New Fears - Diamond listed by multiple vendors

[lesco]

Hello again,

Well, I recently posted asking opinions about the diamond per the link below. While I wait to close the deal, since I could not meet with the vendor, I decided to run a search for similar diamonds. TO MY SURPRISE, I found the very same diamond (I have copies of the GIA dossier - I looked at the diamond myself) listed by several online vendors.... WHAT?

What is going on? Is this common practice? What is more, how can I be assured that this is ACTUALLY the diamond. Well, it looks that it''s all over the place.

Can someone please shed some light on this? I smell monkey business. Maybe I should walk away from this deal.

Thank you PS community for all of your help with this. At this point I''m thinking I had an easier time delivering my first born.

This is the link to my previous post. I hope it works

https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/help-i-need-opinions-about-this-diamond-please.80808/

 

[strmrdr]

http://journal.pricescope.com/Articles/12/1/Why-are-there-several-dealers-offering-the-exact-same-stone.aspx

 

[phoenixgirl]

This is quite common. If every jewelry store were expected to have D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K etc. diamonds in various clarity combinations and cuts, representing every size from 1/4 carat to 4 carats, well you can imagine how much such an inventory would cost. So instead they have a few diamonds in house and access to other diamonds through wholesalers/whatever the industry term is. It''s like when I bought a car last month. They had 4 Toyota Matrixes on the lot, but none of them fit my needs, so they drove one in from me to that was more to my liking. They wouldn''t just have said, oh well, we don''t have one with side curtain airbags, go somewhere else. They wanted my business and had some kind of reciprocity deal with other dealerships to swap cars.

You can be basically 100% certain that a reputable vendor that is giving you a GIA document is giving you the real deal. Often it takes several days for the online database to be updated to reflect the fact that a stone has sold. I found it funny to see my new diamond studs still listed on several sites while I was wearing them in my ears. I also knew I got the best price (some other vendors were nearly double for the SAME EXACT stones!).

It''s not monkey business; it''s a great thing. If only I could have seen what several different dealerships would have quoted me for the car I bought. Instead, it was one of those stressful negotiating experiences where I was in the dark about what my car was really worth. In your situation, you have the advantage of knowledge and competition. You can rest assured that a vendor who can be sued/villified/criminalized does not practice bait and switch with its stones. It''s simply a matter of stores calling in stones from wholesalers (again, I''m not sure if that is the right term) who supply multiple outfits.

You can often tell when an online store, such as White Flash for instance, has a stone in stock. Then it has the GIA/AGS certificate uploaded and maybe even pictures of it. Stones that are at some central location and not owned by the store will often say, "Image not available" or something of the sort when you try to access the picture.

 

[DiamondExpert]

What you are seeing is a virtual inventory of diamonds owned by a wholesaler, or group of wholesalers who have allowed their inventory to be displayed on any number of vendor web sites.

This means that the vendor does not own the stone, so if you want detailed info on a stone it would require the vendor to have it shipped in for examination on memo (borrowed).

It''s not a shady scheme, but one way vendors can expand the # of diamonds available (or, more accurately, potentially available) to buyers. Some inventories are not kept up to date, so there is always the question of availability.

 

[lesco]

Thank you to all of you for your responses. Although I have the ultmost trust in the vendor I selected, I had to ask.
Phoenixgirl. I agree, I would laugh hysterical if I see a diamond I own still listed for sale.

A million thanks ... Crisis averted. You guys are the best.

 

[WinkHPD]

Date: 3/16/2008 12:56:26 AM
Author: lesco
Thank you to all of you for your responses. Although I have the ultmost trust in the vendor I selected, I had to ask.

Phoenixgirl. I agree, I would laugh hysterical if I see a diamond I own still listed for sale.

A million thanks ... Crisis averted. You guys are the best.

I always am amused when I think of the scenario you mention.

I once sold a diamond to a young man, great stone, precisely what he wanted, a perfectly square princess. The next week he called and wanted me to drop the price or return his money since he found the same stone listed for less somewhere else. ($200)

I just laughed and said too bad as I owned that stone and that it was not really available from the other dealer. I even joked with him that when I did not have a stone it was $400 cheaper.

I told him that no doubt when he called to get the stone from the other vendor that they told him it was not "in-house" right now but that they had lebenty-seben other similar diamonds that he could look at. He seemed surprised that I knew that was exactly what they told him.

I called the wholesaler that I had purchased the diamond from and found out that the people who listed the stone for $200 less were not even clients of his as they were slow pays and he would not sell to them. They just grabbed his and every one else''s stones for sale from the Rap list and pretended that they owned them.

It is a common practice, and not one that I subscribe too, but it seems to work for many.

wink