Advice on dealing with jewelry store/jeweler

[AylaM]

So I wrote not to long ago about wanting to buy a pre-owned pearl ring.  I bought it and as part of the warranty I got it re-sized, free, through the store.  The picture is below.



The store sends the jewelry out to be worked on, and I got the ring back on Friday.  I noticed that the pearls were backwards and had obviously been moved.  My assumption was that as the ring needed to be cut to be re-sized the gems had been removed for safekeeping.

I brought it up in a questioning way, asking if the jeweler had to remove them in order to cut the ring for resizing.  The lady called the jeweler and asked specifically if he had done so.  He said no and that doing so would only make more work for him.

I thanked the lady and began to think that, perhaps, I had remembered the ring wrong and I took it home.  I looked at the image of the ring and saw that, yes, the pearls had been switched.  And he was lying.  I was thinking about bringing in the image of the ring.  But wasn't sure if it would do any good.  It is an image of that make of the ring, but not my ring specifically.

Now I'm not sure what to do.  Because he lied to me about this and I am not sure why.  And I think that bugs me more than anything.  I've grown to like the ring even with the pearls switched, but this is bugging me now.

So, again, I'm not sure what to do.  And would appreciate the advice of someone who might have more insight into this.  I want to assume that the jeweler is just lazy or busy and didn't want to switch the pearls back, so lied about removing them int he first place.

Would a jeweler need to remove the stones to re-size the ring?

ETA: The ring is (so I was told by the store, I'd never know) 14k white gold with FW cultivated pearls.  It did have a 14k engraved mark before resizing.  So I suppose what I'm really hoping for is for someone to tell me that it isn't worth enough for someone to do the work to modify the ring and that the jeweler is, in fact, just trying to get out of having to switch the pearls back.  Which is what I suspect, but I want to hear it from someone else, I guess.

[Zilla]

I think because you have to look at it every day, it will remind you that this person lied to you and thus ruining the pleasure of the ring.  I would insist they fix it and restore it.

[Thipu1]

Amen, Zilla.

It's unfortunate, but true, that people who send out jewelry to be repaired don't always get back the same item.  A similar thing has been known to happen to people who send art out to be cleaned. 

Is there any way to make sure that the pearls are the same pearls you sent?   

I hate to sound cynical but the OP already knows that she was told a lie. 

I wouldn't let this pass.

[snowfire]

It is quite possible that the pearls were removed before sizing the ring.  Pearls are rather fragile and the heat from the jewelers torch while they were soldering it after sizing could have quite probably damaged them.  There are quite a few stones that are very sensitive to heat.  I would go back to the jeweler with the picture of the ring, insist that they put the pearls back as they should be for no cost, then never return to that jeweler again. 

Pearls of that size are not so expensive that I can see someone switching them in order to substitute lower quality ones.  I think they just messed up putting it back together and are trying to cover a mistake. 

To me, the issue is not that the pearls were removed and reset, it is that you have been lied to. 

[AylaM]

Pearls of that size are not so expensive that I can see someone switching them in order to substitute lower quality ones.  I think they just messed up putting it back together and are trying to cover a mistake. 

To me, the issue is not that the pearls were removed and reset, it is that you have been lied to.

Thanks,  that is good to hear from someone else.  My understanding was that the pearls were about the lowest quality you can get without going to plastic.    I knew when I went in that most of the value was in the gold.

But my brain just kept thinking of reasons for the jeweler to have lied.  Didn't they think that they'd be caught out?  Maybe the fact that it was phrase as a question gave them some sense of security? 

[NyaChan]

I too would go back and point out that the stones aren't in the right place and have actually been moved.  As for reasons why they lied?  It could be as simple as him having messed up what he was supposed to do and then trying to cover it by lying, or maybe he did remove the stones as part of sizing it and then when you asked about it, was worried about getting in trouble for putting it back wrong.

[kglory]

My suspicious mind would wonder if the jeweler took off your pearls, stole them, put on fakes (accidentally forgetting which color went on which side), and then shipped it back to you! 

Especially so because the jeweler doing the modifications did not have any personal dealings with you -- they were a 3rd party being contracted the work.

Now, this is probably not the case, but I'd always be suspicious.  So I'd probably bring the ring to an independent appraiser to verify that the pearls and the gold are real.

[Malaika]

So it did have a 14k mark on it before and it doesn't now?  Was the mark in a place for it to have been "cut out" (so to speak)?  Maybe I'm a too suspicious but I'd worry if that was even the same ring.  Is there a way to test for the quality of gold? 

[lady_disdain]

In any larger shop, this sort of work would be done with a laser welder, which would not require the removal of the pearls, since it doesn't use heat to solder.

In my experience, the salesperson in the store called the workshop and spoke to the supervisor, not the benchperson who did the actual work. In such workshops, there might be ten or more benches, all working in parallel. So, the benchperson removes the pearls (my guess is that the epoxy holding them was degrading, since it is a vintage piece) and replaces them in the wrong position. The supervisor is asked about removing the pearls and, instead of asking the benchperson (who might be working on something that can't be interrupted, not be in at that point, etc), he just thinks "resizing? no need to remove pearls" and sticks his foot in his mouth.

As for testing the gold, I would't bother. The work to make a new ring and pave set the stones (which is very labour intensive) would not be worth it for some grams of 14k gold. Making an exact copy of a ring is not easy or fast.

[wheeitsme]

Just a note on the pearls (I adore pearls)...There are different levels of cultured pearls.  When you go to help the mollusk make the pearl, you put a little seed of something in the muscle of the mollusk to start the nacre process.  How large the seed is and how much nacre you let the mollusk put on the seed determines how valuable the pearl is. 

Cheap cultured pearls have a large seed and a thin layer of nacre.  Higher quality cultured pearls use a smaller seed and allow for the time it takes to put more layers of nacre so that the pearl is more nacre and less seed.

And natural pearls are the most expensive of all.  They have no "seed".  Just an "irritation" and layers upon layers of nacre.