Terms of service

1. Who we are, and which law applies

1. 1.1Assaypost is a trading name of Angelina Clayfield, who trades as a sole trader and is the person you would be contracting with. We buy gold, silver, platinum and palladium from members of the public in the United Kingdom, by post. We buy outright: we do not lend against items, we do not hold them as security and there is nothing for you to redeem afterwards. Buying precious metal is not a regulated financial activity, so the Financial Ombudsman Service and other financial-services protections do not cover a sale made under these terms. Consumer law does, as clause 1.5 explains, and so do these terms. To write to us, by post to Unit 172, 14-15 Triangle South, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 1EY (a correspondence address, not a shop) or by email to messinabenni@gmail.com. Our telephone and WhatsApp number is 07369 296063.
2. 1.2These terms apply to a sale by you to us. They are not a contract for anything we supply to you, and the only thing we send you is your own property back. Nothing in them removes a right you have under consumer law, and where a term in them would be unfair to you as a consumer it does not bind you.
3. 1.3There is no 14-day cancellation right on a sale to us. When a trader sells to you at a distance, the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give you fourteen days to change your mind. That right is built around contracts under which a trader supplies goods, services or digital content to a consumer: the fourteen days are counted from the delivery of the goods or the making of the service contract (regulation 30). This contract runs the other way: you are the seller and we are the buyer. Our understanding is that no cancellation right arises under those Regulations on a contract of this kind, so none has been taken away from you.
4. 1.4What you get instead is written into this contract rather than borrowed from a statute: nothing is sold until you say so in as many words (clause 6.1), silence is never a yes (clause 6.2), you may change your mind at any time before you accept (clause 6.4), and whatever you decline comes home free (clause 6.3).
5. 1.5Three sets of rules do apply. First, Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 covers any contract between a trader and a consumer, whichever way the goods are travelling: an unfair term does not bind you, and where a term could mean more than one thing, the meaning most favourable to you applies. Second, Part 4 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 makes it unlawful for a trader to mislead a consumer by what it says or by what it leaves out, and section 225 says that this covers a consumer supplying a product to a trader. Third, section 65 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 means we cannot exclude or restrict liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, and section 62 tests any other limit on our liability for negligence, including for your property, for fairness. Clause 12 is written to be read against all three.

2. What counts as an offer

1. 2.1A reply to your photographs, or anything else we say before your items are in front of us, is a rough idea (an estimate). It is our honest opinion on what we can see, given so that you can decide whether posting is worth your while. It is not a valuation, it is not a promise of a figure, and it binds neither of us.
2. 2.2An offer exists only once your items have arrived here, been listed, weighed and tested, and a written offer document has been sent to you. Until that document exists, nothing said by either of us is an offer capable of being accepted.
3. 2.3We do not publish a rate, a price list or a price per gram, and nothing on this website is an offer that can be accepted. Every lot is priced on its own merits after it has been examined, and the price is for the lot rather than for each gram in it.

3. Sending your items

1. 3.1When you ask us to arrange postage you are confirming that the items are yours to sell, or that the owner has authorised you, that you are at least 18, and that nothing in the parcel is stolen or subject to a claim by anyone else. Clause 9 says what happens if any of that turns out not to hold.
2. 3.2Pack your items as set out in the posting guide. Postage we arrange is ours. We choose the carrier, we choose the service, we arrange the carrier's compensation cover, and the contract with the carrier is between us and the carrier. You are not a party to it, and you never need to make a claim under it. Clause 7.2 therefore puts the risk on us rather than on you. The service and the cover level that apply to your parcel are set out in your confirmation before you post anything.
3. 3.3Send the whole lot together where you can. We price a lot as a lot, so items that arrive in separate parcels on different days are treated as separate lots and are offered on separately unless you ask us in writing to hold one until the other arrives.
4. 3.4Before you seal the parcel, photograph everything laid out together and keep the photograph. It is not a condition of anything and you lose nothing by not doing it. But if what arrived and what you sent are ever in question, clause 8.5 says what we do with that photograph: we consider it alongside our own record rather than set it aside because it is yours.

