Question about Whiteflash and bringing in stones

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"It is also important for the State to inculcate in its subjects an aversion to any 'conspiracy theory of history' for a search for 'conspiracies' means a search for motives and an attribution of responsibility for historical misdeeds."

-Murray N. Rothbard, in The Anatomy of the State



John Swinton [1829-1901] Chief Editorial Writer of the New York Times (Considered "the Dean of his Profession" by his peers), when asked to toast an 'Independent Press' in a gathering at the National Press Club, circa 1880

"There is no such thing in America as an independent press unless it is in the country towns. You know it, and I know it. There is not one of you who dare express an honest opinion. If you express it you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid... for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for doing similar things....

The business of the New York journalist is to distort the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and sell his country and race for his daily bread, or for what is about the same thing, his salary. You know this, and I know it and what foolery to be toasting an 'independent press.' We are tools, and the vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping-jacks. They pull the strings and we dance. Our time, our talents, our lives, our possibilities, all are the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

~~~ When in doubt...don't.~~~

Ellen and diamondseeker already addressed it, but I thought some elaboration may be helpful, leapinghorse?

Some internet diamond sellers are “drop-shippers," meaning the diamond comes from a third-party and the seller never sees the stone...  We are not.  In fact, we refuse to sell a diamond without analyzing it ourselves first.  This is how we are able to offer our 100% lifetime trade-up option; we recommend only those diamonds we've put through the paces and will proudly host in our inventory again.

We have nearly 1000 in-house diamonds, all of which have been examined by our gemologists and have accompanying ideal-scope images, ASET, Sarin & magnified photos.  Suppliers don’t perform these services, so to produce them for an outside diamond (there are 50,000+ on the virtual list) we must bring the stone here - where we'll also inspect it for clarity, durability, fluorescence, cut consistency, brillianteering, etc. etc.

1. If it meets our quality standards we will sell it to you at the advertised price and absorb the charge.
2. If it does not meet our standards (this happens) we recommend against the stone, in which case we eat the charge and continue helping you search.

In almost every case it’s one of the above.  As your rep told you, we do charge when the client requests multiple stones be brought in at the same time (we only charge what we have to pay to bring the un-purchased stones to Houston and back) - or if the client asks for a stone to be brought in, it passes with flying colors, but the client changes his/her mind and declines it.

We could “build this cost in” elsewhere but prefer to keep this policy transparent and cite charges up-front on a case-by-case basis.  It allows us to keep other costs down across the board.  Thanks for asking for clarification and I hope this helps.

John

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John Pollard

Whiteflash Director of Education 2004-2007