Most pages answering this question are guessing, recycling a headline from 2021, or selling you a competitor. We went to the filings instead: the company's Better Business Bureau file, a Los Angeles Superior Court case, a New York Attorney General consent order, a Delaware bankruptcy docket, and settlement notices published by state securities regulators. Everything below carries a date and a link to the document it came from.
Advertising disclosure: Gold IRA Consulting is reader-supported. We may earn a commission when you open an account through some links on this page (marked sponsored). This never influences our editorial scores, which are based on independent research.
Lear Capital, Inc. has traded since 1997, holds an A+ rating and BBB Accreditation dating to 19 September 1997, and never touches your IRA metal directly, because a third-party custodian administers the account and an insured depository stores the bars. What sets it apart from its competitors is a paper trail: a June 2019 case brought by the Los Angeles City Attorney, a June 2021 civil action by the New York Attorney General, a $6 million New York consent order in January 2022, a Chapter 11 filing that March, and a $5.5 million customer fund paid out through that bankruptcy.
Every one of those matters is civil rather than criminal, every one has been resolved, and in none of them did the company admit liability. So the honest verdict is not a yes or a no. It is this: Lear is legitimate and operating, it has been held to account twice by government enforcers over how it disclosed fees, and it now trades under written commitments about that exact conduct. Read the record below before you take anyone's word for it, including ours.
Start with the boring facts, because a surprising amount of confusion about this company comes from people arguing about a firm they have never bothered to identify. The entity is Lear Capital, Inc., a precious-metals dealer working out of west Los Angeles. Its Better Business Bureau file records the business as starting on 3 June 1997 and the current corporate entity as incorporated on 27 September 2013, which is a normal restructuring artifact and not a sign that the brand is new.
The same profile names Kevin DeMeritt as founder and John Ohanesian as chief executive. The company is privately held, publishes no accounts, and is not a bank, a custodian or a depository. It sells metal. Everything else in a Lear gold IRA, the account administration and the vaulting, is performed by outside firms, which is the only structure the tax rules permit and is worth knowing before a salesperson describes the arrangement to you.
| DATA POINT | WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS | SOURCE TYPE |
|---|---|---|
| Legal entity | Lear Capital, Inc. | BBB profile, court caption |
| Business start | 3 June 1997; entity incorporated 27 September 2013 | BBB profile |
| Headquarters | 1990 S. Bundy Drive, Suite 650, Los Angeles, CA 90025 | BBB profile |
| Founder | Kevin DeMeritt | BBB profile, New York court filing |
| Chief executive | John Ohanesian | BBB profile |
| Adviser registration | None claimed. The reorganization plan bars the company from holding itself out as an investment adviser or giving investment advice. | Chapter 11 plan, state regulator releases |
Source: Better Business Bureau profile for Lear Capital, Inc., checked 8 August 2026, and the plan commitments published by state securities regulators (linked in Sources).
We checked the live profile on 8 August 2026. Lear Capital, Inc. is BBB Accredited, accredited since 19 September 1997, and carries an A+ letter rating, with no alert or government-action notice displayed that day. Earlier snapshots of the profile did carry a notice about the 2022 bankruptcy filing; it is not showing now, which is consistent with a completed reorganization.
Two cautions before you read too much into the grade. Accreditation is a paid membership plus a pledge to follow BBB standards, so it is a signal about process and responsiveness rather than a certificate that the pricing was fair. And the letter grade is heavily weighted toward whether complaints get answered and closed, which a well-staffed firm can achieve while still being expensive. The interesting material is one click deeper, in the complaint file itself.
| COMPLAINT CATEGORY | CLOSED IN THE LAST 3 YEARS | WHAT THE FILINGS DESCRIBE |
|---|---|---|
| Service issues | 11 | Slow payouts, distributions and wires after a sale back to the dealer |
| Sales and advertising | 8 | What a buyer says was quoted on the phone against what the invoice showed |
| Product issues | 7 | Coin selection, fractional bars, and the premium attached to specific items |
| Billing issues | 4 | Fee and markup disputes on completed purchases |
| Order issues | 2 | Shipment and depository confirmation |
| Total | 32 (12 closed in the last 12 months) | All figures as published on the BBB profile, 8 August 2026 |
Source: complaint counts and categories as published on the BBB complaint file for Lear Capital, Inc., checked 8 August 2026. Complaints are unverified consumer statements, not findings by any authority.
