Jared the Galleria of Jewelery Terrible Experience Dayton, Ohio

My recent experience at Jareds started on 21 Aug. 2012.  I purchased a 14K gold signet ring for my wife online (from a different store) for our 5^th anniversary and took it to Jared for engraving.  In addition, I needed a new letter engraved on the top of the ring and wanted the finish on the outside of the ring changed from a gloss to a satin finish.  The people at Jareds did work with me to get the right font for the top of the ring and the style for the change in the finish.  Unfortunately that is where the positive experience ended.  The engraving on the inside of the ring had a grammatical error (a missing s in a quote.)  I admit that I failed to catch the error and approved the engraving, but when a $440.00 gold ring is brought into a jeweler, I would expect an employee to check both the spelling and grammar to make sure they are correct.  The employees did not check the grammar and spelling either before or after engraving.  We even counted letters to center the engraving and no one mentioned what should have been an obvious error.

I picked up the ring on the 24^th and kept it in a box until the afternoon my wife and I were getting ready to go out for our anniversary dinner.  She noticed the error and was appropriately upset.  I took the ring back into the store at around 6:00 pm to have it corrected.  While they did agree to do the correction at no charge, they refused to do it that day.  I offered to pay extra to expedite the repair and to pay for the engraving again.  Not caring about my distress or what was sure to be a ruined anniversary, the store employee refused to even entertain my offer.  They assured me that the ring would be ready the next day (Saturday.)  This was very important since we were leaving Sunday morning to go out of the country for our anniversary.  Because of their unreasonable refusal to immediately correct the engraving , our anniversary dinner was ruined.

I went the next day to pick up the ring at around 6:30, and when I got it home and gave it to my wife at around 7:45pm, my wife noticed that while the quote was correct, the date was now wrong.  This time the error was fully the fault of the jeweler.  The slip where I approved the engraving clearly had the date correct.  Once the mistake was found I took the ring back in that night to have it corrected.  Since they promised that the ring would be ready that day I expected them to do whatever they could to correct their mistake.  The store was open when I arrived at around 8:00 pm, but all of the jewelers had reportedly left.  They told me that they could not get the ring fixed.  I asked them to call the jeweler to come in and fix their mistake, but was informed that the store manager did not control the jeweler department.  I insisted that they call the manager of the jeweler department and was told that they could not call anyone in.  I corrected them and told them they would not and that if they wanted to fix the problem they could, but they were choosing not to.  The store manager also refused to let me speak to the manager of the jeweler department.  At this time they made a note in their file that they would give a full refund and correct the ring, which would include filling the ring to replace the gold that had been lost due to the multiple engravings and grindings back to what the ring was when I first brought it into the store.  Due to the managers refusal to correct their mistake we did not have a correct ring to take on our anniversary trip, thus ruining our anniversary for the second time.

We returned from our anniversary trip today and I took the ring in to, hopefully, have it repaired and correctly engraved.  When I took the ring in I asked to have it weighed to make sure that they filled the ring to replace the gold that was lost.  I was told by the salesperson that they did not have a scale available to weigh the ring.  They assured me that they would fill the ring and I informed them of what the weight of the ring was when I bought it (4.3 grams.)  I told them that I wanted to make sure that it was back to the weight when I first brought the ring in.  I left, but shortly afterwards returned to the store with my own scale and my wife.  When she asked to jeweler for a scale they were able to bring one out almost immediately, so I was lied to when I was told that they did not have a scale.  The ring weighed in at 4.0 grams, and I again made it clear that I wanted the ring returned to the weight when I first brought it in to the store.  I left it with then after being assured that it would be completed that day to our satisfaction.  They called about five hours later to say that the ring was completed and that it had been filled to weight the same amount as it had when it was brought in that day, 4.0 grams which was not what I had agreed to or had been told.  I should note that this difference in gold is worth about $10.  I said that this was unacceptable and that we had been told that the ring would be returned to the weight when we first brought it in, not what it weighed that morning.  I understand that the engravings and finishing would remove some gold, but that should not account for 7% of the weight of the ring.  They called their customer care office and after the store manager spoke with them I was informed that the gold weight lost was fully due to the engraving and finishing work done and that they had gone above and beyond what they needed to do to correct the issues with their work.  Given the amount of gold lost, I do not believe that this is correct. 

While I admit my error in the first engraving (which someone at the store should have caught and asked me if I was sure the quote was correct) the fact that they put the wrong date on the second engraving, promised that they would correct the problem and refill the ring, and then failed to keep to their agreement is highly disappointing and arguably unethical.  The store employee lied to me regarding whether a scale was available to weigh the ring.  It is unacceptable that Jared refused to have the ring correctly engraved at the time promised.  It is unacceptable that Jared refused to fix the ring for an additional charge and the same initial engraving fee in an expedited manner the first time it was wrong.  It is unacceptable that Jared did not fix the ring while I waited after their employee engraved the WRONG DATE on the inscription.  I highly recommend against Jared Jewelers as a result of this horrible experience.