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Hard Assets Alliance Review: Best Way to Invest in Gold?

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Looking for a reliable and legitimate company is burdensome and time-consuming. In the case of the Hard Asset Alliance company, I have some good and some bad news.

It is well known that precious metals are very popular at the moment, and investing in them is becoming more and more the rage. This is because gold is seen as being crisis-resistant, and people believe that metal is similar.

Hard Asset Alliance currently offers gold, silver, and platinum investments, along with different services. You can choose to open an individual, business, or precious metal account.

But is it worth it? You will find the answers in my Hard Assets Alliance review.

Best Security

Highlights:

  • On-demand delivery
  • 24/7 digital access
  • Over $2.5B in assets
  • Powerful online marketplace

Overall Rating 4/5

Fees

Investment Options

Ease of Use

Customer Service

Learn More

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Competitive pricing
  • Easy to open an account
  • Different account types
  • Great storage options

Cons

  • No transparency
  • Lack of customer service

Quick Summary

Account Minimum: N/A

Fees: Storage Fees: 0.7%/year

Promotion: $5/month minimum per account; waived for accounts with MetalStream activated.

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About Hard Assets Alliance Hard Assets Alliance Services Hard Assets Alliance Fees & Minimum Investment Who Is Hard Asset Alliance for? Hard Asset Alliance Reviews & 3rd Party Ratings
Compare To Other Companies How to Open an Account Final Thoughts Hard Assets Alliance FAQs

About Hard Assets Alliance

Hard Assets Alliance is a precious metal company that provides a brokerage service. It is a combination of research and economic analysis which come together to allow the buying and selling of precious metals.

The company gives you access to precious metals at very good prices that are competitive when compared to other companies that provide a similar service.

Hard Asset Alliance (HAA) provides a full service when it comes to buying and selling precious metals. They have the option for international storage and different delivery options.

You are able to open an account in which you can purchase and store, and then sell these precious metals. The account options available include things like an IRA.

Hard Assets Alliance Services

On the list of Hard Assets Alliance products, you can find a variety of products, like gold, silver, and other precious metals. What exactly does the HAA have in store for you?

Gold

One of the most prominent metals investors are interested in is gold. Hard Assets Alliance offers physical gold. If you have an account with them, you can purchase and sell gold bars of different weights, up to 400 ounces.

Apart from gold bars, the Hard Assets Alliance can be a good place to purchase high-quality gold coins. Although I’ve seen physical precious metals dealers with much broader offers, you can still find here coins in several different currencies, including American Eagle, Austrian Philharmonic, or American Buffalo nickels.

These coins do not present much of a collector’s value, but I was happy to discover that they meet very high purity standards.

Silver

If you’re interested in precious metal investments in silver, HAA might be a good company for you. They offer silver bars as well as silver coins. You can purchase silver bars weighing 100 oz to 1,000 oz and coins of different currencies, like Austrian Philharmonics, American Eagles, and Canadian Maple Leaf.

Platinum

Hard Assets Alliance’s selection of platinum products is rather limited. You are able to buy platinum bars weighing 1 oz.

Vault Services

Apart from gold, silver, and platinum products, with HAA, you can benefit from secure vault services. The company advertises this service as incredibly secure, offering vaults that have security measures similar to those banks implement.

I will be talking about this service in more length later in this review, so for now, I’ll just say that they offer rates equaling 0.7% per year of average daily asset value for gold, and platinum products, while increasing it to 0.8% for silver products. You may be expecting lower rates if you have higher-value accounts.

Hard Assets Alliance Fees & Minimum Investment

What is the minimum investment you have to make in order to be able to benefit from Hard Assets Alliance services? As I’ve learned during my research, there is no specific sum you need to invest in order to open an account with HAA.

You’re also not obligated to place orders for a minimum quantity when you’re carrying out standard orders. This applies to orders and storage and delivery services that don’t take place in New York.

If you want to invest while in that state, you might be obligated to pay a sales tax on precious metal bullion purchases under $1,000 if your metals are delivered and stored in the state. For this reason, HAA requires that their clients make purchases of a minimum of $1,000 if they want their assets to be stored and delivered in New York.

Another important question to answer regarding money and all the costs you’ll be forced to pay when investing with HAA is if there are any hidden fees you should be aware of. Unfortunately, from what I’ve been able to find out, apart from all the normal fees like maintenance fees and storage fees, you might be exposed to some not-so-obvious additional costs.

