iGolder Transfer Fees

iGolder has a unique adaptive fee schedule.  In a nutshell, we give lower transfer fees to members representing a lower risk of dispute or fraud.  Our anonymous members pay the highest transfer fees of 4%, and our verified members pay fees varying from 0.1% to 1.0% according to their transaction reputation.  You reputation increases according to the number of transactions made, total amount transacted and length of time as a member, and your reputation decreases when receiving Demerit Points.

Account Type	Anonymous Member	Identified Member	Verified Member
Fee to receive gold payment	4%	2%	1.0% down to 0.1% according to transaction reputation *
Fee to send gold payment	Free	Free	Free
Open account fee	Free	Free	0.5 gr 0.5 gr of Gold worth about: 0.01608 oz of Gold $21.99 USD € 16.44 EUR £14.08 GBP Edit setting  of gold (learn how to upgrade)
Storage fee	Free	Free	Free
Delay to clear gold when receiving payment	48 hours	24 hours	Instant (24 to 72 hours for first transaction between two users)
Transaction limit when receiving gold	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Spending Limitations	Send maximum 100 gr 100 gr of Gold worth about: 3.21507 oz of Gold $4,397.58 USD € 3,288.16 EUR £2,815.32 GBP Edit setting  per year	Send maximum 100 gr 100 gr of Gold worth about: 3.21507 oz of Gold $4,397.58 USD € 3,288.16 EUR £2,815.32 GBP Edit setting  per month	No send transfer limit
Minimum information required to open an account	Email Alias or Nickname	Name Address Phone number Upload scan of utility bill. Upload scan of passport or driver license.	Address is validated with a letter by the mail. Phone number is optionally validated with a phone call.

* The ratio of Demerit Points directly increases the transfer fees, so it is possible for a verified member to pay fees higher than 1.0%

Transaction Reputation Fee Schedule

Transaction reputation is enabled only for Verified Members.  The reputation of an anonymous individual is comparable as the paradox of asking a masked man who he is.  Until the member's identity has been confirmed, his reputation remains private, hidden and inactive.

You can start accumulating transaction reputation and feedback from your customers from your first transaction, however your achievements will be dormant.  The moment you become verified, your transaction fees will be set set to 1.0%.  For instance, if you become a Verified Member after completing 10 transactions of 1 grams each, then your transfer fees will become 0.8%. The table below describes the transaction fee schedule according to the number of transactions you made, the total amount transacted and the length of time as a member.  For instance, after a six months, you are entitled to the low transfer fee of 0.5%, assuming you made 300 transactions averaging one gram of gold each.  By the way, completing 300 transactions in six months is easy to achieve; it represents less than two transactions per day.

* iGolder caps the fees to 1 gr

1 gr of Gold worth about:

0.03215 oz of Gold

$43.98 USD
€ 32.88 EUR
£28.15 GBP

Edit setting

 per transaction.  To qualify, you must have been a verified member for 4 years and have no Demerit Points.

Minimum Fee

The fee is always rounded up to the nearest milligram of gold.  Therefore the minimum fee for any transaction is 0.001 gr

0.001 gr of Gold worth about:

0.00003 oz of Gold

$0.04 USD
€ 0.03 EUR
£0.03 GBP

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 of gold.

Dispute Reserve Bonus

iGolder lowers your transfer fees when you provide a Dispute Reserve.  The Dispute Reserve is a sub-account containing an amount of gold to secure the performance obligations of account owner.  You have the option to disclose the amount of your Dispute Reserve on your public profile, thus increasing your trustworthiness in the eyes of your customers.  iGolder also rewards members providing a dispute reserve by lowering their transfer fees.  Our rationale is people willing to pledge an amount of gold in case of a dispute represent a lower risk of acting dishonestly because they have something to lose in case of a dispute.  We aim in rewarding good behavior, and this is our contribution.

Please notice we cannot pay our members to transfer gold among themselves, so the Dispute Reserve lowers your transfer fees until you reach the lowest fee of 0.1%.  When your account transfer fees reaches 0.1%, any additional Dispute Reserve will no longer lower your transfer fees, however will still provide goodwill towards your customers. 

Storage Fees

Until 2010, all storage fees have been waived.  Instead, we have included our storage fees with our transfer fees.  This is somewhat similar as free parking at the shopping mall, or free use of the restroom at the restaurant.  We all know there are costs involved for the maintenance a parking lot, or cleaning a restroom, however such expenses are implicitly paid by higher product prices.  We do the same at iGolder; our transfer fees are slightly higher to cover the cost of storing the gold in a secure vault as well as paying for insurance.

