IN THE HOLE

Disabled Retiree Loses $80K on Gold Coins Hawked on Fox News

The 70-year-old invested $174,000 into the company’s gold coins, buying into their claims of a looming “pension crisis” and “dollar collapse.”

Commercials hawking gold coins as a legitimate retirement savings tactic have been mainstays on conservative cable outlets like Fox News and Newsmax. Terry White, a disabled retiree from New York, bought into Lear Capital’s claims that its gold coins were ample protection from the looming “pension crisis” and “dollar collapse.” So the 70-year-old invested $174,000 into the company’s gold coins, according to a lawsuit by the New York attorney general. What White didn’t know is that Lear charged a commission rate of 33 percent and as he made transactions, he eventually found himself nearly $80,000 in the hole. White’s wife told The Washington Post she blamed the situation on Fox News, calling the network “negligent.” White was shocked that Fox would lead him astray, telling the Post that he believed the network “wouldn’t take a commercial like that unless it was legitimate.” Lear and a number of other gold retirement investment companies are facing lawsuits and allegations of fraud by regulators.