I Now have a bullion valut account.

Can anyone tell me if this is a safe organizaton?
How else can i buy gold safely?
(i wont get my bum felt)

You have a right of withdrawal of your gold from BullionVault, but you acknowledge BullionVault is not designed primarily as a service for those who wish to take physical possession of bullion.

Your wish to withdraw bullion will be accommodated only in the form of whole numbers of appropriate bars of varying sizes and, of generally accepted bullion coins, to be selected at BullionVault's discretion.

The withdrawal fee for good delivery bars will be not more than 2.5% of value.

The withdrawal fee for other gold will be not more than 7.5% of value.

To make physical withdrawals you will be required to provide reliable forms of identification and may in addition be required to indemnify BullionVault against identity fraud through the purchase of appropriate insurance.

Your understand that you cannot claim withdrawal directly from ViaMat. Your right to withdrawal is to be effected through BullionVault who have the means and responsibility for identifying you reliably. Depending upon the quantity withdrawn you may be required to identify a local bank or equivalent institution to which your gold can be delivered.

Upon withdrawing bullion you accept that you may lose anonymity where these transactions are monitored by appropriate authorities.

Upon withdrawing bullion you accept that you may become liable to taxes which you would otherwise not become liable to, and you permit BullionVault to deduct those taxes appropriately.

Risks which are not a BullionVault responsibility:

Gold price movements — You are exposed to the risk of potential loss arising from a falling gold price during the time in which you own gold. This risk is not a BullionVault responsibility.

Money politics — Governments and other agencies seeking currency stability, or for other reasons, might seek to constrain or tax the ownership of gold to the disadvantage of its owners. BullionVault provides for multiple locations from which you may choose one or more. The actuality or fear of government action might affect the value of gold stored in a given location. This risk is not a BullionVault responsibility.

Bank insolvency - Your cash balances at BullionVault are deposited in segregated accounts at a highly rated bank, but your money's safety is dependent on bank integrity. All banks are subject to possible failure. Depending on a number of factors in the event of bank failure you might be entitled to receive compensation from appropriate authorities, but the terms of such compensation are complex and the timescale for receiving compensation might be long. This risk is not a BullionVault responsibility. [Note that when your money is used to buy gold your exposure to bank insolvency ceases]

Identity theft — If your BullionVault account number and password are compromised you are at risk of unauthorised access to your account. Such access will be alarmed within minutes by SMS messages if both your BullionVault Burglar alarm is enabled and your account is of sufficient size. Any change of your account details would be acknowledged to you. Any withdrawal resulting from use of a compromised password would only be to your linked bank account or - in unusual circumstances - would be in person, in which case it would be validated against your filed identity verification, and subject to indemnity insurance taken out by BullionVault, at the withdrawer's expense, which would compensate you against loss. As a result the most serious risk arising from the theft of a password are (i) loss of privacy and (ii) the entering of mischief orders on BullionVault - which would execute at market prices and thereby potentially switch you between gold and money - or vice versa - at prevailing values but not according to your wishes. An attempt to bleed your account of value in favour of another account would be reversed whenever advised in reasonable time, and would of course lead to detection and prosecution of any criminal activity without gain. In these ways BullionVault seeks to minimise the risks to you associated with identity theft but these are not a BullionVault responsibility unless the breach of security can be shown to have occurred because of BullionVault's error.

Liquidity risk — BullionVault is available only to its users, so your ability to convert your gold into money depends on there being another user bidding for that gold. It is possible that liquidity could dry up leaving you temporarily unable to realise the apparent value of a bullion holding within BullionVault. This risk is mitigated by affording to all users who can make large bar delivery a right of sale on the local bullion market. In this way all system users - including BullionVault on it own account - are powerfully motivated to bid for under-priced gold in an illiquid markets as the transaction has a high probability of being profitable, and this would eliminate by natural market forces any lack of liquidity. Nevertheless the risks associated with a lack of immediate liquidity are not a BullionVault responsibility.

System availability — BullionVault's computerised machinery, which is accessed by you across the internet, might become inaccessible for periods of time. This could prevent you from executing a transaction which you would otherwise have made. This risk is not a BullionVault responsibility.

