A big thank you to everyone who posts here. You are doing a great service in educating newbies like me.
I just wanted to share my diamond shopping and diamond education experience. A few months ago I purchased the Fred Cueller book, "How to Buy a Diamond". I started studying it very carefully and started to think what a great guy this Mr. Cueller is for writing this book on how to help buyers buy a quality diamond without getting ripped off. I then used the Jewelers Questionnaire Sheet and called a dozen jewelers in my area and visited a dozen others in person. Of course, they all came up very short of the strict standards set by Cueller. I thought they would all be impressed with my questions, but they all knew I was getting some biased, self-serving advice from some book or add. After reading his book, I started to become paranoid that every jeweler was trying to rip me off and that the only way I could be certain I was getting a good diamond would be buying from Cueller''s sister site, fullybondeddiamonds.com, because no one around here offered "fully" bonded diamonds. I started to become suspicious of Cueller, thinking that this guy is probably getting a lot of money by endorsing this site. Once I checked out the site and talked to their diamond sellers I was certain this was a racket.
I then stumbled upon Pricescope and started learning tons of information from all you helpful posters. I decided to search Cueller''s name in Pricescope and found out that he has a felony for defrauding diamond investors and that he is basically a just a self-serving scammer who tries to frighten people into buying diamonds from anyone, but him (or should I say his "sister company") with huge markups and that there are many "conditions" to his fully bonded gaurantees.
At this point I was still not ready to purchase a diamond over the internet, since I was skeptical about internet vendors. I still thought the best chance you had at getting a diamond was from a non-mall B&M store. My dad told me to wait...his neighbor was a jeweler! Maybe, I could get a discount from him and I could trust him (who would screw over their neighbor?). I was so excited thinking I could get a huge stunning ring for my girlfriend at a rock bottom price. I spoke with my dad''s neighbor (the jeweler) over the phone. He said he was wanting to sell his jewelry store and retire. He said he would get me a great stone at his wholesale cost (this was after my dad volunteered to install an alarm system for they guy as a way of showing his appreciation for helping his son save a lot of money). I told him I was looking for something around a carat, I color, SI1 round with a very good to ideal cut and proportions. I drove the 3 1/2 hour trip to my parents to meet with this jeweler who said he would hand select about a dozen high quality stones for me to chose from. The jeweler arrived with his stones. All but two were already set (hideous looking settings, by the way). He brought no microcope; not even a loupe. Only two of the stones had lab reports. From EEL lab. Who is EEL? Some were marked I, others were SI, not SI1 or SI2. They had no brilliance or fire. Most of the SI''s (he said they were SI1''s) had inclusions visible with the naked eye and they looked like they were bumped up a couple of color grades. I asked him if he had any idea of the proportions and he picked up my dad''s magnifying glass and said this one has about a 64% depth, etc..
Needless to say I was very disappointed. He asked me which one I liked best and I showed him. It was just marked: I-SI 1.04ct (no lab reports...nothing). He said it would cost me $5,800.00, which was his wholesale price and I could hold on to it for a few days to think it over. I think he could tell that I was not too excited about it, but I didn''t want to seem rude in front of my parents, because he was their neighbor and my dad was still thinking he was such a great guy for giving me his "wholesale" cost. The jeweler called me back a couple of hours later and said he was sorry for quoting me $5,800 on the stone. He said he has been taking a lot of medication lately and was not thinking clearly and that new price would be actually $3,800 (Oh Boy!!...sarcasm here). No way this stone was worth anything near that. It was ugly.
I went back to looking at the Pricescope and learnined more. I started to concentrate more on finding a smaller stone with better cuts within my budget. I looked at the Pricscope vendors and became impressed with Good Old Gold, James Allen, and Whiteflash. Sheerah from WhiteFlash found me an ideal cut shy carat round I-SI1, eyeclean with AGS cert, ASET, Sarin, Ideal Scope. Sheerah and Katie from WhiteFlash were very helpful. They did not try to "hard sell" me. They helped me tremendously in finding the right stone within my budget and helped me decide what was really important to me and keep me focused.
I felt very comfortable with my purchase from Whiteflash. I have not got the stone yet (in the next few days), so I am probably speaking too soon. I am reserving final judgement about the actual stone and WhiteFlash until I actually see it in hand, but it sounds like they have a good reputation of taking care of their customers (You can bet I will let everyone know if I have any problems and they don''t take care of me and you can bet I will sing their praises if I am happy). I am sure me and my sweetie is going to love it and I know I paid considerbly less for this stone than a B&M store one with the same specs.
