Buyer Beware!!

[garycarla]

There are so many places to buy jewelry right here in the US. Why do people continue to spend hard earned money on stuff in a foreign country where you have little or no chance to return it? Geez!

 

By the way, I guy foreign cars, but only at home where I can talk to the seller, not overseas.

 

Geez.

[bilgeboyPa]

So I missed a zero..I typed too fast :D. Sorry. Gee Wiz :D.A thousand pardons and 5 Mia Culpas'

 

Cya

Jeff

[Blue332]

Nerdgirl

 

I think this was already asked, what store did you have good luck with in the past.

Blue

[dog]

I met someone recently who had a sapphire and diamond ring made in st. maarten and had it appraised in toronto. it was appraised at twice the price paid. and it is beautiful.

[hermang]

I think the answer is really simple.

1. Most jewelers in the USA despite what they say do not know much about Tanzanite or many of the gems found in the caribbean.

2. at a bare minimum you can save about 26% over US prices.

3. If you buy from cruiseline recommended stores other than buyers remorse you ARER protected.

4. There are more jewelry stores in St Thomas with more selection than most major cities.

 

We have bought jewelry on most of the island and the only time we thought we were taken was because a misguided friend bought a piece of schlock from a non recommended jeweler and convinced my wife we over paid too. Ship got us 90% back EVEN though it was basically buyers remorse and my wife has NEVER found a more beautiful piece since - she is still po'd at our friend.

[Nerdgirl]

I purchased a pair of diamond studs on St. Maartin about 10 years ago at Ballerina Jewelers. Paid $800, they appraised for $1400. I still say buyer beware. With all of the different combinations of color, cut, clarity, etc. its difficult to know what the price should be.

[Lotsacruising]

Because you are on a cruise and in a foreign port, you feel you have to buy something!

Unreal, why anyone would spend that kind of money to buy jewelry in a foreign port when there are perfectly good jewelry stores in your hometown.

I think that anyone naive enough to buy in a foreign port should accept that you are going to get ripped off most of the time. After all, they know that you have very little recourse once the ship leaves the island.

Buyer beware

[britsbest]

I purchased a pair of diamond studs on St. Maartin about 10 years ago at Ballerina Jewelers. Paid $800, they appraised for $1400. I still say buyer beware. With all of the different combinations of color, cut, clarity, etc. its difficult to know what the price should be.

 

Hi

I think the point is that THEY would appraise them at $1400, but would an independant valuer?

[cflutist]

Hermang, I have to respectfully disagree with #1 and #2 of your post.

 

If you are talking about the jewelry stores at the shopping mall. Then yes, the people working there know very little about gemstones, probably because they are just Joe Blow off the street.

 

But if you are talking about Indenpendant jewelry stores staffed with a GG (Graduate Gemologist) or an AGS store staffed with a CG (Certififed Gemologist), I have to disagree with you. These people have extensive education and can tell you that Tanzanite (mineralogical name Zoisite) is normally heat treated, has a Mohs hardness of 6 (which means it shouldn't be worn daily if mounted in a ring), is DR (doubly refractive) meaning it will show two different colors if viewed along different axis (or viewed in a dichroscope), and the best color is vB 6/5 on the GIA grading scale (violetish Blue med-dark tone/strong saturation) etc.

 

#2 - I visited many jewelry stores when on our Southern Caribbean cruise last April and found that the prices were higher with lesser quaility than I paid for my tanzanite ring back home. As I said in a previous post, I found the same to be true about diamonds. Also I found almost all of the sapphires to be too dark/inky for my tastes. If you want to see a fine Kashmir or Burmese sapphire go to Palagems.com and read the tutorial. They have an extensive knowledge base. For more information on Diamonds, go to Pricescope.com. They also have a Price Stat feature where you can price diamonds based on all 4 Cs.

 

Respectfully,

 

Cheryl, Gemologist (GIA) (but work full time in the IT biz)

[KAKcruiser]

It might be a good idea to get a second appraisal. Not all people in the appraisal business are equally qualified. Make sure you do not tell the appraiser what you paid. If you do, the jeweler will try to make you see how you overpaid by buying somewhere else instead of from him.

 

I was very happy with my purchase from Diamond International. But, I did bargain them down.

[Tania]

I have been in many DI stores and have never felt comfortable there. Why? I don't know.

 

Buying stones is a risky business unless you're educated about them. That being said, buying what you like is important too. I'm no gemologist, but after looking for many years, I finally found a Tanzanite ring with a stone that had nice even saturation of the darkish blue/violet colour and great sparkle. Many Tanzanites are so dark, they are dull. I had looked at many over the years, including one on a Princess ship which had a section of clear stone under a loupe.

 

After an hour of haggling, we settled at $1300. I figured I liked the stone enough to risk it. At home, an independent appraiser assigned it triple the value. The jeweler who sold it to me tried to tell me it was a AAA grade but I knew it wasn't and that helped get the price down...the appraiser said it was a AA, still not bad for the price.

