The lawsuit stemming from our post from last year, “10 Confessions Of A Cash4Gold Employee,” is all over. At the beginning of February, Cash4Gold stopped suing the two ex-employees Michele Liberis and Vielka Nephew. And just this Sunday, the Florida Attorney General announced they’ve opened a civil investigation into Cash4Gold. It seems you can still speak truth to power after all.

Without any settlement, Consumerist was dropped from the lawsuit back in September, though the legal action did not deter us from continuing to report the story. ComplaintsBoard reached an out-of-court settlement and was dropped from the case. Where Michele Liberis’s original post was on their site it now says, “Due to several reasons the information has been removed.”

Vielka Nephew said she was glad that the tribulations were over. “But unfortunately the stigma attached to the ordeal is another story. If you Google Michele or myself, we are forever associated with Cash4Gold,” she said, “as the ex-employees who were sued by their ex-employers for breach of contract.”

“There is a pattern of complaints from consumers who allege that they are not paid nearly enough for the gold they send to Cash 4 Gold, some checks are as small as .07 cents,” said the Florida Attorney General in filing the case. Their announcement continued, “Consumers also state that they have contacted the company within the 10/12 day period and were not satisfied with their checks and wanted their gold returned, only to be told it was already melted. Others allege that when they send the check back to the company for the return of their gold, the gold never arrives back. Numerous complaints allege that the company says they never received the gold or that the envelope was empty when it arrived.”

Last month, NY Rep. Weiner called for an FTC investigation into Cash4Gold.

Cash4Gold did not return Consumerist’s repeated requests for comment. However, they did tell the South Florida Sun Sentinel, “We are and will continue to be a leader on the partnership between law enforcement and the mail-in gold buying industry we pioneered.”

PREVIOUSLY:
Ben Popken On Today Show: Beware Mail-In Gold Services
Congressman Demands FTC Probe Of Cash4Gold
Cash4Gold Hit With Racketeering And Fraud Class Action Lawsuit
Cash4Gold Drops Consumerist From Lawsuit
Cash4Gold Threatened Jail If Negative Comments Weren’t Removed
Cash4Gold Defendant Liberis Files To Vacate DefaultCash4Gold Activates Magical Press Release Machine
Internet Alerted To Our Cash4Gold Investigation

DOCUMENTS AND LINKS
Agreed Order of Voluntary Dismissal (PDF)
Agreed Order Dropping Def V. Nephew as Party (PDF)
Defendant Vielka A. Nephew’s Motion To Dissolve Temporary Injunction (PDF)
Complaint against Liberis, Consumerist, ComplaintsBoard (PDF)
Complaint against Nephew, Consumerist, ComplaintsBoard (PDF)
ComplaintsBoard post
Cockeyed post 1
Cockeyed post 2
Cash4Gold’s old TV ad
Cash4Gold Super Bowl Ad
10 Confessions of a Cash4Gold Employee [Consumerist]
Beneath Cash4Gold.com’s shiny veneer, a dull reality [LAT]
Beware Cash4Gold and other gold-buying ripoffs [Yahoo! Tech]
Good Morning America [GMA]
Cash4Gold’s Public Relations Companies Attorney Accuses Me of Defamation [FMD Consumer Blog]
Nightline interviews Jeff Arononson
Cash4Gold customer video about low checks
Cash4Gold’s blog response to ComplaintsBoard post
Cash4Gold’s Fire Bureau citations (PDF)
Police report on Cash4Gold’s 10/03/08 shutdown by city inspectors
Cash4Gold BBB Report
Cash4Gold’s Rush [Florida Trend]
Original lawsuit against Liberis (PDF)
Order against Liberis (PDF)
Liberis’ responses to Cash4Gold’s questions (PDF)
Temporary injunction against Liberis (PDF)
Defendant Michele Liberis’ Motion to Vacate and Set Aside Default (PDF)

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