Accuplan Reviews - Is it a Scam or Legit?

In the United States, investors can take advantage of custodial services for their precious metals IRA account by connecting with Accuplan. This company has been in business for a number of years now, but compared to the rest of the industry, they are considered a much smaller operation. Even more important, previous customers have left tons of unflattering and awful reviews about them online. As far as their Yelp reviews are concerned, they’ve received 14 reviews to date and every single one of them is a 1-star review.

Accuplan Reputation

It shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that their reputation is terrible based on the introduction. It’s been bad for a while and nothing seems to change within this organization. In some respects, there’s very little information about this company out there. In other respects, the information that is out there is all negative.

One important thing to keep in the back of your mind with a precious metals IRA is that you and your custodian are going to maintain a reputation as long as the account is still open. That or you’ll have to shift your assets or possibly bring a new custodian into the picture, so keep that in mind because you will potentially have to work with this company for years or even decades.

It’s terrible to say but the customer service reps and sales reps all have horrible reputations and they are known for treating their customers poorly year after year. Some of the Yelp complaints that I’d like to site include:

A customer was locked out of their account by Accuplan. This prevented the customer from withdrawing money from their account and they unfortunately missed making their mortgage payments on time.
Company transparency is practically nonexistent and they wouldn’t share with customers how much they’d have to pay.
Customer service reps ignored customers and didn’t resolve many of their issues.
Shared inconsistent in false information with customers.
Fund handling experienced unnecessary and extremely long delays.
They have a confusing customer service system designed to prey on the elderly.

Remember, we aren’t personally saying these things because this information was shared by Yelp reviewers. And as we all know; their verification system isn’t necessarily the best in the world. So please consider this information from that lens. Although, it’s a big red flag when a company can’t get one positive review and every review online has the lowest rating possible.

Looking at other sites like Trustlink, Accuplan doesn’t even have a single review on their website. The Better Business Bureau doesn’t list them as accredited and even more telling is that they’ve willfully ignored their BBB reviews and do not respond. And they are willfully preventing the Better Business Bureau from properly tracking complaints and other negative information.

Outright refusing Better Business Bureau participation usually means that the company is attempting to cover up something. If you were someone you know has a grievance with this company, you should definitely contact a lawyer, because a BBB complaint will not lead to a resolution since the company is ignoring them.

And because of this outright refusal, the Better Business Bureau doesn’t have any listed complaints or reviews about this business. In addition, an Accuplan blog post claims that they refuse to acknowledge the BBB because they don’t like the organization. They also claim that they are handling a plethora of confidential information which should be communicated through a third-party website.

Really?

Hundreds of other precious metals IRA brokers and dealers as well as numerous financial services institutions have BBB accreditation. Their reasoning is nonsensical and has no basis in reality. When you take this into consideration with the bad reviews that the company receives, you should become very suspicious of this group.

Because they have so many negative reviews out there, this organization decided to pour a ton of money into their advertising efforts and this is a measure to offset their terrible reviews. Ultimately, they want their website to show up in the search engine results first before anyone sees the negativity. The copy sounds incredibly trustworthy, yet people are easily fooled by this group.

Complaints Made in an Official Capacity

It isn’t very easy to find complaints made in an official capacity because of their confidentiality, but the Yelp information shared tells us that many people have taken legal action against the organization. The public is allowed to view these official complaints because they were not displayed, and since Accuplan will not work with the Better Business Bureau, we have no way of seeing these filed complaints.

Overall, this tells us that they are purposely trying to confuse their customers intentionally, hide bad reviews, and make their organization look better.

Some of the complaints filed against them include long delays, negligence, incompetence, intentional confusion, and more. Additionally, previous customers note that when compared to other companies, their fees are much higher than a lot of the other brokerages working in the precious metals IRA space.

As I mentioned earlier, one heartbreaking situation caused a person to default on their mortgage because the company intentionally locked them out of their account. Due to circumstances beyond their control, they needed access to this money and they ultimately ended up falling behind on mortgage payments because they couldn’t pay their bills.

Based on the majority of the information gathered including the offered services, we highly recommend choosing a different gold IRA custodian and provider. There are so many better companies with a much better reputation out there. Other companies are trustworthy, friendly, they aren’t too pushy, and so much more.

Now that we’ve established the distrust with this company, we’ll take a closer look at their services.

What Is a Self-Directed IRA Account?

This is basically a specific type of retirement account that makes it possible for investors to take control of their investments. These accounts are typically looked upon favorably by individual investors with expertise in financing. It provides them with the option to buy alternative investments like precious metals, cryptocurrency, and real estate.

Many investors are using alternative investments to add it much needed diversity to their retirement portfolio. As an example, precious metals are an excellent hedge against crashing stock markets and inflation. Real estate tends to maintain value at all times, which makes it an excellent investment. And currently the most volatile and hottest investments going right now are cryptocurrencies.

