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.
- Enter your email address.
- Select the type of account you’d like to create.
- 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.
- Transfer funds from your bank account to your HAA account.
- 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.
