e-mail address, and a physical address for you to contact its staff and voice out your concerns.
How is the Provident Metals support?
The company support system lacks a live chat box on its website, which is a shame.
Instead, the website offers a phone number, an e-mail address, and a physical address for you to contact its staff and voice out your concerns.
Ratings (June 2023 Update)
Overall, Provident Metals received fairly OK ratings from different websites. You can see them below.
- BBB - 4.72 out of 5 rating, A+ rating, BBB accredited, with 130 reviews
- Trustpilot - 3.3 rating based on 3,680 reviews
- SiteJabber - 2.5 rating based on 43 reviews
As you can see, Provident Metals has poor ratings from Trustpilot and SiteJabber. However, it does have excellent ratings from BBB, and it is also BBB accredited.
In comparison to other top-tier precious metals companies, Provident Metals is a bit behind.
Reviews
Even though Provident Metals has relatively OK ratings, people still shared some complaints and negative reviews about the company.
You can see some of them below. These could also serve as a warning for you.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Cons
Is Provident Metals Legit? - Final Verdict
Is Provident Metals legit? Well, so far, it is a legit precious metals firm, company and dealer.
It offers good products and services, which includes IRA. Furthermore, it actually received good ratings. However, ratings are not good enough. We need to take into consideration what other people expressed about the company.
Provident Metals received quite a lot of negative reviews and complaints. And this is not a good indication of it being the best precious metals firm.
If you are looking for the best firm, the check out the top recommended one at the bottom of this review!
Do you have any experience investing in Provident Metals, feel free to share what you think in the comments section below!
Thank you so much for reading my "Is Provident Metals Legit?" review!
