Anyone have experience with this site? (Stuller prices)

[chromesparks]

http://msswholesalejewelry.com/

I came across this site while searching around for settings, as I was interested in some of the ones that Stuller offers to jewelers at wholesale prices. On this site above, you can easily request a quote for anything in Stuller's catalog. I put in a request awhile back, and the quotes I got back were, in fact, extremely affordable, as the site suggests. Every other jeweler I got a quote from regarding the same setting was at least double. I suspect the prices are pretty close to the wholesale price Stuller offers.

The site suggests that this Michael Salkin guy is in the San Diego area, and unfortunately, I live several hours away. I can't really confirm if there is an actual physical store, either. In his quote, he mentioned that I could pay via check or paypal if I couldn't drive in, which also threw up a red flag for me. This seems potentially to be a "too good to be true" situation, but it also could simply be someone taking advantage of a Stuller account to make a small profit on top of their wholesale prices.

Anyone have any experience with this site? Or, does anyone else have any experience with having a particular jeweler/site that will provide Stuller goods marginally above their wholesale prices?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Gypsy]

No but usually if it sounds to good to be true it is.

Look up their BBB. And if they are member of a jewelers association, that.

Any vendor that claims to be a wholesaler but will sell in single quantities to regular people is lying. That right there makes me worry.

 

[chromesparks]

No but usually if it sounds to good to be true it is.

Look up their BBB. And if they are member of a jewelers association, that.

Any vendor that claims to be a wholesaler but will sell in single quantities to regular people is lying. That right there makes me worry.

Well, obviously, that's my concern, but I figured I'd throw this out there to see if any of the experienced people here have encountered this site or something like it.

The site doesn't claim to be that of a wholesaler, but instead that he has access to Stuller's catalog and provides their merchandise at wholesale prices. He even said that he would place an order with Stuller, and that Stuller themselves would then just ship the setting directly to me.

I really can't find much of anything on this site or this guy himself, which is why I turned here. I took your advice, though, and checked the BBB and Jeweler's Association, but came up empty. Interestingly, though, I did find some references to Hawaii on the guy's site as well as San Diego. With that in mind, I checked Stuller's site using the "Locate a Jeweler" feature, and, sure enough, I found a listing for "mssdiamonds" in Hawaii, with the same phone number listed on the website in question. That really does make it seem as though he has a Stuller account, which certainly lends adds some legitimacy to the story.

If I couldn't find that connection on Stuller's own site, I would just assume it's a scam and drop it. That really does make me feel like I should investigate further, though, and hopefully someone here may find this thread and have some experience or insight into this site.

 

[chromesparks]

Anyone else have any insight here on this site?

Or, does anyone else know of another online site that offers Stuller pieces at minimal markup?

 

[Gypsy]

Have you called Wink at HPD?