Grouped by theme, the 2026 filings on that profile fall into three buckets, and the pattern is more useful than any single story. Pricing and markup is the loudest: complaints filed on 24 January 2026 and 31 March 2026 both describe a premium far above what the buyer says was discussed on the call. Money moving out is the second: complaints filed on 25 February 2026, 28 April 2026 and 4 July 2026 describe waits for a wire or a distribution after metal had already been handed back. Product substitution is the third and the smallest: a 12 January 2026 complaint from a retiree who says the delivery was fractional bars rather than the whole ounces requested.
Thirty-two complaints in three years is not a large number for a national dealer with tens of thousands of customers, and a bureau file is a self-selecting sample of unhappy people. What matters is that the themes have not drifted. The area that drew two government enforcers, what a customer is told about cost before the invoice arrives, is still the area customers write in about. That is the single most actionable thing on this page, and the checklist further down is built around it.
Read the third column before the second. An allegation is what a government lawyer wrote in a filing, and nothing has tested it. A settlement is a negotiated end, and the ones below explicitly avoid any ruling on who was right. A finding is a court or agency deciding the point, and there is not one of those in this record.
| DATE | EVENT | STATUS OF THE CLAIM |
|---|---|---|
| 5 June 2019 | Los Angeles City Attorney files The People of the State of California v. Lear Capital, Inc., Los Angeles County Superior Court, case no. 19STCV19362, over the way transaction fees were described to buyers. | Allegation. Untested at filing. |
| 17 June 2021 | New York Attorney General Letitia James sues Lear Capital, Inc. and founder Kevin DeMeritt, alleging undisclosed commissions of up to 33 percent, roughly $10 million taken from nearly 1,000 New Yorkers who invested more than $43 million, plus operating without registration as a commodity broker-dealer, commodity investment advisor or telemarketer. | Allegation. A regulator's complaint, not a verdict. |
| 3 January 2022 | New York announces a $6 million consent order. Lear agrees to clear and conspicuous fee disclosure for New York residents, a 24-hour cancellation window on retirement and certain higher-fee transactions, better complaint tracking and staff training. | Settlement. No admission of liability recorded. |
| Early 2022 | The Los Angeles matter settles. The court-approved notice mailed to customers states that Lear "vigorously disputes the allegations" and that the settlement resolves the dispute "without a trial and without any final ruling by the Court on the merits". Payment was calculated on transaction fees paid above 15 percent; the claim deadline was 11 April 2022. | Settlement. Expressly no ruling on the merits. |
| 2 March 2022 | Lear Capital, Inc. files a Chapter 11 petition under Subchapter V in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, case no. 1:22-bk-10165. Trading continues. | Reorganization, not a liquidation or a closure. |
| Early August 2023 | State securities regulators announce that at least 42 state and territory regulators had been investigating, and that $5.5 million is being made available through the plan to customers who bought Lear metals. The plan binds Lear not to misrepresent its fees, not to offer portfolio assessments of securities holdings, not to hold itself out as an investment adviser and not to provide investment advice or commit securities or commodities fraud. | Settlement reached through the bankruptcy. |
| Early 2024 | The company states that it completed its Chapter 11 reorganization and that no customer, vendor or business partner lost money in the process. | Company statement, labeled as such. |
Sources, in order: the settlement notice issued to customers in Los Angeles County Superior Court case no. 19STCV19362; the New York Attorney General's 17 June 2021 announcement and 3 January 2022 consent order announcement; the Delaware bankruptcy docket for case no. 1:22-bk-10165; and the state regulator announcements of the $5.5 million fund, including the South Carolina Attorney General and the Arkansas Securities Department.
The phrase that does the most damage online is "Lear Capital was found guilty of fraud". Nothing in the record supports it. Two government offices accused the company of deceptive fee practices in civil courts. Both matters ended in negotiated settlements. The Los Angeles notice is unusually explicit about this, telling customers in plain language that the company disputes the allegations and that no judge ruled on who was right. New York's release announces payment and forward-looking obligations, not a judgment.