 

I'm happy and no, for the reason someone outlined, I don't wear it every day:)

[cflutist]

DI is a US based company with corporate headquarters in NYC. They have 80 retail stores scattered all over the world, and with the exception of Las Vegas, they all seem to be in cruise ports rather than on US soil (other exception is Alaska).

 

Don't need to go on a cruise to buy from them, might as well buy from their website www.shopdi.com

[Baxter]

I generally get a chuckle out of appraisals. I had to get my engagement ring re-appraised for insurance purposes. I went back to the same jeweller who did the initial appraisal 5 years ago. The stone jumped from an S1 to a VS, and increased in size a slight amount. The insurance company thought it was a different ring. I just laughed...

[Pam in CA]

Cheryl... excellent post with good information.

 

Before you purchase any jewelry, do your research and understand what you're looking at and what you're purchasing before flashing the plastic. Understand what the color and clarity grading means and don't depend on the naked eye or what "looks good" to you. Check out what's available in your local jewelry stores or even discount jewelry stores before heading to the Caribbean for your "great deal." Be prepared to bargain and walk away if you know how much you're willing to pay for an item or what you would pay for a similar item at home and they're still too high. Believe me, there's always a "manager" available to give you a better price. Sometimes, a store will even give you a further discount if you pay by traveler's check rather than credit card. If you can show or prove that you are a past customer or have a friend who recommended the shop to you, they'll give you even more of a discount.

[LisaH]

Our friends that cruised with us bought a GORGEOUS diamond band for the upgrade to her original wedding ring. The price started at $27,000 and they ended up somewhere between $7K and $8K. She was thrilled with the ring and did not have time to get it sized while in Antigua as we were sailing in about an hour from when she bought the ring. The appraisal when she returned was not an issue but the sizing was. Turns out that the ring cannot be sized due to the way the diamonds are set...so now she is going to have to have one of those wire things across the back of the ring to make it smaller. Big bummer but at least there is a work-around - just not the ideal one. Let the buyer beware.

 

Can't remember where she got the ring.

[Lady Vidora]

Okay, I know nothing about jewelry. I have two "real" diamond pieces that are not large, but high quality. I only know this because they have been appraised. Anyway, I really don't care if a stone is fake, or synthetic, or whatever as long as the gold is real and the stone is clear, and sparkly, and not obviously fake from a distance. In other words, I probably won't be holding my hands under someone's nose. So, given that, are there any types of stones I should be looking at? With a real stone, how do I tell if it's a good one. I'm primarily interested in diamonds, or diamond lookalikes, but I've also always wanted a ruby.

[RWayne]

Oh good grief. Why the sympathy for a customer who went outside the US to get a "great deal" and instead was taken advantage of? I guess I don't see it. It's OK to take advantage of everyone everywhere so I can get the best deal possible and save as much money as possible, but heaven forbid I don't do my homework and someone does to me what I was trying to do to them?!?!? Then I expect everyone to rally around and cry crocodile tears while I wait "Woe is me"?!?!? Sounds like she got what she deserved. Plenty of reputable people in the US who will give you exactly what you pay for. Maybe instead of the mindset that the backward people in the Caribbean are there to give me more for less, people should realize that ultimately that arrogance will leave you with earrings worth $1000 less than you paid.... No sympathy from me on this one.

[Murphey]

Hey...lighten up folks...we're here to share experiences and help each other out...

[98Charlie]

Oh good grief. Why the sympathy for a customer who went outside the US to get a "great deal" and instead was taken advantage of? I guess I don't see it. It's OK to take advantage of everyone everywhere so I can get the best deal possible and save as much money as possible, but heaven forbid I don't do my homework and someone does to me what I was trying to do to them?!?!? Then I expect everyone to rally around and cry crocodile tears while I wait "Woe is me"?!?!? Sounds like she got what she deserved. Plenty of reputable people in the US who will give you exactly what you pay for. Maybe instead of the mindset that the backward people in the Caribbean are there to give me more for less, people should realize that ultimately that arrogance will leave you with earrings worth $1000 less than you paid.... No sympathy from me on this one.

 

Yikes! I went back and re-read the OP.

• They were on their first cruise.
  
• They went to the ship sponsored port talk that tells of the "great savings", "guaranteed by OUR cruiseline", "best prices in the Caribbean" and believed what she was told.
  
• I don't see where she thought that she was "taking advantage" of anyone. We buy merchandise (clothing, alcohol, and other items) when on cruises because it is a bargain in our opinion. I call it "shopping".
  
• She never asked for sympathy. Just wanted to relate her experience and share with others on the Cruise Critic Board.
  
• Yes, there are plenty of reputable jewelers in the US. And some not so reputable.
  
• I don't read anything that would indicate that she thought she was dealing with "backward people in the Caribbean".
  
• As OP stated, "we found out the hard way ".
  

