{
 "name": "South African gold buyer study, 2016-2026",
 "publisher": "Goldza",
 "published": "2026-07-27",
 "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
 "page": "https://goldza.co.za/sell-gold/what-goes-wrong/",
 "method": "Google Maps searched across six SA metros returned 81 gold-relevant businesses with 25+ reviews; 34 whose stated trade is buying gold or precious metal from the public were selected, excluding general second-hand chains and jewellery retailers. Public reviews pulled worst-first from Google Maps and HelloPeter, deduplicated.",
 "corpus": {
  "reviews_total": 4295,
  "google_maps": 2171,
  "hellopeter": 2124,
  "businesses": 34,
  "substantive_1_2_star": 191,
  "mechanics_of_the_deal": 34,
  "businesses_with_a_mechanics_complaint": 9,
  "businesses_with_none": 21,
  "date_range": "2016 to 2026"
 },
 "complaint_distribution": {
  "Weight or scale dispute": 14,
  "Offer far below an independent valuation": 12,
  "Advertised or quoted price not honoured": 4,
  "Review solicited or written by the business": 3,
  "Undisclosed or counter-side deduction": 1,
  "Service, stock, payment or process": 157
 },
 "caveat": "Reviews were pulled worst-first. This is the SHAPE of the complaints, not a complaint rate, and must not be read as a percentage of any business's customers.",
 "verified_findings": [
  "No publicly reported South African enforcement action against a gold buyer over weighing or purity could be found. The NRCS publishes enforcement only in aggregate and by contravention type, never by industry or business name."
 ],
 "files": [
  "gold-buyer-study-2026-complaints.csv"
 ],
 "note_on_naming": "This study does not name the businesses in its sample. The complaint counts and categories are published; the identities are not."
}