Metro

Golden ‘fleece’

Cash4Gold is nothing but a scam4customers.

The company — whose late-night ads feature famously broke ’80s rapper MC Hammer — pays customers a meager 11 to 29 percent of what their stuff is really worth, consumer advocates warned yesterday.

“They are playing people in tough times,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn), who yesterday called for a new federal law requiring Cash4Gold and similar companies to give consumers more time to refuse their price offers.

Manhattan resident Frank Poindexter says Cash4Gold paid him 15 cents for jewelry he had appraised at $200.

“I looked at the check and thought it was a mistake,” said Poindexter, 57, a church organist. “When I called them, they actually accused me of scamming them, and said my gold was only worth 15 cents.”

He finally got a check for $140.15 after four months of investigations by the Postal Service and the attorneys general in New York and in Florida, where Cash4Gold is based.

Gold-sellers mail their goods to gold-buying companies, and after a few weeks are mailed a check in return.

Cash4Gold gives sellers 12 days to return their checks, and have their gold mailed back. But the clock begins the day a check is issued, not the day a consumer gets it in the mail — meaning the decision time is several days less than the company suggests in its ads, Weiner said.

Customers who have refused a Cash4Gold offer within the deadline sometimes have been told their item has already been melted down, and can’t be returned, Consumers Union says.

Gold-buying companies don’t say this up front — but they will negotiate prices. When Cash4Gold customers complain about a price, the company often will make a higher offer by claiming an item has been reappraised.

Mail-in gold buyers’ prices are pushed down by companies’ high marketing costs.

Besides running lots of late-night TV ads, Cash4Gold bought airtime in last year’s Super Bowl for an ad that featured Hammer and fellow broke celebrity Ed McMahon.

Cash4Gold can’t touch the prices offered by local jewelers or pawn shops, which have no celebrity spokespeople and almost always give a better deal, said Chuck Bell of Consumers Union. Pawn shops typically pay from 35 to 70 percent of an item’s market value.

“Consumers need to shop around when they are selling their gold,” Bell said.

In a statement, Cash4Gold said it will work with Weiner and other lawmakers on a bill to regulate the gold-buying industry, and that it is dedicated to “top notch” customer service.

bill.sanderson@nypost.com