I don't offer sympathy for the OP mainly because she didn't ask for it. I do agree that if you are going to spend some major bucks that you should research and know what the market is. This is especially true when you are on vacation.

 

Charlie

[MizzCard]

Perhaps you need to send a letter to Princess Headquarters with a copy to Diamonds International corporate offices suggesting that Princess should not openly stear customers to stores that outrageouly take advantage of people.

 

I've been on three cruises, on three different cruise lines to the Caribbean, and every one of them recommends Diamonds International. Actually they recommend all the same stores that are chains throughout the Caribbean.

[98Charlie]

I've been on three cruises, on three different cruise lines to the Caribbean, and every one of them recommends Diamonds International. Actually they recommend all the same stores that are chains throughout the Caribbean.

Remember, they are only "recommended" because they pay the cruise line(s) to be "recommended".

 

Charlie

[skibozo]

Well, we found out the hard way that this was not true, at least for us. I purchased diamond studs for $3900.00. We also purchased a Tanzanite stone and had it set. When we got home we had them appraised for insurance purposes. The Tanzanite appraised for close to what we paid for it. I can live with that. The earrings appraised for $1100.00 less that what we paid. We contacted Princess, they said they did not guarantee the price, just that the stones would be the same carat weight, color, cut, etc. as the certificate that came with the earrings. I did some research and found that on the Diamonds International website earrings very close to what I purchased were $2000.00. When we contacted Diamonds International they offered us in store credit if we sent the earrings back. At this point I just wanted my money back, feeling I had been ripped off. Diamonds International did offer us $350.00, but I didn't feel it was reasonable, since their website offered the same earrings for about half of what I paid.

 

So, I contacted Visa and started a dispute.

a) Where does it say the website price and retail store price has to be the same? DI has different expenses for both, and the website will be cheaper, no rent, utilities, commissioned salespeople, kickbacks to the cruise lines......

 

b) Was the appraisal the same 4C's as the certificate? If so, they were honest with you. Just not on price, but they wouldn't, just like any other retailer. The correct price, on any item at a distinct moment of time, is what a seller is willing to sell it for, and what a buyer is willing to pay. Otherwise either party can walk away from that transaction at that time. Not later.

 

c) Why would Visa repay you? They don't have a lowest price guarantee. If they did, that would help explain the high interest rates on CC's. It's a different story if the certificate was wrong.

 

d) Caveat emptor.

[Blue332]

Nerdgirl

 

Was your Appraisel form and Independent Gemologist or from a store Gemologist.

Blue

[alaskagain]

While we were in port in Skagway last year, Coral Princess, my DH surprised me with a diamond anniversary band from DI. He had been doing his research at home and had this planned. We were celebrating our 20th. I have not had it appraised and don't know if I will. I love it and love how it was given to me. We did get about $300 off the original price. I thought it was reasonable compared to what I had seen at home.

I will admit that some of their prices were ridiculous, and I take the shoppers talk with tongue in cheek. Interesting but you know where it is coming from.

 

We are going back to Alaska in 4 wks, and will probably look but not buy, unless I find that real bargin!

 

Toodles,

[travelgirl913]

When we purchased my engagement ring we researched for months on how to shop for a diamond. We ended up buying one from a jeweler a boss of mine recommended that she went to all the time. My boss took us to her friend to help us out since we were a young couple and the jeweler gave us a written appraisal for $10,000 and we purchased it on a visa card. His prices weren't that much lower than other places but we felt that since my boss was friendly with him we could "trust" him. Well, that was in California and we moved back shortly afterwards to the East Coast. Then had an appraisal done for insurance reasons 2 weeks later. The stone was much lower grade than he represented it as and of course worth much less at $5,000.

Visa did nothing to help us. They said repeatedly over and over you bought a ring and you got a ring, correct. I kept saying no, not the ring we were presented it was. They did not care that the diamond wasn't the clarity, or color we had in writing. I had everything in writing and they did NOTHING for us. The only thing I could have done was take him to small claims court, however I would have had to be present in California which was impossible since we just moved 3,000 miles away, started new jobs and were saving for a wedding.

The truth is unless you are professionally trained in this, looking through the microscope for a diamond it is hard to tell. You have to take the jewelers word and what they provide you in writing. Unfortunately, they aren't always honest. Even the setting this jeweler provided was poorly done and we had to pay a different jeweler $1,500 to have the ring re-set properly before the wedding. All this extra money for a diamond that wasn't worth nearly what we paid for. It was a tough learning experience. Obviously in hind sight I should have purchased the ring where I was going to live permanently so if anything happened I could go in their store every day until they did something about it. Or of course small claims court would be an option then.

The only card that has fought for us was American Express and I wouldn't purchase a diamond again without using their card.

To reply to one of the mean posters on here. The OP wasn't asking for a refund from Visa, they were asking for Visa to get the funds back from the store then credit their account. And if you have high rates on your cards it's not because of things like this, it's because you have poor credit.

Nerdgirl: I hope you have better results with Visa than we did.