Background:
I purchased a platinum custom ring from Jared's on 7/18, at a charge of $2,160. The Extended Service Plan was purchased for this ring at the same time for $149.99. The ring was using heirloom diamonds (ten round cut diamonds, approx. 1ctw), given to my wife by her grandmother. It was her family's wish to use those stones in her wedding band. The ring was to be ready for pick up just before my wedding date - I took delivery of the ring on 8/30, and our wedding was the next day, 9/1.
I knew the ring wasn't quite right when I picked it up initially, but with the wedding the next day, there was no time for any repair of the custom ring. This led my wife and I to return to the store on 9/2 to speak with the custom ring shop to fix some initial issues we had with the ring. These initial issues included:
- The ring was not symmetrical. The ring was not circular inside or out, and looked off balance, with one side of the ring thicker and wider than the other. To be plain, the ring was not round. This issue can still be seen on the ring as it is today.
- The ten diamonds were not placed in any real order, and the amount of metal around the stones was not even, giving the ring a 'thrown together' look. This also caused future problems.
First Repair: September
To resolve the issues, the only thing the shop would do was machine out the inside of the ring to make it rounder. I asked that the ring be remade due to how asymmetrical it looked, but the store refused. They machined the inside of the ring and also cleaned up some of the metal around the stones, but the ring still looked off. We took delivery of the ring back on 9/7. We really weren't that happy with the ring, but the store said they couldn't do anything more to fix it.
Second Repair: January
A little more than a year later, one of the stones fell out. When we took it back to the store in early January we found out that all the stones but one were very loose. When we spoke to the store manager regarding the construction of the ring, he immediately put us on the defensive and insisted it was our fault, as I had a ring designed that wasn't very secure.
To be clear, I had never seen a wax mold of the ring when it was constructed, and was never offered the opportunity to. The design of the ring was suggested by the staff at the store when I purchased it in July. Now, they say, this ring should never have been made with such a design using heirloom diamonds, contradicting their own in-house designer. Regardless, the store needed to correct the situation.
I again requested that the ring be remade - melted down and recast, but they refused a second time. They took the ring, reset all of the stones, and added a bit of metal in between each stone for additional security.
Keep in mind this is the same store that created the ring in the first place. We picked up the ring around January 17, and were happier with the way the ring looked, although still not perfect.
Problem Today:
Sometime within the last two months, my wife noticed something odd with her platinum custom wedding band, repaired twice by the Wegmans Plaza store. The additional metal that was added in between the diamonds on the band was beginning to tarnish. After looking at it more and more over the next few weeks, we have come to realize the extra metal that was added to our platinum band was in fact white gold. Not only is the ring now contaminated, which ruins the integrity of the platinum band, to add insult to injury, another stone fell out.
This is completely unacceptable. After some investigation, we found out there are no seats in the prongs for the stones, nothing is symmetrical, and now of the remaining 9 stones, 4-5 are loose, 2 are very loose, and the last two seem to be still OK. The Wegmans Plaza store is the only place the ring has ever been serviced. After the store has had the chance to fix the ring twice, they only succeeded in contaminating the ring as well as losing two of my wife's grandmother's diamonds, which cannot be replaced.
This ring is beyond repair at this point, and I am requesting that I return the ring, have the store return my remaining diamonds, and refund the full purchase price of the ring ($2,160) as well as the Extended Service Plan sold with the ring ($150). As a repeat customer, and due to the nature of the issues, I expect that my refund be granted.
We called Jared Customer Service on Monday Feb 2 to raise our issues with a service representative. We spoke with a Joe at extension 6379. After explaining the situation and the irreparable damage done to the ring caused by your store, he blatantly refused the possibility of any refund, and refused to let us speak to a manager. This obviously is not acceptable and need to escalate the matter further.
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