That distinction cuts both ways, and it would be dishonest to use it only as a defense. A settlement is not an exoneration either. Paying $6 million, then funding a $5.5 million customer pool inside a bankruptcy while more than forty state regulators had open investigations, is not what a firm does when the accusations are baseless. The fair reading is that the company faced sustained, coordinated regulatory pressure about a single subject, cost disclosure, and bought its way to the other side of it while agreeing to change the behavior.
The practically useful part is what came out of it. Lear now operates under written commitments about fee disclosure and about not presenting itself as an adviser. Most dealers you will compare it against operate under no such constraint, simply because nobody made them. If you deal with Lear, those commitments are leverage in your hands, and the way to use them is to ask for numbers in writing and watch how quickly they arrive.
Searching the federal enforcement record on 8 August 2026, we found no Commodity Futures Trading Commission action and no Securities and Exchange Commission action naming Lear Capital, Inc. We also found no criminal charge against the company or its officers in the public record we reviewed. Both federal regulators publish their enforcement actions against precious-metals dealers openly, and several Los Angeles area dealers appear in those listings; Lear does not. We report that as the result of the search we ran, not as a clearance, and it does not undo anything in the table above.
Lear reaches customers through broadcast and paid endorsement, which is legal, common in this category, and worth understanding on its own terms. As of our check on 8 August 2026, the company's website features Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, and the site's own disclaimer identifies him as a paid spokesman. Its reorganization page also references long-running support from Glenn Beck. The Federal Trade Commission's endorsement rules require exactly that kind of disclosure of a paid relationship, and Lear makes it.
Here is the part to internalize. A paid endorsement tells you about a marketing budget. It carries no information about the spread you will be quoted on a coin, which is where nearly all of your money is won or lost. The New York filing describes precisely this route to the customer, television and radio advertising that moved people toward retirement accounts holding metal, and the conduct at issue was never the advertising's celebrity. It was what happened on the phone call afterward.
The current offers, checked the same day, are a $500 account credit usable against shipping, insurance or IRA custodial fees, free IRA setup and storage, a price match guarantee, a 24-hour risk-free purchase guarantee, and a banner advertising up to $15,000 in free coins carrying an asterisk that a qualifying purchase is required. That last one is the industry's standard promotional shape and it deserves the industry's standard question: free metal is funded by the margin on the metal you buy, so ask what the purchase premium would be with and without the bonus attached. Our gold IRA fees guide explains where that cost hides.
The 24-hour guarantee is more interesting than it looks. A 24-hour cancellation window on retirement and higher-fee transactions is one of the specific things New York required in the January 2022 consent order. A remedy negotiated with a regulator now appears in the marketing as a feature. That is not a criticism, it is just a useful reminder that a benefit can have a backstory, and knowing the backstory is how you value it correctly.
| ITEM | AMOUNT | NOTE |
|---|---|---|
| Account minimum | ~$10,000 | Mainstream entry point for the category |
| First year, all in | ~$280 | Setup plus initial maintenance |
| Each year after | ~$200 flat | Flat, so it does not scale with the balance |
| Dealer premium over spot | NOT PUBLISHED | The largest cost in most purchases and the subject of both enforcement matters |
Source: figures as recorded in our Lear Capital review, verified Jun 2026; confirm current pricing directly with the company before funding. Waivers are sometimes offered depending on how much you fund with. Run the arithmetic on your own balance with the gold IRA fee calculator.
A flat annual charge is the right structure for a metals account, because a percentage fee punishes you precisely when the asset does its job. But note where the blank sits in that table. The premium over spot appears on no schedule at any dealer, it is set per transaction, and it is the number both the Los Angeles City Attorney and the New York Attorney General built their cases around. If you take one thing from this page, take that: at Lear, and at every competitor, the fee schedule is the small money and the premium is the large money.
None of these are about Lear specifically. They are the controls that make the complaint themes above impossible to inflict on you, wherever you open the account.
The longer version, including the pressure tactics that should end a call, is in our guide to gold IRA red flags, and every line item you might be charged is broken down in gold IRA fees.
We rank Lear ninth of the ten providers we cover, and the reason is entirely the record on this page rather than the mechanics of the product. The account works the way every gold IRA works, the minimum is accessible, the annual charge is flat, and current customers rate the service highly: our July 2026 check of the company's Trustpilot profile recorded a score in the high fours across several thousand reviews, and the BBB grade is A+ today. That is a real firm with real satisfied buyers.
