Pinnacle Gold Group LLC Pinnacle Gold Ripped Us Off, Vanished Sherman Oaks, California

In January, my wife and I converted our traditional IRAs to silver and gold IRAs  through Pinnacle Gold Group, LLC, in Sherman Oaks, Calif. We were concerned about the sinking economy and were told that silver and gold were safe havens and their value was sure to rise, perhaps dramatically. The salesman seemed very knowledgeable and convincing. He had answers to all our concerns, the greatest being why he was recommending that we buy silver and gold proof coins instead of bullion. He said that in the long run because of their proof value they were likely to rise more in value than bullion would. He assured us we were getting a very good price. Ha!

The price we ended up paying was nearly 40 percent more than we could have gotten them from the U.S. Mint. Stupid on our part, but as already mentioned the Pinnacle rep was very persuasive and  seemed to address all our concerns. 

Six months later, in mid-July, we received a call from another company, Lear Capital, saying that Pinnacle no longer existed and that Lear had been chosen to take over our accounts.  We also learned from him that the price we paid for our silver proofs was some 40 percent above the going rate at the time of purchase and we had lost roughly that percentage in our accounts. He wondered why we had bought proof coins, as other Pinnacle customers apparently did, and recommended that we convert to bullion. To the best of our knowledge, Lear had absolutely nothing to do with Pinnacle until it inherited their accounts after they disappeared. We have no complaint with Lear at all. So far they have been very helpful in trying to help us mitigate the damage. 

We have tried to reach the Pinnacle salesman who sold us the coins, to no avail. He does not answer our e-mails. It's as if Pinnacle has  evaporated. We're told that other of its clients are in the same boat we are and are wondering why there has been no news coverage of this so far in the financial journals. 

It would be great if the Better Business Bureau or someone else more knowledgable than we are in this area could help us and others get back our original investment. We thought we had carefully checked things out but ended up falling for a sales pitch that appears to have cost us a good portion of our retirement savings.. Advice for other potential victims: Don't buy proof coins unless you're a collector, and don't pay more than the going price.