eBay Buying and Selling

Description about e-gold from wiki!

e-gold is a digital gold currency operated by Gold & Silver Reserve Inc. under e-gold Ltd., and is a system which allows the instant transfer of gold ownership between users. e-gold Ltd. is incorporated in Nevis, Lesser Antilles.

According to the company's website, as of April 2007, e-gold had 112,188 oz (3,489,436 grams) of gold and 138,567 oz (4,309,923 grams) of silver in storage, which is worth approximately US$86 million . There are typically 66,000 e-gold spends each day totalling 15,000 oz (460 kilograms), which is about US$10.5 million. There are over three million e-gold accounts of which about one quarter are active

On 27 April 2007, a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. indicted e‑Gold Ltd and its owners on charges of money laundering, conspiracy, and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. e-gold, however, considers the charges completely groundless, and has responded to the allegations in their own press release.

History

e-gold was founded in 1996 by Dr. Douglas Jackson and Barry K. Downey [4]. Transactions using e-gold have grown dramatically since 2005. The total amount of gold bars (over three tonnes) in the e-gold system is approaching the size of the national reserves of smaller countries. e-gold now generates a substantial income from spend and storage fees — there is a charge of a few cents to make each e-gold "spend" and e-gold itself now earns well over a million USD per year from fees.

The number of e-gold accounts (as claimed by e-gold) grew from 1 million in November 2003 to 3 million on 22 April 2006. [5]

Role in global commerce

Many small businesses in the U.S., Europe and Asia, each with full-time staff now operate as "digital currency exchangers," doing nothing other than buying and selling digital gold currency for fiat currencies, as gold bugs term national legal tender currencies not backed by hard assets.

e-gold transactions — a "spend" — are completed electronically, usually using the web interface, and they always settle by weight of the metal even if denominated in some other way. A user may send (or "spend") a tiny amount of gold (a fraction of a gram, ounce or kilogram) to another user account instantly, anywhere in the world.

Even though e-gold is careful to not advocate any particular political agenda, as the Liberty Dollar does for example, e-gold could be viewed as a libertarian form of private currency

e-gold is, according to their website, "100% backed by gold"

Exchanging for currency

e-gold does not sell its e-metal directly to users. Instead digital currency exchangers, such as OmniPay (a sister company of e-gold), and numerous independent companies act as market makers selling e-metal in exchange for other currencies and a transaction fee. Conversely, these exchange providers will buy e-metal with other currencies, again taking a transaction fee. In this manner e-metals can be converted back and forth to a variety of national currencies. The amount of a particular currency or e-metal necessary to complete a transaction is determined by the spot price of the metal in relation to the value of the currency. e-gold is known as private currency as it is not issued by governments.

Compared to other systems like PayPal, the process of buying e-gold can be confusing to a person unfamiliar with the e-gold system. e-gold, unlike e-Bullion for instance, does not sell digital currency directly to the user. According to their website the reason e-gold does not provide an in-house exchange service is so there can be no debt or contingent liabilities associated with the business, making e-gold Ltd. absolutely free of any financial risk. They claim e-gold Ltd. does not possess currency of any nation or even have a bank account.

Crime and fraud

e-gold has been perceived as the medium of choice for many online con-artists, with pyramid schemes and High Yield Investment Programs ("HYIPs") commonplace. This has been blamed on e-gold's policy of irreversible transactions. However, e-gold is now blocking accounts where fraud is proven or suspected [11].

e-gold and OmniPay have also been accused of being a medium for money laundering, although this is questionable given that there were only 24 customer accounts holding over 10kg of gold (approximate value $200,000) by April 2006 [12]. As digital gold currency providers are not banks, they are not legally required to perform various sorts of "know your customer" background checks. However, many legitimate e-gold exchange providers, for example GoldNow, may require a higher level of identification, generally more intrusive than a bank, for security purposes.

Opening an account at www.e-gold.com takes only a few clicks of a mouse. Customers can use a false name if they like because no one checks. With a credit card or wire transfer, a user buys units of e-gold. Those units can then be transferred with a few more clicks to anyone else with an e-gold account. For the recipient, cashing out — changing e-gold back to regular money — is just as convenient and often just as anonymous. [13]

In January 2006, BusinessWeek reported on the use of the e-gold system by ShadowCrew, an 4000-strong international crime syndicate involved in massive identity theft and fraud [14]. Omar Dhanani of Fountain Valley, California, connected to the ShadowCrew, is an e-gold customer and is reported to have moved amounts ranging from $40,000 to $100,000 a week from proceeds of crime through e-gold [15].

In response, Chairman and founder, Dr. Douglas Jackson published a letter which stated that "e-gold operates legally and does not condone persons attempting to use e-gold for criminal activity. e-gold has a long history of cooperation with law enforcement agencies in the US and worldwide, providing data and investigative assistance in response to lawful requests." He further noted that "Our staff has participated in hundreds of investigations supporting the FBI, FTC, IRS, DEA, SEC, USPS, and others."

In August 2006, WORLDLawDirect lawyers announced e-gold Ltd. officials and their legal counsel to be the subject of a U.S. Federal Court subpoena. They believe e-gold Ltd. is subject to U.S. Federal Court jurisdiction and may be held liable for some or all of the investors' losses (and potential triple damages) in the Solid Investment (Solidinvestment.com) large scale HYIP scam!