Buying diamonds on ebay

[becanddan]

Hi everyone!

This is my first post on here, and basically I''m trying to work out if the earings I have found on ebay are genuine or not.

I live in Australia, and am in the market for a new pari of princess cut diamond earings. The one''s I have found are 40 points in total, colour G VS in 18ct yellow gold. They are listed on ebay, and they state that they come with a IGA certificate but I''m very cautious buying something over the internet.

Could someone please advise what steps I can take to protect myself? The lister said that they provide an independant valuers certificate but how do i know this is for real?

Any help would be appreciated.

Rebecca

 

[Amethyste]

Date: 9/18/2009 10:25:54 PM
Author:becanddan

Hi everyone!

This is my first post on here, and basically I''m trying to work out if the earings I have found on ebay are genuine or not.

I live in Australia, and am in the market for a new pari of princess cut diamond earings. The one''s I have found are 40 points in total, colour G VS in 18ct yellow gold. They are listed on ebay, and they state that they come with a IGA certificate but I''m very cautious buying something over the internet.

Could someone please advise what steps I can take to protect myself? The lister said that they provide an independant valuers certificate but how do i know this is for real?

Any help would be appreciated.

Rebecca

Hello there Rebecca!

Believe it or not, I bought my 5.13CT yellow pear over Ebay. I bought cars, furniture etc in my life, but I have never spent that much money on something like my diamond. The highest $$$ transaction I ever spent, and I had to fall in love with one that was on Ebay. Oh boy! I sent several emails to the seller, she replied with all theinformation I asked for. THen i asked her to call me. She did, we talked for a little bit about my concerns which was mostly to return the stone if it didn''t check out with the GIA cert that was enclosed with it. She sad I had a 7 days return policy. I pretty much went with what I "felt". I felt it was a good transaction and decided to go for it. They had 100% feedback and looked at the other items that they sold and they were high priced rolexes and tiffany stuff as well. So my pear was right up there...

I am not sure about IGA certificate... did you mean GIA? What you could do, is to take the earring over to an independant jeweler ( yours ) once you get the them to make sure that they are what they are compared to the cert. Make sure they hae a good return policy. Shipping something from Australia involves more risks and to cover yourself if the item is lost in transit is more difficult.

Do you have a picture or an image of the cert so we can check for you? We are helpful people here

 

[diamondringlover]

I also bought a ring off ebay (not like Amethyste stunning pear

) but a wedding band with .75 ct of round diamonds and like you I was really scared because you dont know what you are getting...the ring I bought had NO return policy so I was really kinda of affraid, but I went for it, I sent several emails to the seller, my ring also had a cert, but it was an off company that I had never heard of, but at least it had a cert, so after deciding to go for it, I made sure I paid for mine thru paypal with my credit card, that way there were several recourses if what I bought wasnt what it was suppose to be. Once I got the ring (it was stunning by the way) I contacted an independent appraiser that was listed here on Pricescope and had it appraised, the cert that came with the ring was not accurate, but it wasnt to far off and I ended up getting one heck of deal

I know people get burned on ebay, but there are some people who dont, good luck.

 

[denverappraiser]

The thing to remember about ebay is that ebay doesn’t sell diamonds. They sell advertising. You’re not buying from ebay, you’re buying from some merchant or individual who chose to advertise there. Some of them are stand up folks and some of them are crooks and ebay does next to nothing to filter them for you. You MUST assess the merits of the seller yourself. It makes no more sense to lump them all together and say you got it on ebay than it does to lump together all merchants with a telephone and then pin responsibility for success or failure of a deal on the phone company.

Neil Beaty
GG(GIA) ICGA(AGS) NAJA
Professional Appraisals in Denver