2025 tips for selling your gold online safely
The price of gold has reached record highs in 2025, with the spot price of gold closing around £2,600 per troy ounce in April. With the price rally gold has been on recently, thousands of households from King’s Lynn to Cromer have decided now could be a great time to empty the jewellery box. Rising gold prices brings a flurry of legitimate gold buyers and sellers, but the current gold rush can also attract the wrong type of online gold buyers looking to exploit and take advantage of keen sellers.
Suffolk Police detectives say their fraud hotline “lit up” over the winter. A Southwold widow, duped by a caller styling himself “DC Lewis,” bought 10 kg of gold bullion worth £526,000 and handed it to a bogus courier. The South-London ringleader, 25-year-old Zayd Saheb, was arrested at the next pick up location and was jailed for nine years at Ipswich Crown Court on 28 March 2025. Officers warn the same courier-fraud play book drained £19.6 million from pensioners nationwide in just three months.
The new anatomy of a gold scam
What makes 2025 different to previous years, is the advancement of technology fraudsters now have access to. Along with the usual copy and paste websites and virtual landline numbers linked to a disposable mobile, these fraudsters now have access to AI-generated videos and voice over cloning software that impersonate industry professionals, and even TV experts.
With this advancement in technology, crooks are able to setup websites, social pages, and business profiles in hours. Websites can be populated with AI generated content in minutes, giving the appearance of a well established gold buying business.
Add in record breaking demand for gold, global investment in gold jumped 170 % year-on-year in the first quarter, the World Gold Council reports. This makes the pressure to “sell your gold before the peak” easy to exploit. Crooks rely on speed and confusion: a courier turns up within hours; the paperwork is rushed; the gold offer expires in minutes; the refund window shrinks to nothing.
Selling Gold Online safely when prices are soaring
So for those looking for the convenience of selling gold online, how can you then benefit from these price highs without becoming a statistic? Industry specialists such as Cheshire Gold Xchange a trusted gold buyer based in the Northwest, publishes their live gold rates via their website, they say the safest approach is simple but seldom followed:
First, identify the business. A genuine and well established gold buyer will have an active entry on Companies House, a physical trading address and telephone numbers that connect to real people, not chat bots. You want to avoid businesses that only display a PO Box address, this allows post to be redirected to any 'hidden' address, so you don't know where your gold is actually going. Look at customer reviews on platforms like Google, and Trustpilot. You want to see a steady influx of reviews over long periods, hundreds of reviews adding in a short space of time, with no prior reviews history could be a red flag.
Second, secure the journey. Many online gold buyers offer to send sellers pre-paid Royal Mail Special Delivery mailing bags. Check for a licence number printed onto the Special Delivery Mailing bag, this tells you the business is officially registered with Royal Mail for a pre-paid service. Photograph and weigh each item placed in the bag before it leaves the house; the images take seconds and settle most disputes, and help with insurance claims if the parcel is lost. It is also important you obtain your proof of postage receipt when dropping off any pre-paid postage.
Third, insist on the right to say no. UK distance-selling rules give you 14 days to reject an offer and demand your items back; reputable dealers put that promise in writing. You should look for online gold buyers who will return your items to you free of charge.
If anything feels off, delivery labels that arrive unrequested, a demand to accept payment in cryptocurrency, or an offer that wilts under questions, you should pause and reconsider your options. There should be no reason for a gold buyer to request sensitive banking information, such as passwords, pin numbers, or bank ID numbers.
The bottom line
With the gold price still breaking records, Now is a great time for you to sell your old gold jewellery, Sovereign coins, and any other gold items. You can now achieve prices per gram that have not been seen before through history.
Maintaining your safety when choosing to sell gold online should take priority over trying to time your sale with the absolute market top. Do your research on the business you are planning to sell your gold to, checking legitimate review platforms, this is your best signal of trust. By choosing an established, transparent gold buyer, using insured post, and refusing to be rushed or pressured into a sale, you can cash in on 2025’s gold rush, without funding the scammers.