If a spotless compliance history is a threshold requirement for you, this is a short conversation and you should choose one of the higher-ranked firms at the same roughly $10,000 entry point. That is a perfectly rational position and we are not going to argue you out of it.
If you weigh remediation, the other side is genuine. The money went back to customers, twice. The company operates under commitments about fee disclosure that its competitors have never been asked to make. And a firm that has been through this much regulatory scrutiny is not the obvious candidate to repeat the exercise. Our full assessment, including the score breakdown and the buyback position, is in the Lear Capital review, and the whole field sits on the best gold IRA companies page.
Go in with the six checks above and ask for every number in writing. Then compare the quote against at least one other dealer before you authorize a purchase.
Lear Capital is a real, operating precious-metals dealer that has traded since 1997 and is BBB Accredited with an A+ rating as of 8 August 2026. It is also the most litigated firm in our coverage. The Los Angeles City Attorney sued it in June 2019, the New York Attorney General sued it in June 2021, it paid $6 million under a New York consent order in January 2022, it filed Chapter 11 in March 2022, and a $5.5 million fund was distributed to customers through that bankruptcy. Every one of those matters was civil, every one has been resolved, and none of them recorded an admission of liability by the company. That is a genuine firm carrying a genuine compliance history, and both halves of that sentence belong in your decision.
Yes. The Better Business Bureau lists Lear Capital, Inc. of Los Angeles as BBB Accredited since 19 September 1997 and rates it A+ as of our check on 8 August 2026, with no alert or government-action notice displayed on the profile that day. Accreditation is a paid BBB membership plus a commitment to BBB standards, and the letter grade weighs complaint volume and how complaints were handled rather than whether the pricing was fair. The same profile records 32 complaints closed in the past three years, 12 of them in the past twelve months, so read the complaint file alongside the grade rather than instead of it.
Yes, twice by government enforcers in the public record we reviewed. The Los Angeles City Attorney filed The People of the State of California v. Lear Capital, Inc. in Los Angeles County Superior Court on 5 June 2019, case number 19STCV19362, over alleged fee disclosure practices. The court-approved settlement notice sent to customers states that Lear vigorously disputes the allegations and that the matter was resolved without a trial and without any final ruling by the court on the merits. New York Attorney General Letitia James then filed a civil action on 17 June 2021 against the company and founder Kevin DeMeritt, alleging undisclosed commissions of up to 33 percent affecting nearly 1,000 New Yorkers, and announced a $6 million consent order resolving it on 3 January 2022. Both matters are civil. We found no criminal charge and no CFTC or SEC enforcement action naming the company.
Lear Capital, Inc. filed a Chapter 11 petition under Subchapter V on 2 March 2022 in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, case number 1:22-bk-10165. Chapter 11 reorganizes a business rather than closing it, and Lear kept trading throughout. A $5.5 million customer fund was made available through that case to buyers of Lear metals, announced by state securities regulators in early August 2023, and the plan bound the company not to misrepresent its fees, not to offer portfolio assessments of securities holdings, not to hold itself out as an investment adviser and not to provide investment advice. The company states it completed the reorganization in early 2024, and it is trading in August 2026.
Lear Capital, Inc. is privately held and publishes no ownership table. Its Better Business Bureau profile lists Kevin DeMeritt as founder and John Ohanesian as chief executive, at an address of 1990 S. Bundy Drive, Suite 650, Los Angeles. DeMeritt was named personally as a defendant alongside the company in the June 2021 New York action, and the Chapter 11 plan document records that the $5.5 million customer fund was assembled from cash on hand plus an insider contribution. Because the company is private and files no public accounts, treat any precise ownership percentage you read elsewhere as unverified unless it cites a document.
Related reading: our full Lear Capital review, the 2026 provider rankings, and how we score reputation.
Every legal and reputation statement on this page traces to one of the documents below. Regulator complaints contain allegations, not findings. Settlements resolve disputes without adjudicating them. All records checked 8 August 2026.
Fees and minimums reflect figures verified Jun 2026 and are reproduced from our Lear Capital review. Confirm all pricing in writing with the company. This page is not financial advice. See our editorial policy.
Our free kit puts fees, minimums, custodians and reputation history for ten providers side by side, with the questions to ask before you authorize a single dollar. Or jump straight to the 2026 rankings.