I hesitated in posting this, but screw it...
I'm not gonna try to discourage anyone from sending their stuff in to a refinery direct, but I think you should all be well aware of what the end results can look like. This was a very nicely mixed load, some motherboards old and new, couple hundred pounds telecom, couple hundred pounds of bracketless finger cards. After the refinery took their cut, I cleared $2 a pound. And that's before I paid for shipping, or any of my labor or time.
The refineries that will deal with small guys absolutely drool at the opportunity to rape them. Representation costs $1000+ for a load this size. An independent assay of the samples that the refinery provides is $600 bucks, and even then, the best you're going to get is either the opportunity to move on to an umpire assay, or a split to start. The refineries have all the leverage, and every motive in the world to cheat you, because even if you prove that they cheated you, they still win.
My first load I made money on, but when I factor in lost opportunity in using that money elsewhere (the buyers on here pay fast, a refinery is a minimum 45 day process, you're lucky to have a check in hand by day 55) it's hard to say. My second load is the one posted above, and I got kicked in the balls (you guys can do the math on what the buyers on here were paying for the material I sent in if you really want to know how bad, plus you have to figure in paying for the materials BEFORE gold dropped to the $1295 on my lock in date). My third load should be settled end of this month, and my fourth just got dropped off on Monday.
The bigger players get a better rate on refining (I'm paying $1.25 a pound, but have been told by my refinery that .85 is possible) and of course on shipping too (small loads might cost .35ish to ship freight whereas large loads I can get down to about .10) so there is room to trim the fat, but not a whole lot. Even if my lot above was ran at .85 I'd still have lost money though.
If I get crushed on the third and fourth loads, I'm likely going to try one last load with representation, and then evaluate my options from there. I can afford to gamble and take chances at this point in my life. I'll be the first to admit, I used to have a serious gambling issue, and all this is doing is scratching that itch in a little more socially acceptable manner than playing black chips in Vegas. If I do this, my parents think I'm using my degree wisely (BBA Production Management), if I go to Vegas with the same $15k I'm working with, I'm insane and irresponsible (maybe a little of both?).
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