On the recordDecember 8, 2010
I want to thank the gentleman from New York for bringing this matter to the attention of the Congress, and specifically the Energy and Commerce Committee. As he said, with the economic downturn and with the dramatic increase in the price of gold, we see more and more people mailing their gold possessions in an envelope to these companies that are buying gold and then melting it down. It is a system that is ripe with the opportunity to defraud a lot of people. And this legislation, as the gentleman from New York stated, simply clarifies a number of issues. Number one, it makes it easier to determine whether or not a consumer is accepting the offer of the company that's buying the gold. It also provides these additional protections on the insurance, because as the gentleman from New York said, frequently the client, the consumer, did not really want to sell; and yet it probably was melted down, and they said, well, we mailed it back to you, but it was lost in the mail. So this is important legislation, provides additional consumer protections at a time when a lot of our consumers are particularly vulnerable to being taken advantage of.
