August 2009

My fiance and I are going through a really stressful situation with my engagement ring, here it goes:

My fiance paid nearly 10,000 (au) for my engagement ring. It is a solitaire marquis cut with a very high colour (E – second best) and a good cut. The clarity was an S12 but the jeweler reassured us that the inclusions wouldnt be visible, as did the GIA diamond certificate!

Unfortunately after a while of wearing the ring, we realised we have been ripped off. there are black dots (refered to as ‘black pepper’) in the diamond fully visible and we paid 10,000 for this ring!!

We are soooo angry and upset, as its a really sensitive thing for me. I cant bare to see these terrible inclusions on a ring that my fiance paid so much for, i couldnt care if it was a cheap ring but we deserve better!

We have been given 2 options:
- get in another diamond with the same specs no visible inclusions (how can we trust it)
- get a refund

The problem is with a refund that it was a rare design my engagement ring the setting and i know i wouldnt be able to replicate it but how can i trust his word?

If anyone lives in Sydney and could give me a good place for high quality diamonds and rings to go to that would help heaps!!

I am really upset and i would like to know what would you do???
Kelly – Oh my gosh. Gregorys is what I am talking about lol
o0mrsavi: thanks for your advice but i definately educated myself on the 4Cs so this was not our fault, even the jeweler was suprised at what he saw, and it was not a figure of my imagination – geez!
epsilon: it never actually showed up until the diamond was dirty. it is very very hard to see when it is just clean and sparkly, thats the problem with pepper! i did trust his word and that is my mistake, but these inclusions werent even marked on the GIA cert unfortunately. i guess its the pick of the bunch!

I’m terribly sorry you are going through this. Its must be a very trying time with so much emotion involved.

I would be getting a refund for 2 reasons.

1. You don’t know whether this will happen again and whether he will be so willing to refund the next time!
2. It could take awhile to find you an eyeclean stone..your money will be tied up. He needs to find the stone first, then you pay.

When shopping for diamonds you need to look at the stone under a jewelers loupe of 10x magnification. Most jewelers have at least 30x magnifier in their shops. Did the jeweler loupe the stone himself?

Can you take some detailed photographs of the setting before returning it. Most skilled benchman can replicate something fairly accurately given a photo.

You could always try purchasing the diamond and setting or just the diamond online. There are many trusted online vendors who will run a stone through very stringent tests, give you high magnification photos and when they tell you the stone is eyeclean – it will be! They will also work to your definition of eyeclean.

Some vendors online offer a 10 day money back guarantee, a 1 year buy back at a % of original purchase price and a lifetime upgrade policy.

You could try these guys.

http://whiteflash.com
http://goodoldgold.com

If you link to this website http://www.pricescope.com you will find Australians who have purchased online and talk about their experience in doing so…

Take heart…it is possible to find an eyeclean SI2 with a little patience.

I hope this issue is resolved quickly so you can put this all behind you.

IdealD

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