Last post I talked about how diamond shopping in jewelry stores could be hazardous to your wallet by misrepresenting a grading of a diamond. They aren’t the only ones who use practices that aren’t quite up to snuff when trying to sell a diamond. There are other times when diamond shopping could be hazardous to your wallet.
Diamond Shopping in Ports of Call
There is something about being on vacation that puts us in a buying mood, and those duty free shops that are lined up when you get off the cruise ship know that. They are waiting to lure you in with great prices on name brand items that you will take home tax-free. But are they really great deals? Sometimes they are, but you always need to look at the fine print before you make a purchase.
An Alaskan Cruise – A True Story
One of the stops on the cruise was Juneau. When the boat docked, the man and his wife step off the boat and are greeted with a street full of shops. He and his wife step into a famous chain of International Diamond Stores to check it out and possibly do some diamond shopping.
While schmoozing with the salesman, who is winning them over, as well as being caught up in the moment of shopping in Alaska and celebrating 20 years of wedded bliss, they decide to buy a 1 Carat H color SI2 solitaire for $4,000 that was not certified.
The man liked that this diamond is less than the diamond he saw at home, but asked about the return policy. He was told that he cannot return the diamond, but he can exchange it at any time for a comparable or more expensive diamond. Also, because this diamond is not certified, on the back of the sales slip, there was a written warranty that that the diamond will grade within one color and one clarity grade at any certification lab.
Because this jewelry store in located in every major sea port and he has this warranty of the diamond being graded within in one grade of color and clarity he feels it is a good deal and buys the stone for his wife.
When the man returns home, he asks his local jeweler to remove the diamond and send it in to the GIA. A week later he receives the unfortunate news that the diamond is an I color and an I1. The local jeweler tells him that the diamond is worth $2500. Since the laboratory grade is within one grade of color and one grade of clarity from what it was represented to be, the man is unable to get his money back from the jeweler in Alaska.
Deceiving Diamond Shoppers
I have actually encountered this exact scenario repeatedly. In fact, enough times that I am convinced that it is not an accident and that an international chain of jewelry stores is deliberately misgrading their diamonds by exactly one color and one clarity grade so that they can take advantage of cruise ship customers and deceiving diamond shoppers in every major seaport.
It’s fun to go shopping with your spouse while on vacation, but you should ask yourself if, given the lack of recourse, the purchasing decision that you are making is made with the same or more caution than you would exercise at home.
It is heartbreaking for us when one of our customers is taken advantage of by an out of town jeweler. We believe in the importance of developing a personal trusting relationship with our customers so that we can insure the likelihood of repeat business. If you are on vacation and really want to go diamond shopping, you can always give us a call and we can tell you if we think you are getting a true deal or not.