Eventually iGolder will introduce storage fees for safekeeping your gold.  Rest assured, we plan to offer very competitive fees, such as 0.24% per year.  We will also give a 90-days notification to all our members prior any change in our fee schedule.  This way, our members will have time to get their gold out of the iGolder network without having to disburse any storage fees.

Our strategy towards the storage fees is likely to apply only for idle gold.  Active iGolder members won't have to pay any storage fees because they are paying transfer fees.  On the other hand, an idle account not making any trades is a burden on everyone else.  We have no choice to collect storage fees to offset the costs of storing and insuring the gold in our vaults for those idle accounts.

Demerit Points

Each demerit point increases your transfer fees according to your Demerit Ratio.  The Demerit Ratio is the percentage of demerit points from the total number of transactions you made during the past 6 months.  For instance, if you received 7 demerit points from a total of 500 transactions, then your demerit ratio is 7 / 500 = 1.4%.  Assuming, if your base fee was 0.5% (see Transaction Reputation Fee Schedule above), then your effective transfer fee is now (0.5% + 1.4%) = 1.9%.

Our mission is building a network for win-win exchanges, aiming for the highest satisfaction among our members.  We don't want troublemakers.  A legitimate complaint represents a higher risk of dishonesty from the seller, bringing a negative effect on the overall reputation of the iGolder network.

A member receives a demerit point for being dishonest or having non-respect towards another member.  People may disagree, file a complaint, initiate a dispute, however they must express their concerns in a polite and respectful manner.  Business discord is part of life, however non-respect towards another member is unacceptable.

Demerit points are allocated on a case-by-case basis, typically for one of the following offense:

• Lying or being deceitful towards another member.  At iGolder, we do punish people selling broken promises.  Of course, all our members are presumed innocent until proven guilty, however if we have a proof of lying, we will issue a demerit point.
• Repeatedly stopping a payment in Safetransit™ for no valid reason.  Again, you have the right to stop any payment in Safetransit, however if we receive massive complaints from many sellers, we may issue a demerit point.
• Refusing to participate in a dispute.  If someone is willing to pledge 1 gram plus 10% of the disputed amount towards its resolution, then you have the decency to reply to the complaint within 10 days, either by negotiating or suggesting mediation or arbitration.  Ignoring a dispute request will automatically default towards the plaintiff and will result in a demerit point to the defendant.  The demerit point may be waived if a good reason (such as a long trip or hospital stay) prevented the seller from participating in the dispute, however the full amount is nevertheless refunded to the buyer. 
• Losing a dispute in a derogatory way.  The allocation of such demerit point is at the discretion of the arbitrator.  By the way, both the plaintiff and defendant may receive a demerit point if both were dishonest and/or acted like jerks.
• Writing a vindictive negative feedback comment.  There are always ways to write feedback comments in a professional manner.  If you received such comment, you are welcome to file a request for comment removal.  If the comment is removed, then iGolder will dispense a demerit point to the member who wrote the malicious comment.
• Using Feedback Extortion by threatening to leave negative feedback unless the other party cuts a better deal or reduces the shipping charge after both parties agreed on the terms and transaction amount.  There is no feedback extortion by asking the seller for a refund after receiving broken merchandise, nor for asking a partial refund regarding a poor performance with respect to the transaction agreement.

A partial demerit point may be assigned ranging from 0.1 to a full point.  For example, a merchant may receive half (0.5) a demerit point if the arbitrator determines he is guilty for the dispute, and the plaintiff is an innocent victim.  iGolder rewards good behavior by offering very low fees and penalizes members making no effort resolving their disputes.

The issuer of any demerit point, either an arbitrator or the iGolder staff, must justify the reason for issuing a demerit point.  A member cannot receive a partial or a full demerit point without knowing why he received it.

Demerit Points & Member Feedback Reputation

Demerit points also affect your feedback reputation score.  Each demerit point removes from your reputation score the equivalent of 100 positive feedbacks, and remains visible in your feedback reputation summary as a percentage of total transactions.

Buyers should pay close attention to the number of demerit points assigned to a seller.  A high number of demerit points is an indication of a high probability of dishonesty and/or risk of a dispute.

Member Feedback Reputation & Transfer Fees

Transfer fees are unaffected by positive feedback, neutral feedback or negative feedback.  Although member feedback has no direct consequence on transfer fees, your feedback reputation summary may attract or repel new customers, thus having a direct impact on your sales, far greater than any fee increase from any demerit point received.  There are many benefits of maintaining a great reputation.