4. Weighing, testing and listing

1. 4.1By sending items you consent to non-destructive examination. That means listing and photographing them, weighing them, reading marks under magnification, magnet response, density measurement where the shape allows, and X-ray fluorescence (an instrument reading of the metal at the surface, which does not mark the piece) where an analyser is available. Nothing in that list removes metal from a piece, marks it or changes what it is.
2. 4.2Anything that alters an item needs your separate written consent, asked for in writing, item by item, with a photograph of the piece and the place on it we would be working. That includes an acid test on a touchstone (the piece is rubbed on a stone and the streak is tested with acid), the removal of stones (which in any case never happens before you have accepted, clause 4.4), and any preparation of the surface: cleaning, degreasing or lightly rubbing back a tiny area to read a worn mark or to get a usable reading. Surface preparation is named here because it is easy to think of it as nothing. It alters the piece, so it is not covered by the consent in clause 4.1. Parcel openings are not filmed. The photographs described in clause 8.1 are the record we keep instead, and the posting safely and cover page explains them.
3. 4.3You can refuse any test on any item, and refusing is free. Say which piece and which test, at any time before your offer is made. We then do one of two things, and the choice is yours: we assess the piece without that test and state on the offer what the missing test would have settled and what we could not therefore establish, or we return the piece unassessed at our cost. We do not charge for a refusal, we do not price a refusal into the rest of the lot, and we do not treat a refusal as a reason to think less of you.
4. 4.4Everything in the parcel is listed, including anything we will not buy and anything that turns out to be worth nothing. Where a piece looks worth more whole than as metal (a signed or early piece, a coin with a collectable date, a watch by a known maker, running or not), we tell you before it is priced as metal. Nothing is melted, cut, filed, polished or dismantled, and no stone is taken out of its setting, at any stage before you have accepted an offer for it. Nothing is acid-tested, and no surface is prepared, without your written consent under clause 4.2. Anything you decline comes back in the condition it arrived in, apart from any test mark you agreed to in writing. Where a test that could mark a piece is the only way to settle it, we propose it under clause 4.2 and, if you would rather not, we price the piece conservatively or leave it out of the offer and say which we have done.

No X-ray fluorescence analyser is in use at present. Your offer records, item by item, which tests were actually used (clause 5.1), and the testing page explains what each method can and cannot establish.

5. Your offer

1. 5.1The offer is a single amount for the lot as a whole. It is sent to you in writing and it lists every item we received, with its description, its recorded weight, any weight excluded from the assessment and why, the tests carried out on it, any test you asked us not to carry out, the fineness we concluded and anything those tests could not establish.
2. 5.2The period an offer stays open is printed on the offer itself. If it lapses, your items stay where they are and you can ask for a fresh offer or for the lot back. We will not reduce an offer while it is open unless something stated in it turns out to be wrong, and if that happens we tell you what and why in writing and you may decline the lot there and then.
3. 5.3The offer is one amount, not an amount with things taken off it afterwards. What it says is what reaches your account: no fee for testing or handling is taken out of it, postage we arranged to bring your parcel here costs you nothing, and posting back anything you decline is at our cost.

6. Saying yes or no

1. 6.1Accepting is something you do, deliberately. You accept either by opening the link in your offer and pressing the button that confirms you accept it, or by telling us in writing that you accept. The button says what pressing it does before you press it. Until you have done one of those two things, nothing is sold and the items are held unprocessed. When they stop being yours is set by clause 7.1: not when you accept, but when the payment reaches your account.
2. 6.2Silence is never treated as acceptance. An offer cannot become a sale because a date passed, because you were away, or because you did not reply. Following a link is never by itself acceptance. Some email systems, virus scanners and link previews open the links in a message on their own, with nobody reading it, so nothing your email system, your employer's system or your device does automatically is ever treated as your answer. If our records show the link was opened but no button was pressed, no sale has been made.
3. 6.3Decline, and the whole lot comes back to you by tracked, signed-for post at our cost, with nothing to pay and nothing deducted. You may also keep part of it. Say which pieces you want back and we send you a fresh written offer for what remains. Because the first offer was made for the lot as a whole rather than piece by piece, the fresh offer is not worked out by taking the returned pieces off the first figure. It is a new offer, which you are just as free to decline. Asking never costs you the offer you already had. The first offer stays open on its original terms for as long as it would have done, and you may go back to it at any time while it is open, even after you have seen the second figure and even if you have already asked for pieces back. The pieces you keep are returned at our cost either way.
4. 6.4You can change your mind at any point before you accept, including after you have posted and before the offer is made, and ask for everything back. It is returned at our cost. Once you have accepted, the sale is made and you can no longer call the items back, although they stay yours until the payment reaches your account (clause 7.1) and clause 13.1 still applies if something has gone wrong.
5. 6.5A declined offer is the end of it. We do not telephone to talk you round, we do not make a second unsolicited offer, and we do not keep your items while you think about it once you have said no.

