My experience shopping with online vendors and ps

[thevoodoowedo]

I ended up buying from James Allen:
2.09 I SI2 Ideal cut

James Allen proved to be the most reliable reseller to get me the information I requested in a timely manner. Thanks go to Bob and the staff at JamesAllen.com who were always very helpful. I had my stone appraised, everything checks out and I''m very satisfied with my purchase.

Whiteflash came in second best, though, they were slightly more expensive and tried to push me towards buying things I wasn''t exactly interested in (can''t blame them for trying to make a sale any way they can). I liked that they had the most information about their diamonds available immediately online.

GOG also came in reasonably strong but couldn''t get me the stone I wanted within my price range.

usacerted had the slowest turn around time of any vendors for information about stones. I understand they are a drop shipper, but it took quite a bit of time to get minimal information from them. In the end, they did find me some candidate stones, but by that time I had already reacted with JA.com. I wanted usacerted to ship me a stone to compare but as soon as I mentioned I had another stone, they stopped responding to me and thats where they lost my business.

The biggest disappointment I had was dealing with Engagement Rings Direct. ERD sent me an initial list of stones to which I promptly replied expressing interest. They said they''d get back to me with additional information but never again followed through. I even contacted them 2 more times to follow up and never got a response. This was over the course of about 3 weeks mind you...

The best thing through this whole process was finding PS. You saved me from buying an overpriced stone from a 3d merchant. I''m still not necessarily in love with the whole idea/process of buying a diamond, but I feel like PS and its members made the process as good as possible! Thanks in particular to the forum members for all of your help.

Now, if I could only find some luck shopping for "the perfect setting"
Currently I''m looking at a solitaire in vatche or jeff cooper trelis setting but have recently given thought to having a custom setting made.

-voodoo

 

[Gypsy]

If I may make a suggestion for a setting? I'd suggest the new MWM torcheire or the MWM flame with diamonds in the head. Totally stunning, unique, and beautiful solitares that will take her breath away. Mmm... heart prongs.

http://www.mwmjewelry.com/

 

[thevoodoowedo]

wow those are beautiful. I''ll have to give him a call. Thanks for the great suggestion!

Btw, i didn''t see the torchiere on his site. Is that just the name for the style of setting?

 

[thevoodoowedo]

nevermind, i found it

Thanks

 

[Lorelei]

I take it you ended up buying Bling then???

Congrats!!!

 

[Ellen]

Congrats on your purchase! And I agree, if you can swing it, A MM setting would be devine....


Thank you for the write up, it''s good to hear how vendors do, or don''t.


Please come back and show us the finished product!

 

[hedarud]

I would like to add a bit to this as well. When I started to do a search for RB diamonds, I did what most people probably do, run a search with size parameters, include ags / gia, maybe add depth and table to search, then sort by price per carat and look for Vg or excellent ratings on the pol / sym - then request a cert and look at cut and inclusions, run HCA and if it looks good ask if it is eye clean.

usacerted is the best price, and they will ship to an appraiser they are comfortable with without you paying for diamond except shipping WOW but you have a 7 day return policy for stones you pay for. No upgrade policy.

JA - very good all around

Union Diamond - very good around No upgrade policy.

WF - though they are highly regarded here, my experience was not impressionable, partly due to my fault, partly due to theirs. I chose stones which has poor angles and were low on the HCA initially simply due to not knowing any better and they reviewed the stones and told me this. However in that budget, they failed to provide me with better stones, instead I was shown ACA stones with lower color and higher price. yes I realize cut is most important, but we talk about eye clean, mind clean and color falls in to that equation, I realize and I si2 ACA can look better than a F VS1 good cut but still, there is a piont to be taken here.

Furthemore, I went with UD eventhough they have no upgrade policy becasue my setting of choice was something their jewelers could replicate very efficiently and cost effectively. here was the setting

This setting / set was 2650 at blue nile, UD made the set for 2150 and WF wanted 4500 for the set. So that was a deciding factor for me, I wish I had purchsed through WF for their upgrade policy but saving 2350 for the setting alone now was a priority.

 

[Regular Guy]

to Voodoo & Hedarud both...(or anyone else been there or going there)...

Was your pattern to give the vendor your constraints, and have them choose what to find for you...or did you do the finding, with their consult, and ask them to do the pulling (based on either a selection from this board...which is mostly what comes to mind...or some other source).

Does the difference matter (about who chooses)? Hedarud...in the case of WF, as you describe it, it seems like it could have made a difference.

Was this a decision point at all (about how diamonds were chosen)?

Curious.

P.S. Great descriptions, too; thanks!

 

[hedarud]

RG I called Wf and told them about a couple of stones i had seen here on a PS search which were listed at their site as not in house. I did call and talk to them and gave them a budget and an idea of what i was looking for, and they came up with mostly their ACA or ES stones which are nice but can be costly ct fot ct...

 

[thevoodoowedo]

To answer RG''s post:

Yes, I gave the vendors my constraints. They''d usually use the same tools I could have used on the site to give me a list of about 10-20 stones. From there, they asked me to cut it down to two or 3. Only in rare cases did they look beyond their own stock for something that I might like better. I had read on the forum that they would often look for stones not in their own inventories for you. However, that did not seem to be the case.

In all, I ended up finding the stones I wanted to look at and then asking them (and the forum) for consult. In the end, I took the word from Bob from James Allen about the quality of the stone. It worked out to be as he said.

-Voodoo

 

[thevoodoowedo]

Lorelei:

Thanks for your help! I did end up going for bling. Though, now that I have the stone, its looking a bit yellower since I''ve been looking at more stones : ) Im cursing myself a bit, but at the same time its still within the price range I had set out initially so I''m still quite happy with it. Really, I''m sure that since most people I talk to know much less about diamonds than I do... the yellow will be my little secret and the size (though shrinking every day in my mind) will be the first thing they notice

-voodoo