Insurance exclusions - As your property your gold is subject to insurance exclusions imposed by insurance underwriters in line with established insurance practice regarding the physical protection of your gold. These excluded risks are presented on the insurance certificate published on the BullionVault site and include events like nuclear war. These risks are not a BullionVault responsibility and are risks you undertake with respect to your gold, except that no exclusion absolves BullionVault in undertaking its correct duties of care in arranging the security of your property to levels considered commercially acceptable.

Force Majeure — The risks described under Force Majeure are not BullionVault responsibilities.

Risks which are a BullionVault responsibility:

BullionVault accepts it has duties of care with regard to aspects of risk to your property and undertakes to manage risks so as to contain them at minimal levels, consistent with best business practices.

Subject to the provisions for Exclusions and Limits of liability in these Terms and Conditions BullionVault accepts liability for failing in this duty.

Physical bullion theft — Your gold could conceivably be stolen from a vault by determined thieves. It is the Vault Operator which accepts a duty to retain sufficient security measures, and to maintain cover against such an eventuality either in terms of its own resources or its insurance policies. BullionVault accepts a duty to regularly monitor the Vault Operator to ensure the maintenance of a limit sufficient to cover at least the value of the gold stored.

Subject to the provisions for Exclusions and Limits of liability in these Terms and Conditions BullionVault accepts liability for failing in this duty.

Theft of Customer money — Money held in the segregated Client accounts could be illegally transmitted through the banking system by a determined thief, or thieves, operating within BullionVault. At any one time the control on initiating outward transfers of money from the Client account rests with two senior individuals at BullionVault who must both approve payments. The responsibility for daily reconciliation rests with a third.

Subject to the provisions for Exclusions and Limits of liability in these Terms and Conditions BullionVault accepts liability for failing in this duty.

BullionVault segregation management — A failure by BullionVault's system to prevent a customer from over-purchasing beyond his cash balance, or over-selling beyond his gold balance would render a segregated account temporarily incapable of meeting its obligations to other customers. All BullionVault software is designed to eliminate this eventuality. Moreover BullionVault checks its accounts daily for such eventualities. The risk of material loss is extremely small, because any such over-trading would be substantially offset by a surplus in the opposite segregated account.

Subject to the provisions for Exclusions and Limits of liability in these Terms and Conditions BullionVault accepts liability for failing in this duty.

BullionVault record keeping — a risk in all business record keeping systems is that internal records may show a position which satisfies the organisation's officers but does not represent the real world, and where the problems only come to light when it is too late. The risk rises with increasing complexity of transactions and the availability of credit, neither of which apply to BullionVault. For all businesses the record keeping risk is statutorily addressed by annual audit. In addition BullionVault controls its record set by voluntarily submitting its daily reconciliations of Customer property to public inspection on the web.

Subject to the provisions for Exclusions and Limits of liability in these Terms and Conditions BullionVault accepts liability for failing in this duty.

BullionVault insolvency — As of March 2007 BullionVault maintains sufficient shareholders' funds to pay for all its planned operations for a period of 4 years, even in the absence of all operating revenue. This makes it an exceptionally strong business in financial terms.

However unforeseen events could conceivably damage that financial strength, rendering BullionVault insolvent.

The insolvency of BullionVault would not affect your property rights with regard to money or gold in a BullionVault account, but it would be likely to create some inconvenience and delay for you in taking hold of that property.

Disastrous data loss — BullionVault's system contains data in electronic form which could conceivably be lost in a widespread and catastrophic machinery failure. BullionVault operates a redundant machinery policy which means that every component of its data storing capability is protected by both local and remote data duplication. The likelihood of a simultaneous loss of all data copies is extremely low. However, in addition to this the system prints out a complete system balance once a week, sends an encrypted copy to remote data vaults, and during each week logs in paper format all transactions, ensuring that data loss is a temporary inconvenience, not a disaster. Moreover you can save the published reconciliation of your property on your own computer, thereby duplicating that part of the records which relates to your own property.