I don't even know where to start. I held off on this review for several months while trying to…read moreresolve the issues I had with this jeweler, but things just kept getting worse and worse. To be fair I did notify this jeweler that I would be writing this review, so this should not come as a surprise.
Several months ago my mom and I were walking through the mall and she happened to walk by a display with a certain ring that caught her eye. (back story, my mom sold her wedding ring almost 40 years ago because we did not have enough money when we moved to the states, and my dad passed away a few years ago and she's really wanted to purchase a ring to wear). She went inside the store and asked about the ring and the salesman said that it was $10K, that was too expensive for my mom as she's 77 and on a fixed income, so the salesman said that he could try to call the owner and see if he could go down on the price. Not 2 minutes later he came back from his phone call and said that he had great news, the owner said we could have it for 30% off! Now, that sounds great on the surface, but it gets ugly fast. My mom agreed to the price, as her adrenaline was going at full speed at this point, and I didn't intervene because for once I told myself, let her enjoy this and let her finally get a ring. She paid for the ring and we were told to come pick it up the next day. I asked if we would be receiving a Certification and we were assured that we definitely would.
After my mom got home, the adrenaline wore off, she realized that it was going to take her years to pay this off, and instant panic set it..so she thought to herself that we would go back to the store and tell the gentleman that she had buyer's remorse and surely if she explained the situation they would understand. The owner was there and he refused. He said that she could "exchange" it for another ring but she would have to choose a higher priced item. WHAT? How does that solve her problem or make any sense? We practically begged, which was embarrassing in and of itself, but he wouldn't budge. He recommended that we just do a private sale. When I asked for the certification he said that it doesn't come with one. I told him that the salesman said that it would and he said no, it doesn't come with any official certification but he would draft an appraisal himself and send it to me immediately. Well, one week passed and no appraisal had arrived. I called the store and asked for the owner and made another plea with him to please return the ring, and he became annoyed and quite rude. The situation escalated, admittedly partly by me because he was being so aggressive, and he ended up hanging the phone up on me.
I decided I would just try to sell the ring and be done with him. Well, I went to 4 different jewelers and they ALL looked at me like I was crazy for paying that much for the ring that my mom bought. They said they wouldn't even consider purchasing it from us for even $3000, and the kicker? The ring had a crack where the raised part attached to the main ring. Mind you my mom had never worn the ring. They said it wasn't even worth half the money we paid for it. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE OF THEM. We tried putting it up on ebay for half the price and didn't get a single inquiry. We made a hail Mary move and did what we never do, and filed a claim with her credit card company, which obviously did not work to our favor.
Last week we returned to the store to see if he would just let us do an even exchange for the ring, because at this point my mom didn't even want to look at it anymore. There was so much stress involved with trying to deal with this that she didn't even want to put it on her finger. This was supposed to replace the most special gift she had received from my dad, and instead she just wanted to tuck it in a dark corner and never look at it.
The owner wasn't in the store but the SAME salesman (who didn't remember who we were) suddenly sympathized with our situation and said that he would call the owner. He came back and said the owner said that he would exchange it for something but we would have to choose something that was DOUBLE the price. This, clearly, was an intentional spit in the face and F you to us. How vile of a human being do you have to be to do this? I understand this is a business, but humanity should also still exist. I just about lost it in that store. Another gentleman standing by and listening, his name was Hovig, walked over and said that he would talk to the owner himself and that he would call me the next day. Days later and no phone call.
For God's sake stay away from these people. Go to a jewelry store and deal with a jeweler that has an ounce of humanity left in his soul. I'm no softy and I do believe that policies are in place for a reason. But I do also believe that there are special circumstances and OWNERS of their own company should always consider these things.
STAY AWAY.