Accuplan isn’t going to offer expert advice or assistance to their customers regarding your investment choices. Because this is a self-directed IRA, you are required to make your investment choices without the help of the third-party broker. So, this company’s setup isn’t going to provide any benefits to people with strong business and investing backgrounds.

Investing in Precious Metals

Accuplan offers their customers access to different types of services involving precious metals investments for self-directed IRA account holders. According to tax codes created by the IRS, investors have the opportunity to buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium within this account. They must meet purity level requirements set forth by the IRS in the form of bullion, coins, bars, or rounds.

Self-directed IRAs do not accept collectible coins, so keep that in mind. Any asset purchased in this account must meet the regulations of the IRS.

Most people buy precious metals when working with Accuplan. They aren’t currently offering cryptocurrency purchases at the moment, so you cannot buy Bitcoin within this account.

When buying precious metals, you must store your metals within the vault, which require ongoing storage fees. Specialized storage facilities with IRS approval are the groups that will store your precious metals.

For the most part, these storage fees charged by the custodian are there to cover the vault fees and the insurance policy protecting these investments. The insurance is necessary in case of natural disasters, theft, being misplaced, or any other possible scenario.

Their current fee to open an account is $50, which is part of the industry standard. But they charge $195 per year in storage fees, which is above the average $100-$150 charge by other groups.

If you buy an investment in precious metals that isn’t part of your gold IRA account, you have the opportunity to store it wherever you deem fit. You can leave them at home in your personal safe if that’s what you desire. But it’s usually best to store them in a storage vault because they’ll be protected from loss, theft, and other damage.

Suggested Reading: Did you know you can move a 401k to gold without a penalty?

Self-Directed IRA Benefits

Many people unfortunately find self-directed IRA accounts intimidating if they do not have a financial background. That’s why these companies exist because customers need their help with tax paperwork, account setup, communication, and so much more. This gives investors the opportunity to buy precious metals for their IRA account.

A major self-directed IRA benefit is the money-saving feature. By having an account managed for you, a custodian is going to manage your assets and keep everything straight. This is typically covered by compound interest, but it’s also a money-saving opportunity nonetheless.

Regardless, all self-directed IRA account holders need a custodian. This is mandatory because the IRS demands it. They are responsible for taking care of any and all physical assets in the account. If you own silver and gold, as an example, the custodian will keep them stored for you in a vault approved by the IRS.

Many people are in favor of self-directed IRAs because these investors Artie understand this investment vehicle. They realized that buying gold, cryptocurrency, and real estate is a good idea and they are looking for portfolio diversity to protect during stock market crashes, inflationary environments, and more.

Did the housing market and stock market crashes scare you in the past 15 years? You’ll have an additional sense of security by investing in a self-directed IRA and Accuplan would love to assist you with the setup process.

Is Accuplan a Scam?

Accuplan has been in business for a really long time since 1993, so they definitely do not come across as a scam. With nearly 30 years of experience in the business, they know what they’re doing but they aren’t doing a very good job representing the industry.

Their Better Business Bureau program participation refusal plus the lack of reviews on Trustpilot are big red flags. And of the 14 Yelp reviews that they received, each and every one of them is incredibly negative and their customers only have really negative things to say about the organization.

Keeping all of this in mind, I may not be able to call in a scam outright, but they are definitely doing things and they shouldn’t be your go to company whatsoever. There are much better retirement accounts and self-directed IRA resources available right now. The other companies aren’t trying to confuse their customers and make life difficult for them.

Product transparency is not available through this company as well. Their company practices aren’t very transparent either. They share misinformation in their blog posts in an effort to confuse potential customers. They seem like a really shady group if you ask me and you’re better off going with an alternative with a better reputation.

Think about it. The company isn’t using the BBB in an effort to save their reputation. By not cooperating with this group and other groups, disgruntled customers have to seek legal counsel to get reparations.

This sounds like a complete headache to me and something all investors should avoid.

Bottom Line

There are many excellent resources out there to help you with retirement account portfolio diversity by opening a self-directed IRA. This style of retirement account makes it possible to buy assets approved by the IRS including real estate, cryptocurrency, and precious metals.

Getting started with these investments is a complicated process to say the least, and this is very true if you don’t understand the tax code. So, hiring a third-party to help is definitely a good idea. Accuplan wants to be the third-party company to help you.

Nonetheless, this company is known for its poor practices and serious negative accusations made against it. They do not cooperate with the Better Business Bureau, their reviews are very untrustworthy on Trustlink, and all of their Yelp reviews are 1 star and really negative.

Because of the major red flags, we cannot recommend doing business with a company like Accuplan to set up your self-directed IRA account. Choose a different company to help you get started investing in a precious metals IRA.

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Accuplan Review