Buying E-gold is a type of gold trading in digital form. It was operated mainly in Florida until was forced to suspend transactions due to some legal disputes involving some officials of the company that was operating it which was the Gold and Silver Reserve Inc. E-gold allowed gold ownership to be transferred from person to person without the need to transmit the actual gold itself. It is a form of currency in gold only in digital format. It can be done across countries which made it pretty risky to be involved in. It used to be included in the Nevis, Saint Kitts and Nevis companies.
Some of the officials of E-gold were convicted for some offenses such as money laundering and also to unlicensed business of transmitting money which the United States District Court charged with a large amount of fine – about four million dollars. These have all put a halt to the business operations of E-gold which has also affected many of their clients. With that event, the company issued a statement on their site saying that the company will now be suspending all of their activities due to court orders. So not a single client of the company was able to withdraw or send any of the gold funds through their accounts called e-metal accounts. They were however able to return the money of their clients when the court allowed them to make a refund on December 2010.
If you are thinking of creating an account with E-gold, you should know that it involves certain risks when making payments or any transaction involving money through their account. They can be vulnerable to some sorts of internet attacks such as spywares and phishing. The company’s format of transactions have not yet provided some sort of security for their customers. On 2005, some of their accounts have been infiltrated with some Trojan viruses which have gotten into their client’s accounts and getting all of their money. Their funds were stolen and nothing has been done yet to improve the security of logging in to their website. This is one of the drawbacks of making transactions in e-gold. Aside from that e-gold also does not issue any refund system so the risks are even higher. Once the transaction is made, it cannot be undone by refunding the payment. They cannot also make any move against a client until the court has issued an order for its execution.
Due to these problems, e-gold has recommended that users should use virtual keyboards when logging in to their website. The company may have been suspended but it has now been restored to their usual business. It has suspended also in Australia and also in Iran during 2004 and 2006 due to the absence of certain requirements. Some online selling companies such as eBay has also released some restrictions regarding transactions involving e-gold accounts. In 2010, e-gold reopened with newer account formats after having been reviewed by US government authorities and was approved by them.