On March 25th I took my wedding set to the Zales store in Southwest Plaza in Littleton Colorado to be cleaned. When the young sales girl brought me my rings back she handed me the two rings and a business card with one of my diamonds taped on it. I asked what had happened. She said she didn't know all she knew was it came out of the cleaning machine with the diamond no longer in the ring. I asked her what they were going to do to fix it. She told me I needed to talk to the manager. This is where the real fight began.
I walked over to where the manager was and he asked to see the ring. I handed it to him and he said "Sorry" in a very rude tone. I asked him what they were going to do to fix the ring and he told me "Nothing" I asked why. He said " We cleaned the ring as a courtesy and are not liable for this. The stone was going to fall out eventually" I asked if I had signed a waiver of liability and he said " Nobody in the industry has a waiver for cleaning" I said "Where are the signs saying you are not responsible for stones falling out?" He said "We don't have any signs" I told him that without either of those there is am implied liability. He told me I was ignorant and didn't know anything. He then asked if I was willing to pay to have the ring fixed and I told him that if I had to pay to have it fixed it would not be at Zales. I then had to ask for him to return my ring and diamond back to me which he then tossed on the counter and started to walk away. As I was leaving I told him to be sure to look for the report on usacomplaints.com.
I went to an independent jeweler that I have used in the past and showed him the ring and diamond and told him the story. He told me that he would never put a ring in an ultrasonic cleaner without checking to see if the stones were loose. He said if they didn't check then their statement that the stone would have fallen out later was pure rubbish because they don't know that and if they did check and it was loose then why did they put it in the machine?
I have to say the comment that it would have fallen out eventually reminds me of a question off an old law school test (I didn't go to law school but saw the test while assisting quadriplegic who was attending law school) the question is as follows... A man jumps off a 20 story building. As he is falling past the 6th floor a man shoots him in the head killing him. Since he was going to die when he hit the ground is it murder? Well the answer is yes. Just be cause something will happen eventually doesn't mean you can cause it to happen and not be at fault.
I filed a complaint with Joyce at the corporate office (and she was really nice and sweet no complaints about the customer service from corporate office) and received case #455080. The case was supposed to be escalated to the district manager and I am waiting to hear from him. I will update when/if I hear from Zales regarding my request for reimbursement of the repair costs.
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