Diamond Designs by the McNeills

This customer indeed had two stones tightened in July of 2016 and we do typically warranty our work performed for six months. Ms. [redacted] did call prior to bringing her ring in and advised the staff member (Robin) that her prong had been “retipped”. She was told to bring it in and we would look at...

it and go from there. When she brought the ring in at the end of December, she also advised the staff member ([redacted]) “retipped”. Retipping a prong is something that jewelers do when a prong is so worn down or broken that we put a new tip on the prong so that it covers the diamond properly. After she left we pulled her original ticket to find that we had only tightened the stones, not retipped anything. Tightening is just a “snugging up” of a prong so that it holds a gemstone securely. This ring was designed in such a way that there was only one outer prong holding the diamond in place (demonstrated by the loose stones to begin with) and is not a very sensible design. When she brought her ring in we were able to determine that the outer prong that held the stone in was broken in a manner that allowed the stone to come out. Prongs are made of metal and it does take some manner of force or effort to break one off. We cannot be responsible for what people do to their jewelry when it is out of our hands. When our owner ([redacted]) called Ms. [redacted] to inform her that we would not be replacing her stone for free, she became belligerent and the phone she was calling on was cutting in and out, so communication was difficult. When Ms. [redacted] came into our store she was speaking loudly, being physically intimidating causing [redacted] to have to step back from our counter and threatened to call police. We had several customers in the store as well. A third party also attempted to private message [redacted] over Facebook. The third party was telling [redacted] that she needed to make this right because that's what her father and uncle (who have passed away) would do. We tried to explain to her calmly that if she took it back where she got it (it was not purchased from us) that perhaps her warranty would cover it or her homeowner’s insurance. She then advised us that the ring was eleven years old. We simply cannot replace for free a diamond lost in an 11 year old ring that was not bought from us and that was worn under unknown conditions. This is why part of our repair ticket states “Because good repair practices cannot overcome poor construction, inherent design flaws and metal fatigue due to wear, we cannot guarantee items purchased elswhere.” (See attachment for our repair envelope) We performed a normal maintenance task and nearly six months later she broke a prong. You could liken this to a service garage rotating someone’s tires and the customer blaming them when they get a flat six months later. We are very sorry that this happened to her and were going to try and offer her a compromise simply because we are not heartless, but due to her actions, threats and unwillingness to listen, we would prefer that she not visit us again.