My wife and I recently had a very bad experience with a jewelry store that destroyed one of our wedding rings and refused to compensate us for its replacement value. For our anniversary, my wife wanted to have a copy of my wedding band (which was in yellow gold) made in white gold. Our wedding rings were custom designed when we were married, so the original ring would be used to make a mold to create the new copy.
In September we took the original ring to Haltom's Jewelers a small chain of jewelry stores (5 locations) locally owned in Fort Worth, Texas. We worked with one of their sales associates to make sure the order was accurate. We also requested the return of the original ring intact and were assured this would be done. We were never told there was any danged of the original ring being damaged or destroyed.in fact, the sale associate wrote up the value of the original ring at $2000 on the work order.
When the finished new ring was completed in mid-November the original ring was not in the envelope with the new ring. The sales associate said she would e-mail the person that did the work and get the ring back in about a week. The work on the new white gold ring was fine.
Three days later, we received a call that the original ring was essentially destroyed by the person making the mold.in their words there was not much left. We were offered $300 for the scrap value of the ring originally valued at $2000.
I e-mailed the store's President at their corporate office, but the e-mail was intercepted by their vice president. She offered three options return of the remnants of the original ring, creation of a brand new ring to replace it, or $700. Returning the remnants of what they destroyed did not seem like any compensation. And after this experience, we did trusty them to create a new replacement ring without destroying the white gold replica. We decided financial compensation was the only option left.
However, Haltom's Jewelers continually refused to reimburse us for the replacement value of the ring. We had an appraisal that was done when the ring was created in 1986 which valued it at roughly $1200. Using today's gold prices, the current value was estimated at between $1400 and $1800. When we requested $1400 instead of $700, Haltom's refused to respond. We proposed splitting the difference and proposed a $1000 settlement still no response. Since the ring was covered by a personal articles insurance policy, we contacted the insurer to get the replacement value of the destroyed ring and instructed the insurer to seek compensation from Haltom's.
Throughout this experience, Haltom's exhibited a complete disregard for the emotional and financial value of the ring. They referred to it as scrap after they were responsible for destroying it. Basically, they took no responsibility for their actions.
It is our experience that Haltom's Jewelers cannot be entrusted with anything of value. It was never our intent to trash the original ring and we feel that they should have compensated us fort this loss. We never sought any type of punitive damages. It seems that this loss should have been covered by Haltom's business insurance, but they consistently treated us as if this were somehow our fault. Any money they might have saved in not compensating us for the loss were been forfeited in the form of future sales from us as returning customers.
We will never set foot in this store again. Haltom's representatives may not have been intentionally deceptive, but they were obviously ill-informed and inept. We ultimately paid the price.
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