I just wanted to share my diamond shopping and diamond education experience. A few months ago I purchased the Fred Cueller book, "How to Buy a Diamond". I started studying it very carefully and started to think what a great guy this Mr. Cueller is for writing this book on how to help buyers buy a quality diamond without getting ripped off. I then used the Jewelers Questionnaire Sheet and called a dozen jewelers in my area and visited a dozen others in person. Of course, they all came up very short of the strict standards set by Cueller. I thought they would all be impressed with my questions, but they all knew I was getting some biased, self-serving advice from some book or add. After reading his book, I started to become paranoid that every jeweler was trying to rip me off and that the only way I could be certain I was getting a good diamond would be buying from Cueller''s sister site, fullybondeddiamonds.com, because no one around here offered "fully" bonded diamonds. I started to become suspicious of Cueller, thinking that this guy is probably getting a lot of money by endorsing this site. Once I checked out the site and talked to their diamond sellers I was certain this was a racket.
I then stumbled upon Pricescope and started learning tons of information from all you helpful posters. I decided to search Cueller''s name in Pricescope and found out that he has a felony for defrauding diamond investors and that he is basically a just a self-serving scammer who tries to frighten people into buying diamonds from anyone, but him (or should I say his "sister company") with huge markups and that there are many "conditions" to his fully bonded gaurantees.
At this point I was still not ready to purchase a diamond over the internet, since I was skeptical about internet vendors. I still thought the best chance you had at getting a diamond was from a non-mall B&M store. My dad told me to wait...his neighbor was a jeweler! Maybe, I could get a discount from him and I could trust him (who would screw over their neighbor?). I was so excited thinking I could get a huge stunning ring for my girlfriend at a rock bottom price. I spoke with my dad''s neighbor (the jeweler) over the phone. He said he was wanting to sell his jewelry store and retire. He said he would get me a great stone at his wholesale cost (this was after my dad volunteered to install an alarm system for they guy as a way of showing his appreciation for helping his son save a lot of money). I told him I was looking for something around a carat, I color, SI1 round with a very good to ideal cut and proportions. I drove the 3 1/2 hour trip to my parents to meet with this jeweler who said he would hand select about a dozen high quality stones for me to chose from. The jeweler arrived with his stones. All but two were already set (hideous looking settings, by the way). He brought no microcope; not even a loupe. Only two of the stones had lab reports. From EEL lab. Who is EEL? Some were marked I, others were SI, not SI1 or SI2. They had no brilliance or fire. Most of the SI''s (he said they were SI1''s) had inclusions visible with the naked eye and they looked like they were bumped up a couple of color grades. I asked him if he had any idea of the proportions and he picked up my dad''s magnifying glass and said this one has about a 64% depth, etc..
Needless to say I was very disappointed. He asked me which one I liked best and I showed him. It was just marked: I-SI 1.04ct (no lab reports...nothing). He said it would cost me $5,800.00, which was his wholesale price and I could hold on to it for a few days to think it over. I think he could tell that I was not too excited about it, but I didn''t want to seem rude in front of my parents, because he was their neighbor and my dad was still thinking he was such a great guy for giving me his "wholesale" cost. The jeweler called me back a couple of hours later and said he was sorry for quoting me $5,800 on the stone. He said he has been taking a lot of medication lately and was not thinking clearly and that new price would be actually $3,800 (Oh Boy!!...sarcasm here). No way this stone was worth anything near that. It was ugly.
I went back to looking at the Pricescope and learnined more. I started to concentrate more on finding a smaller stone with better cuts within my budget. I looked at the Pricscope vendors and became impressed with Good Old Gold, James Allen, and Whiteflash. Sheerah from WhiteFlash found me an ideal cut shy carat round I-SI1, eyeclean with AGS cert, ASET, Sarin, Ideal Scope. Sheerah and Katie from WhiteFlash were very helpful. They did not try to "hard sell" me. They helped me tremendously in finding the right stone within my budget and helped me decide what was really important to me and keep me focused.
I felt very comfortable with my purchase from Whiteflash. I have not got the stone yet (in the next few days), so I am probably speaking too soon. I am reserving final judgement about the actual stone and WhiteFlash until I actually see it in hand, but it sounds like they have a good reputation of taking care of their customers (You can bet I will let everyone know if I have any problems and they don''t take care of me and you can bet I will sing their praises if I am happy). I am sure me and my sweetie is going to love it and I know I paid considerbly less for this stone than a B&M store one with the same specs.
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