My engagement ring and wedding band were both in desperate need of some attention, so I turned to Yelp and asked around for a good, trustworthy jeweler in the area. Holland's came highly recommended, but I was not able to overlook a few things that totally rubbed me the wrong way.
First, I believe that I was highly overcharged for the work done on both of my rings. When I had first inquired about how much it would cost to tighten the center stone on my engagement ring, I was first quoted $15 when the salesperson checked their binder and then it became $25 after she showed the jeweler my ring. I then asked about replacing a small diamond that I had lost on my wedding band, and they first said it was $30 to replace the stone. This was not the first time I've had a stone replaced on the ring, so I thought the price seemed fair, but then when the sales lady asked the jeweler again, he says to her in the most condescending way as if he were speaking to a 5 year old, "How much does the stone cost?". She answered, "$30" and then he goes, "how much is it to tighten stones?", then the sales lady came back to me and told me it was $25 on top of that since I had other loose stones on the band. Umm ok... being this is not my first rodeo, I know how much it SHOULD cost. Fine, I was in a huge rush to get this done, so by all means, I'll pay the inflated price. However, the part that REALLYYYYY bothered me most was the way the jeweler guy spoke to the sales lady in front of everyone on the sales floor. I don't care if she's your mother, your aunt, or your sister, that is NO WAY to speak to someone and on top of that, he did this out in the open in front of customers. Maybe he didn't think I understood English or thought I was not within earshot, but never have I ever experienced such rude behavior in such a supposedly "classy" establishment. Being from the Big Apple, where assholes a plenty, you'd think I'd be used to this type of despicable behavior, but I still left this place feeling disgusted.
On top of that, I was told that the jeweler guy was busy and that it would take up to 40 minutes to tighten my center stone (I've seen this done before and it's literally takes under a minute to tighten a stone). It was about 1:50pm in the afternoon. I said I had to be on my way at about 2:30pm so that would work out perfectly if I just waited and shopped around in the store.
Maybe he didn't expect me to be waiting around to see how "busy" he was, doing... pretty much jackshit... but when another customer came in, he had a 30 minute conversation with him about basketball. W.T.F.!?!? I just stood there waiting and "shopped around". He was fully aware that I had to go at 2:30pm, but decided to be a jerk anyway and made me wait until the very last minute. Finally when 2:30pm rolls around, he goes to the back, spends a few minutes on my ring and then comes back out with it... and said that my wedding band would take longer. I was fine with that because at this point I was already late and just had to go. When I asked the same sales lady approximately when it would be ready, she hesitantly turned around to ask the guy and then changed her mind immediately. She turned back around to me and said she would call me when it was ready. I got a call 5 days later! 5 DAYS!!!
Never again. STAY FAR AWAY from this place! read more