7. Payment, title and risk

1. 7.1We pay by bank transfer to a United Kingdom account in your own name. Title to a lot you have accepted passes to us when the payment reaches your account, not when we send it, so you never lose your items before the money has arrived. Payment timing is stated on your offer.
2. 7.2We carry the risk in the post, in both directions, on any postage we arranged. On the way to us, from the moment the parcel is accepted at the counter. On the way back to you, until it is delivered to you, not merely until it is despatched. Because the contract with the carrier is ours and not yours, we make any claim ourselves: you are not asked to claim, to chase the carrier or to prove anything to it. What we owe you is settled under clause 12, and it is neither limited to, nor conditional on, what the carrier pays us.
3. 7.3Keep your posting receipt and its tracking number, because it is how a parcel is traced and it helps us prove the claim quickly. It is not a condition of anything you are owed: if you lose it, clause 7.2 still applies.
4. 7.4Tell us roughly what you think you are sending before you post, so the right service can be used. If you knowingly send far more than you told us, and a parcel is lost, we will still deal with it under clause 12, but what we pay may be reduced so far as, and no further than, the loss was caused by our not having been told. An honest mistake about what something turns out to be worth is not your fault and is never treated as one.

8. If a parcel is opened, short or disputed

1. 8.1Every parcel is photographed before it is opened (the outer packaging, any damage, and the seal and bag number where a sealed pack was used) and matched to your reference. It is then opened and every item is listed and photographed as it is unpacked. Those photographs and that list are our record of what arrived.
2. 8.2If the seal or the outer packaging shows any sign of having been opened, or the parcel is damaged, or it is lighter than the weight the carrier recorded where it recorded one, we stop. We photograph it exactly as it is, we do not go further with the contents, and we tell you before anything else is done. We do not wait until the end of the process, and we do not attach an offer to it. We report it to the carrier at the same time.
3. 8.3If what arrives does not match what you told us you were sending, we stop in the same way. We photograph everything as found, we price nothing and process nothing, and we write to you with what we received, what we understood was coming and the photographs of both the parcel and its contents, before we do anything else.
4. 8.4What each of us produces is settled in advance, so that neither of us has to argue about what evidence counts. From us: the photographs of the unopened parcel, the carrier's tracking history and any weight it recorded, the item list, and the photographs taken as each piece was unpacked. From you: what you sent, your posting receipt, and (if you took one) your own photograph of the items laid out before you sealed the parcel.
5. 8.5Your photograph counts. A photograph you took before sealing the parcel is evidence we weigh alongside our own. We do not set it aside because you took it, we do not treat our own record as conclusive because it is ours, and we do not ask you to prove a negative. Where the two records genuinely cannot be reconciled we say so plainly rather than resolve it in our own favour by default, and clause 13.1 is open to you. Where the disagreement is about what something was worth, clause 12.3 applies.
6. 8.6While a question of this kind is open, nothing in the parcel is melted, refined, sold on or otherwise put beyond recall, whether or not an offer has been accepted for it.

9. Identity, provenance and who can sell

1. 9.1We may ask for identity documents and, where it matters, proof that you are entitled to sell, such as probate papers for an inherited piece. How those documents are stored, who can see them and when they are destroyed is set out in the privacy notice. We do not pay cash.
2. 9.2You must be 18 or over. If it turns out that a seller was under 18, we do not rely on any confirmation they gave us, and we do not hold them to the sale, whatever the law of the part of the United Kingdom where they live would otherwise allow. The sale does not stand: every item comes back at our cost, there is no fee and no charge for the testing or the postage, and we ask for the return of any money already paid. If the items have gone beyond recall we say so at once and put it right in money.
3. 9.3If you are selling on somebody else's behalf we need written authority from the owner, and the owner's identity as well as your own. If you would rather a relative, solicitor or friend dealt with us for you, that is the same thing the other way round and we are glad to do it (see clause 10.4).
4. 9.4Where we have reasonable grounds to suspect an item is stolen, we hold it rather than pay for it. That is not a discretion we exercise silently: what triggers a hold, when and how you are told, what happens to the item while it is held, what ends a hold, how long one can last and how you challenge it are all published in full on the responsible sourcing and anti-money-laundering page, and we are bound by what that page says.

