Customers of one gold app were saying this to each other. A judge wrote it in his order in 2026. It is not proven.
Jar is a phone app. You pay a small amount. The app says it buys gold for you and keeps it safe. This is called digital gold.
In 2026, the police in Bengaluru opened a case against Jar. Jar asked the Karnataka High Court to stop the case. In March 2026 the judge said no. He said the police must look into it, because "the investors have already made hue and cry through communications between them that there is no gold and no money".
In simple words: Jar's customers were telling each other that the gold was not there, and the money was not there.
Is it true? Nobody knows yet. It is a claim. It is not proven. The judge added one thing. His words were only about Jar's request to stop the case. They cannot be used against Jar at its trial. No court has found Jar guilty. The police are still looking into it. This is how things stood in August 2026.
Jar says the claim is wrong. It told the court it buys real gold every time. The gold is kept by a company called Brink's India, in a vault. A vault is a strong locked room.
In April 2026 a smaller court looked at the case. It noted that the police had confirmed about 1,521 kg of gold kept with Brink's India. It also noted that no customer had complained of not getting gold or money. The High Court, for its part, had noted that members of the public had made several complaints against the company.
So why should you care? Because of one thing most buyers do not know. In our article on how to check a gold hallmark, the buyer could not read the stamp. Here, the buyer does not know who is watching the app.
You can start digital gold with as little as ₹10 or ₹100. You never see the gold. You trust the app.
SEBI is the government body that watches the share market. On 8 November 2025 it gave the public a warning about digital gold. It said these products:
"operate entirely outside the purview of SEBI."
In simple words: digital gold is not SEBI's job. If something goes wrong, SEBI's protection does not cover you.
The RBI is the body that watches banks. The same court report says an RBI team inspected Jar's address in Bengaluru. The RBI said Jar's gold account does not come under its rules.
The magazine Moneylife put it plainly. Digital gold is not under SEBI, not under the RBI, and not under any other financial regulator. So your safety depends only on the company behind the app.
Nithin Kamath heads Zerodha, a firm through which people buy shares. He wrote: "Most people don't realize that nobody regulates digital gold." If something goes wrong, he said, "there's not much you can do." Keep one thing in mind. There is a Zerodha Gold ETF, which is a gold fund. So he has a reason to like such funds more.
The police can still act. The High Court said criminal law applies to digital gold too. But the police come after something goes wrong. Nobody checks before.
Here are four real cases. We did not make up any of them. Each has a link, so you can read it yourself.
The police froze Jar's bank accounts while they looked into the case. Frozen means no money can go out. In July 2026 they froze more accounts.
Jar's lawyer told the High Court this. With the accounts frozen, Jar could not pay customers who asked for their money. It could not take new orders either. This is what the lawyer said. We did not find a report of any customer who was not paid.
In August 2026 the High Court ruled on this. The police may freeze bank accounts during a case.
Plus Gold is a digital gold app. It was shown on the TV show Shark Tank India. The news site Inc42 reported on 31 July 2025 that the company had stopped work. It could not raise money to keep going. The app had over 1 lakh downloads on Google Play.
Inc42 said some users complained. They said they could not take their money out. One user wrote on Reddit that they tried more than once. It did not work.
The company's founder said no money was stuck. He said users could still take money out or sell. He said another gold company had taken over the app.
Some buyers want the real gold one day, as a coin or a bar. Paytm paused gold delivery in August 2025. Several Paytm gold buyers told the news site Moneycontrol this. Paytm gave no reason in public. The app only said "coming soon".
In March 2026 Paytm said it was rebuilding the way it sends gold to buyers. It planned to start again in mid-April. It said buyers could still sell their digital gold for cash in this time.
A 57-year-old man in Mangaluru told the police this. In November 2025 he got a friendly message on Instagram. The sender told him to put money in the "digital gold market" through an app called Kanak Daam Exchange. He sent money three times.
The app showed that his money had grown to ₹60 lakh. He tried to take it out. He was told to pay 30% as "tax" first. Officials at Canara Bank told him it was a fraud. Then the app showed zero. He says he lost ₹10.55 lakh. The police have registered a case.
By his account, this was not a gold company. It only used the name "digital gold".
Digital gold costs you money even when nothing goes wrong. Business Today lists two costs.
Kamath said it in rupees: "You're instantly looking at a ₹500–₹600 loss on a ₹10,000 investment."
Now think of the four cases. You save a little every day. One day you need the money. The company may have stopped work. Its bank accounts may be frozen. The delivery button may say "coming soon". The cost is the small problem. Not being sure you can get your own money is the big one.
These are three ways to buy gold without buying jewellery. A gold ETF is a fund that holds gold. You buy a small part of it, called a unit, on the share market. For that you need a demat account. It holds your shares and funds.
| Digital gold | Gold ETF | Bank gold coin | |
| Who watches it | Not SEBI. Not the RBI. | SEBI | The RBI watches the bank |
| Cost when you buy | 3% GST, and a spread of about 2 to 3% | A small fee. Some days the price is too high. | The bank charges more than the day's gold rate |
| Cost every year | Storage and app fees. They often show up as a gap between the buy and sell price. | 0.59% to 0.69% at three big funds in mid-2026 | None. But you must keep it safe. |
| How you sell | Back to the app, at the app's price | On the share market | The bank will not buy it back |
| What went wrong | Frozen accounts, a company that stopped work, no delivery | Buyers paid too much in January 2026 | We found no reported case |
None of the three is free of trouble. But with a gold ETF, SEBI is watching.
Digital gold fees. The news site Storyboard18 lists three costs: 3% GST, storage, and the app's fees. It says they "often result in differences between the buying and selling prices". In simple words: you buy high and sell low.
The ETF trap. Some days an ETF sells for more than the gold inside it is worth. The money blog BasuNivesh gives one case. On 21 January 2026 a big gold ETF sold at 5.96% more than its gold was worth. The next day its price fell 7.88%. The gold inside it fell only about 1.92%. In simple words: the buyer lost about 6% more than gold did.
The yearly fee of an ETF is small. The website GoldenPi reported fees of 0.59% to 0.69% a year at three big funds in mid-2026. That is about ₹59 to ₹69 a year on ₹10,000.
The bank coin trap. The website Goodreturns reported in October 2024 that RBI rules do not let a bank buy back a gold coin. This is true even for a coin the same bank sold. You pay extra to buy it. Later you sell it to a jeweller, often for less.
Seven steps. Each takes a few minutes.
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