Here is a story from a woman in Florida who barely escaped having her car broken into or stolen: 

“I locked my car.  As I walked away I heard my car door unlock.  I went back and locked my car again three times. Each time, as soon as I started to walk away, I would hear it unlock again!

Naturally alarmed, I looked around and there were two guys sitting in a car in the fire lane next to the store. They were obviously watching me intently, and there was no doubt they were somehow involved in this very weird situation.  I quickly chucked the errand I was on, jumped in my car and sped away.  I went straight to the police station, told them what had happened, and found out I was part of a new, and very successful, scheme being used to gain entry into cars.  

Two weeks later, my friend’s son had a similar happening….While traveling, my friend’s son stopped at a roadside rest to use the bathroom.  He locked the car with the locking button on his key fob. When he came out to his car 4-5 minutes later, someone had stolen his cell phone, laptop computer, GPS navigator, and briefcase.

He called the police and since there were no signs of his car being broken into, the police told him he had been a victim of the latest robbery tactic — there is a device that robbers are using now to clone your security code when you lock your doors on your car using your key-chain locking device..

The thieves sit a distance away and watch for someone to lock their car with a keychain locking device. When they see you go inside of the store, restaurant, or bathroom they now have a few minutes to steal and run. The police officer said to manually lock your car door-by hitting the lock button inside the car — that way if there is someone sitting in a parking lot watching for their next victim, it will not be you.

When you hit the lock button on your car upon exiting, it does not send the security code, but if you walk away and use the door lock on your key chain, it sends the code through the airwaves where it can be instantly stolen.”

Look how many times we all lock our doors with our remote just to be sure we remembered to lock them — and bingo, someone has our code…and whatever was in our car.

You have probably seen the TV ads:  Send us your gold jewelry and we will send you cash.  Don’t fall for this.  You can do much better selling to a local gold dealer.  When you melt down jewelry for gold this is called scrap gold.  The price for scrap gold has always been much lower than the spot gold price because of the work involved in surveying, melting, recasting and storage and distribution.  Today most gold dealers will give you about 50%.

But those companies that advertise on TV who say they will send you an envelope, you mail in the gold and they send you cash -well some of those companies are giving consumers as little as 5% of the spot value. And don’t trust the so called guarantees.  Many of these companies claim that you have 10 days to return the money and get your gold back, but when you read the fine print, it says “10 days from the date on your check.” But, many consumers have complained that the write the check and then hold it for 3 or 4 days before mailing, so you often only have a day or so.

When you send in your jewelry you are basically at their mercy.  If you want to sell your gold, you can often shop around for local pawn shops and gold coin dealers who often buy gold.  This way you take the gold in, and stand their while they test and weigh the gold. Then the dealer makes you an offer. If you don’t like the offer simply thank the person and leave.

If you would like to know what your gold is worth you first have to know how many karats it is. Fourteen karat gold is about 50% pure, whereas 18K gold is about 73% pure.  You can weigh your gold on a digital postage scale to get the approximate weight, then go to the Scrap Gold Calculator at Mid-States Refining website at http://www.midstatesrecycling.com/karatpro.php.  Select Troy Oz. on the pull down at the bottom  of the page and then put in how many ounces of each karat of gold that you have and it will calculate the value.  Notice that there is a $100 refining charge. So if you only had a 1 oz, 18K ring you would get $323 for it. But if you had 5 ozs of 18K gold, you would get $2901 which is about $580 per ounce.  Even at the lower price of $323 that is about $300 more than most of the cash for gold places would give you.

Lastly if you really want to get the most money, then you can melt down your own gold.  Basically all you need is a propane torch and a crucible to hold the gold.  Just Google the term “how to melt gold” and you will see results from Wiki and eHow that give instructions.