10. Selling at a difficult time

1. 10.1Much of what we are sent has come from an estate, a clearance or a house somebody has had to empty. Nothing here is designed to hurry you. No countdown runs on any page, no figure we give you gets better because you decided quickly or worse because you took your time, and nobody telephones to press you for an answer.
2. 10.2Ask for longer and you get it. Tell us you need more time and the offer is held open for as long as you need, or re-issued on the same terms if it has already lapsed, with your items untouched meanwhile. You do not have to give a reason and you will not be asked for one.
3. 10.3Inherited lots can wait. Where a lot has come from an estate and something in it may be worth more to you than to us (a piece worth more whole than as metal, something another member of the family may want back, something a specialist would do better with), we say so before you decide, and we will put the whole lot back in the post to you at our cost while you find out, with no obligation to return it to us. Coming back to us later is always open and costs nothing.
4. 10.4If you would rather somebody else dealt with us on your behalf, say so and we will correspond with them once we have your written authority. If it appears to us that a seller does not actually want to sell, or is being pressed into it by somebody else, we stop and write to the seller rather than carry on. We would rather lose a sale than complete one that should not have happened.
5. 10.5If we hear nothing from you, nothing happens. That is the default everywhere in this contract, and it is deliberate.

11. What we do not buy

1. 11.1We do not buy silver plate, gold-plated or gold-filled items with no recoverable value, loose gemstones, or anything containing restricted material such as ivory. If a parcel contains any of these they are listed, left out of the offer, and returned to you with anything else you decline.

12. Our liability

1. 12.1Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot be limited or excluded by law.
2. 12.2If your items are lost or damaged while they are in our hands, or in the post on postage we arranged, what we owe you is your loss. That is measured by what the items were worth, not by what we would have paid for them: the two are different figures, and it would not be right for the party at fault to set the measure of its own liability. Where a piece was worth more whole than as metal, it is the whole-piece value that counts, not its metal content. This is the same principle clause 4.4 applies when we are pricing. There is no cap at the amount of our offer, and no cap at whatever a carrier pays us.
3. 12.3If we cannot agree what the items were worth, an independent valuer decides and we pay for it. Either of us may ask for one. The valuer is a suitably qualified independent person we both agree on; if we have not agreed within fourteen days of the request, the valuer is a Fellow or Member of the National Association of Jewellers, or a person of equivalent standing, nominated on our joint application by that association or, if it will not nominate, by any other recognised professional body for the valuation of jewellery and precious metal that we can agree on. We have no connection with that association and it has no involvement in this business. We pay the valuer's fee in full whatever the valuation says, and we are bound by the figure. You are bound by it as to value only: nothing in this clause stops you going to court about anything else, or at all if you would rather not use it.
4. 12.4The carrier's compensation cover on postage we arrange is between us and the carrier. It is not insurance for you, it is not a limit on what you are owed, and it is not something you have to claim under. If a carrier pays us less than we owe you, or refuses to pay at all, the difference is ours to find.
5. 12.5We are not responsible for something we neither caused nor could have prevented: damage an item already carried when it reached us and which our arrival photographs show, a fault inside a piece that no test we were permitted to use could have found, or an item you told us not to test under clause 4.3 turning out to be other than it appeared. This clause excludes nothing else. In particular it does not exclude or restrict our liability for our own negligence, which we do not attempt to exclude at all.
6. 12.6If any part of clauses 12.2 to 12.5 were held to be unfair or ineffective, the rest stands. We would rather you knew what these clauses are for than found them out in a dispute: they exist to make the measure of our liability something you can check, not something we can choose.

13. Complaints and governing law

1. 13.1Our complaints process applies to anything that goes wrong, including a figure you think is wrong. It has three stages, the complaints page says who deals with each one, and it says what we will and will not send to an independent third party. Nothing in the parcel is processed while a complaint about it is open.
2. 13.2These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction, without affecting any right you have under the law of the part of the United Kingdom where you live or your right to bring proceedings there.

14. Changes to these terms

1. 14.1We may update these terms. When we do, the version, the date and the change history at the foot of this page change with them, and the terms in force on the day you accept an offer are the ones that govern that offer. We do not edit this document quietly: a change that affects what you are owed or what you may do is described in the history below, not merely reflected in a new date.
2. 14.2These terms are reviewed at least once every twelve months, and whenever the law or the way we work changes before that.