There have been some complaints against this company regarding unfair practices when it comes to charging clients additional fees. For me, it might be a valid reason to choose a different precious metals investment company or trade carefully.

Who Is Hard Asset Alliance for?

Hard Asset Alliance offers types of accounts for people wanting to ensure financial security and stability in the future. It offers support and services for both individual and corporate investors.

Hard Asset Alliance is one of a few companies that reserve physical assets (e.g., gold) in your name when purchasing them online. This option is not always available at other dealers. If you are concerned about investing in virtual metals, then HAA is a great company that offers 100% real investment.

Whilst currencies may lose their value, having precious metals in your possession will shield you from inflation and possible crisis.

Some gold IRA companies set a limit on the minimum investment you make – however, this is not the case with Hard Asset Alliance. There is currently no account minimum, which allows you to make smaller purchases if you are new to this type of investment.

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Hard Asset Alliance Reviews & 3rd Party Ratings

When I’m preparing to write a review like this I always look at customers’ testimonials, as this is a reliable source of information about a company, the quality of its services, and potential problems one can encounter when choosing to invest in it.

In this case, HAA has received somewhat mixed reviews from their customers. Better Business Bureau did not give them their accreditation, rating them with F.

On the site, I could read a couple of customer complaints regarding problems with money transfers and HAA customer service. You can find them here.

However, on Trustpilot, HAA has an overall rating of 4,4 stars, with the majority of reviews giving them 5 stars.

There are many happy customers reporting great experiences with customer service, which poses as some counterweight to the rumors and experiences of other clients that were not entirely happy with how they were treated by the HAA representatives.

In my opinion, the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and it’s possible that you may have a great experience while investing via Hard Assets Alliance. Still, it’s wise to approach this with a healthy dose of caution.

How to Open an Account

The process of setting up an account with Hard Assets Alliance is straightforward and doesn’t take long. Here are the steps you need to take to set up your account.

  1. Enter your email address.
  2. Select the type of account you’d like to create.
  3. Add required personal information like name, contact info, and SSN or Tax ID. If you’re an international client, you’ll be obligated to share your passport, driver’s license, or other national ID information.
  4. Transfer funds from your bank account to your HAA account.
  5. Verify your account and start investing.

The company representative will contact you if you’re setting up a company account and further documentation is required to proceed. All in all, this whole process took me about 30 minutes, and after that time, I was able to start investing via their simple and accessible mobile app.

Types of Accounts

Since I’m talking about the process of creating an account, it’s good to specify what type of accounts you can have with Hard Assets Alliance. In my opinion, their selection of different account types is one of their biggest strengths.

The list of different account types HAA offers include:

  • Retirement account (IRA)
  • Individual and joint personal accounts
  • Corporate account
  • Estate and Trust account

As I mentioned earlier, you select the type of account during the application process. The Hard Assets Alliance website is designed in a clear and user-friendly way, and you can find all the key information regarding different account types on there, so you know exactly what you can expect with each solution.

Advantages

There are lots of benefits to joining HAA if you are looking to begin investing in precious metals.

Prices

Prices for precious metals are competitive at HAA. They offer a marketplace where you can shop and buy precious metals.

When an order is placed, the dealers, banks, and refiners bid against each other in order to keep their rates competitive. Still, you are able to find cheaper prices in other places.

The reason this precious metals company is able to charge a little bit of a higher price is that they make the whole process very easy, which makes it worth it.

Easy sign-up process

It is very easy to sign up and join Hard Asset Alliance. It doesn’t take a long time to verify who you are, and you can easily add money to your account. Additional to a standard account, you can benefit from an account called SmartMetals, and this is where you can make your purchase. The SmartMetals account enables investors to activate regular monthly investments conducted on their behalf by the experts in Hard Assets Alliance.

HAA is a U.S.-based company, however, it is possible for you to open an account from anywhere in the world.

Different accounts 

You can open up various different types of accounts, including an individual account, a joint account, an IRA, a corporate account, and other types.

While it is good that these options are available, most commonly, people open up personal accounts or IRA accounts. 

With an IRA account, you are able to invest money into your retirement without having to pay taxes.

MetalStream account 

Hard Asset Alliance also offers a MetalStream account. This is an account where you have an automated investment feature that automatically takes a monthly investment from your account.

If you choose to sign up for HAA with a MetalStream account, you will have to pay a $25 monthly fee and an amount each month into your HAA account.

This money will be set up as a direct debit and saved up until enough funds have been accumulated to make a full coin of metal or bar.

