In November of in good faith I purchased at the Meridian, ID store, a pair of 14k white gold 1ctw Princess cut diamond earrings, which I kept in the original box they came in, then as a proactive security measure to protect my valuables, I stored them in my personal safe, until when for personal reasons I changed my mind about keeping them.
I went back to the store with the intention to return them, where the store manager, Josh Wittchow, performed an inspection on the diamonds (test I wasn't aware of since I'd never returned any piece of jewelry before), to my great astonishment he told me that they weren't diamonds but CUBIC ZIRCONIA! I was so appalled just to think that they even came with a Gemological Science International report and also that I had paid over $2,000 for them. Nevertheless, He did not take them back or gave me a refund for the fake diamonds but offered to communicate with their Loss Prevention Department and with the supplier of the diamonds to find out where the real ones were at.
Now after what happened to me, I question why is that jewelers only perform quality check on their diamonds when they've been returned, but not when the customer is buying them to guarantee they're selling to the customer what they say it is? What is really appalling to me is the fact that if it wasn't for the fact that I decided to return them, I'd had never found out their Sales Associate put fake merchandise in the box. I'm not expert on diamonds and to me anything that shines under their lights is a diamond.
So far FRED MEYER JEWELERS Corporate hasn't done any investigation to get to the bottom of the problem. When all this just had happened, I sent a written complaint to Peter M. Engel, President and he in reply delegated the problem to Abir Elaimy, Regional Supervisor, who called me not to settle the complaint but just to tell me they were a "very reputable nationwide jewelers" and that their employees were diamond certified. She even got very upset when I brought up the issue of the employee who might have swapped the merchandise and then suggested I did the swap at my home! She was the rudest person I have ever dealt with. They are not even willing to go over all the security tapes surrounding the dates since they received the earrings from their supplier until the date of the sale.
I had filed a consumer complaint with the Attorney General Office of Idaho in hopes of obtaining some legal support, and have Fred Meyer Jewelers take my fraud complaint seriously. Unfortunately, that was not the case here. For the AGO to take action against this company or any other (to proceed to investigate any further and protect my rights as a consumer), it needs to have more than 1 complaint and so far mine is the only one. I'm sure there are more people out there who just like me, bought merchandise from this company and innocently thought they got diamonds but instead received cubic zirconium, but unfortunately they don't know yet.
On their response to the AGO, Fred Meyer mentioned to show the videos of my visits to the store. How can they be 100% certain they gave me diamond earrings if they have not reviewed their surveillance videos from the date they received those particular earrings until the day they were sold to me? They may just discover that they in fact did not perform the "rigorous quality check" they say they did before I bought the diamond earrings; or perhaps, that the sales associate did not show me the merchandise she put in the store bag before she gave it to me. I am 100% certain I've been a victim of fraud here.
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