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Introduction: E-gold was
established in 1996. It is an electronic currency which is backed
ounce for ounce by actual gold bullion. It is not connected to the banking
system in any way. E-gold.com themselves cannot convert cash into gold or visa
versa. Instead there and dozens of independent
exchange services who will change your cash into gold or your gold
into cash. We refer to these services as gold
brokers. |
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Advantages:
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Anyone can open a free e-gold account
here - there are no restrictions (Geographic, age, status etc.). |
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You can have more than one e-gold account. |
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It takes 5 minutes to open your account and another 5
minutes to set up a single item shopping cart. |
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You can fund your account with a credit
card, debit card, bank wire, bank draft, cash, electronic
banking, Western Union, etc. etc. - the options are growing all
the time. |
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Transferring money from account to account is easy,
secure and almost instant. |
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To all intents and purposes an e-gold account is an
instant offshore account. |
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There is no such thing as a chargeback - once money
has been transferred to your account that's it. |
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Spending e-gold is free. Vendor transaction fees are
very very low compared to
credit card fees. It is only 1% subject to
a maximum of 50 cents (USD) per transaction. There is an annual
Agio fee of 1% on your average monthly balance. This is deducted in
monthly installments. |
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Overall it is a great way to anonymously pass money
from one individual to another individual / organisation. |
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Redeeming your e-gold is easy. You just get a
cheque (check) posted to whatever name you want at whatever address you
want. Have it transferred straight in to your UK account at no
cost. You can also cash in your e-gold with various anonymous ATM
cards. |
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Disadvantages:
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The only drawback with e-gold is that funding your e-gold account not
instant. The first time you fund your account with a credit card
there will be a delay while your card is verified. This could be
anything from a few hours to a day and might only involve a phone call
to you. The next time will be much quicker as your credit card
would be verified. |
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Only some gold brokers will accept personal cheques (checks) and
credit cards. |
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The fee charged for using a credit card can seem to be quite high.
Goldex charge 10% which is the best rate we have found. The
discount offered by some vendors for using e-gold usually cover the
charge. |
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Funding your account anonymously can take anything from a day to 2
weeks depending on the method you use. Just go to any bank and hand over your cash.
You can then have it wired to your gold broker or post a bank draft to
them. This is also the cheapest way to fund your account. |
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Security Advice:
The most important element of your e-gold
security is your password. When you set up your account don't choose
a password choose a passphrase! Here are my passphrase guidelines
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Don't use upper and lower case in any of your
passwords/passphrases - use lower case and numbers only and you much less likely to
forget them. Note: this goes against most advice. |
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To make up for the lack of upper case letters use a longer
passphrase. The absolute minimum should be 15 characters. I
recommend 20 characters or more (Mine has 38). |
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Use letters mostly but make sure that you have used at least a few
numbers. Use a short phrase of your own and add few numbers that
you already know - like
a phone number, license number, account number, passport number,
PIN number, car registration, (present of past) etc. etc. |
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Examples:
123davidlovesmary321
301threehundredandone
paul776776776776pr
thereare60secondsinaminute
parisisnotthecapitalofgermany4541786
The last passphrase has 35 characters and would be extremely easy
to remember assuming that you already know the number element. |
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Do something to ensure that you do not loose/forget your account
number and passphrase. You must write them down somewhere - just
use your imagination. Suggestion: Log into your account every week
whether or not you need to. |
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Never use a passphrase you have used on
another website. If you find that you have too many passwords to
remember get a password storage program. You will only have to remember
one password.
Password Corral v3.4 is a good free program we came accross.
Ver 4 looks good and is due out soon. (Don't worry about
downloading from outside the USA). Don't forget to backup your
data file. |
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There are scams out there which will try to get your e-gold
passphrase out of you. If you ever get an e-mail purporting to come
from e-gold.com asking you click on a link and log into your account, ignore it. Think - what would you do
if you got an email asking for your home phone number, address, credit
card number, expiry date and security code ?
The only place you should ever enter your
password is on the e-gold website. |
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You should always log into your gold account by typing
www.e-gold.com yourself in the address bar of your browser. At
the point where you enter your passphrase you should see
https://www.e-gold.com/acct/login.html in the address bar of your
browser. Note the s in https. To save time we
suggest you create a bookmark to the login URL. |
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You should also see a closed padlock symbol
at the lower right hand corner of your browser. If you
double-click the icon you can verify that the SSL certificate belongs to
www.e-gold.com and is issued by www.verisign.com |
As well as physically securing your computer you should also secure it
by keeping your anti-virus software up to date and by
installing a trojan/spyware detector and a firewall. Most people know
a bit about
anti-virus programs but many are under the mistaken impression that
firewalls are for business use only and are difficult to set up. They are
in fact quite easy to set up and everyone should have one. You can get a
good free firewall
here.
We recommend
Spy Sweeper to guard against trojans and spyware. This is not
free, but it is updated weekly. We believe that this type of
software is as important as anti-virus software.
Please don't let all the above put
you off using your computer for financial transactions.
The advice offered is as basic as advising someone to lock up their house
and
set their alarm before leaving and not to leave the keys under the mat.
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General Advice
| We recommend that you leave at one Euro in your e-gold
account, as empty accounts are sometimes closed after six months on
inactivity |
| You can have as many e-gold accounts as you need. You can also
transfer funds between them at no charge. |
| If you loose / forget your password there is a procedure for
regaining access to your account. However if you have also
forgotten the address and other details that you used when opening your
account you are in trouble. |
| The € value of e-gold you hold in your gold account will vary.
If you leave €1,000 worth of gold in your e-gold account for a few
days it will almost certainly increase or decrease in value. Just
follow the gold market. |
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E-Gold
Links
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