This is a great way to invest money over a longer period without having to do it manually each month.

However, I have to say that there isn’t much of a reason to pay $25 each month for this privilege. In most other types of accounts, it is free to use this service.

In fact, often using a service like this allows you to have a discount on the cost rather than have to pay more.

Storage 

HAA has great storage options. According to HAA, precious metals are stored in the most secure non-bank vaults around the world. The company has storage in New York, Zurich, Salt Lake City, Singapore, and London.

The cost of storage varies for each customer, and the customers that have invested more money into HAA will likely be charged less for their storage as they are higher-valued customers.

With HAA, while you may store your precious metals in a non-bank vault, you will have true and complete ownership of the metals.

You will also have digital access to your metals and your accounts at all times.  You can opt for having your metals shipped to you at any time and to any location in the world.

You will also be able to sell your metals at any time. However, when you do this, you will need to pay the shipping costs of transporting your metals.

If gold is a long-term investment for you, you will save a lot of money by storing the items yourself. If you are looking to be able to sell at any time, storage is the better option.

Disadvantages

No transparency 

As aforementioned, the information on the company is very scarce. I found out that there is very little information provided on the company, including who the owner of the company is.

A lot of customers find it difficult to trust a company that they know very little about, me included. Especially when you are investing a lot of money into them. For this reason, I recommend proceeding with caution and investing smaller sums before you start to put in larger sums and sell precious metals with HAA.

Lots of things to go wrong

This company has lots of different parts that can easily go wrong. As it is an alliance of a lot of different companies, it is not clear to me and their clients who is in charge of running the company. It is suspected that HAA outsources this to other companies.

The fact that it is kept a secret is quite concerning when you are investing a lot of money with the company. This means that it is not clear who is responsible for your funds, and that is not a good sign when making more considerable precious metals investments.

Bad customer service 

A lot of customers have complained about the customer service that is provided by HAA. When you are investing a lot of money with a company, customer service should be top range because you want to be able to know what is going on at all times.

I decided to check if all the rumors are true, and unfortunately, I can’t say I was proven wrong. I wrote to their customer service representative with a couple of questions, and I did get some of the answers after a day and a half.

While this is a negative comment for the company, after looking at some similar companies, it seems that customer service often leaves a lot to be desired with companies like these, with some taking weeks to respond to complaints.

Final Thoughts

All in all, Hard Asset Alliance is not the best company to invest in if you are looking to invest in precious metals. There are some aspects of the company that have considerable flaws. Considering that you can find companies with better services and reputations, I wouldn’t recommend HAA as my first choice.

Still, they offer competitive prices, good storage options, and lots of different account options, so there are things that speak in favor of HAA. At the end of the day, I can’t make any decisions for you, and I can only hope that my Hard Assets Alliance review offered you enough information to make the most sensible choices regarding your investment plan.

Best Security

Best Way to Invest in Gold & Silver

Hard Assets Alliance is a place where you can buy, sell, and store gold and silver as easily as trading stocks.

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FAQ's

Once you determine that a gold IRA is right for you, it helps to know how to set on up. Though you may not want to rush into anything, you be surprised by how easy it is.

Hard Assets Alliance offers gold, silver, and platinum products. Investing with HAA gives you the opportunity to purchase gold and silver bars and coins, and platinum bars. Their services are extended to storage and delivery services, and they provide their customers with lots of options when it comes to different investment account types.

The main reason why I could recommend this company is its accessibility and ease of use. It is straightforward to set up an account and start investing. You also don’t need to invest any specific sum unless you’re based in New York state. They don’t offer a huge selection of products, but what they have in store is of good quality.

There are several alarming issues with HAA, the most prominent being lack of sufficient transparency, which may put you at risk of losing your hard-earned money. I also found customer service to be less than satisfactory.

The company often gets accused of charging extra fees, and they charge a lot for some services that are free in other companies.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say they are a scam, but there are certainly some orange and red flags here and there that one should be aware of. It’s difficult to find information about the company, especially regarding its ownership, which I consider a bit of a bit alarming.

Yes, HAA offers competitive rates on their products. It’s because they are essentially a marketplace for various entities that compete with each other, keeping the prices at reasonable levels. If you’re looking for a place to invest in precious metals at competitive rates, then HAA could be a good fit for you.

Donny Gamble
Donny Gamble

I’m Donny. An entrepreneur, world traveler, and active investor that is passionate about navigating through the blockchain by investing in precious metals like gold and silver.

Editor's Rating:

4/5

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