Find your diamond
Find your jewelry
shape
carat
color
clarity

Warranty Worth It?

C

chobo2

Rough_Rock
Joined
Dec 7, 2018
Messages
33
Hi

I went to Spence diamonds yesterday and they where talking about their warranty and I am wondering how people would value it

Lifetime Protection Against Loss
For 0.18–3.0 carat Consciously Mined Diamonds and 0.18–4.0 carat Artisan Created Diamonds: If your original diamond chips, cracks or separates from its original Spence mounting, and Spence deems that it is in good condition, Spence will replace your diamond once during the lifetime of your ring, free of charge.

To qualify for this benefit:

  • Bring your ring to any Spence location for inspection by a Spence representative every calendar year.
  • All repairs recommended as a result of Spence inspections must be promptly completed by our Spence Studio.
  • Special orders are excluded.
This benefit will become null and void if the jewelry is repaired or inspected by anyone other than Spence, or if any of the inspection criteria above are not satisfied.
Click to expand...

Would you pay an extra $100 to have this warranty? 500? 1000?

Both me and my gf never had a diamond before so don't know how likely they break and how useful this is.
 
Just get insurance ;)2 Jewelrs Mutual is a good provider. Peace of mind is priceless
 
Looking at the warranty, the big "if" is that the mounting must be deemed to be in good condition.
In many cases, a person will accidentally damage the ring causing stone loss- and damage to the ring itself.
"Normal" insurance ( Jewelrs Mutual for example) covers against that sort of damage.
Generally speaking- it's rare for a diamond to simply pop out of a ring unless there's other damage.....
 
anangel said:
Just get insurance ;)2 Jewelrs Mutual is a good provider. Peace of mind is priceless
Click to expand...

I will look at that but I was more talking about is it worth to buy from Spence for their insurance not if I should get insurance from somewhere (though good to know there is 3rd party insurance).

I forgot to mention the ring would be probably around 3,000 - 3,500 CDN.

Rockdiamond said:
Looking at the warranty, the big "if" is that the mounting must be deemed to be in good condition.
In many cases, a person will accidentally damage the ring causing stone loss- and damage to the ring itself.
"Normal" insurance ( Jewelrs Mutual for example) covers against that sort of damage.
Generally speaking- it's rare for a diamond to simply pop out of a ring unless there's other damage.....
Click to expand...

yeah that is what I am worried about it is one of those things they make it sound so good and you need it but when you try to use it they will have so many conditions they will get out of insuring it.

I will review this jewelers insurance and what it covers and how much it costs. Also we are still debating if we are going for natural or lab grown I don't know if that changes the equation at all.

flyingpig said:
I would not shop at Spence:naughty::naughty:
Click to expand...

Reasons? So far out of all the local jewelry stores that we went too, it was the best experience. Still evaluating with online though(of course they tried so scare us away from online by showing a diamond that they bought from BE or Blue Nile and it was GIA rated good but looked like crap and then they showed up their same diamond with same rating and it look great).
 
chobo2 said:
Reasons? So far out of all the local jewelry stores that we went too, it was the best experience. Still evaluating with online though(of course they tried so scare us away from online by showing a diamond that they bought from BE or Blue Nile and it was GIA rated good but looked like crap and then they showed up their same diamond with same rating and it look great).
Click to expand...
You said it well.
They play this scare tactic. They showed you a crappy GIA Good Cut, instead of a well cut GIA Excellent for any meaningful and fair comparison.

When I told them very clearly that I only consider a GIA ex with certain proportions, and they were like
"We can definitely order in some GIA diamonds. BUT, please take a look at our diamonds"
I made it very clear that I only want a GIA diamond. and the GIA graduate said"
"GIA laboratory is a for-profit organization. They should not be trusted. It appears that you read a few things online. YOU NEED TO BE BETTER EDUCATED".
And they require a deposit. Enough said.
And do you really think Spence will honour the warranty when you need it? They will make it so difficult and deny any responsibility for the loss.

Organizations like Spence Diamond is the exact reason why people do not trust B&M jewellers anymore and shop online.
 
Last edited:
chobo2 said:
I will look at that but I was more talking about is it worth to buy from Spence for their insurance not if I should get insurance from somewhere (though good to know there is 3rd party insurance).

I forgot to mention the ring would be probably around 3,000 - 3,500 CDN.



yeah that is what I am worried about it is one of those things they make it sound so good and you need it but when you try to use it they will have so many conditions they will get out of insuring it.

I will review this jewelers insurance and what it covers and how much it costs. Also we are still debating if we are going for natural or lab grown I don't know if that changes the equation at all.



Reasons? So far out of all the local jewelry stores that we went too, it was the best experience. Still evaluating with online though(of course they tried so scare us away from online by showing a diamond that they bought from BE or Blue Nile and it was GIA rated good but looked like crap and then they showed up their same diamond with same rating and it look great).
Click to expand...

If you get good jewelry insurance, like from Jewellers Mutual, you’ll be covered for chips and loss and a bunch of other things. Whether it’s worth it to you for a $3500 purchase is for you to consider. The Spence insurance doesn’t cover enough and has a condition. JM does not require inspections. If you decide to get insurance, I would recommend any plan other than the Spence plan.

The fact that Spence showed you a crappy GIA “good” and tried to blame it on BE is enough to go somewhere else right there. That was straight up sales bs. The diamond was graded by GIA, it has nothing to do with BE, and educated buyers know how bad and good a GIA “good’ can be. To then pick another GIA “good” with nice performance and try to take credit is hilarious. Wow, lol. There are ranges in each cut category and GIA does not grade based on light performance. Spence is taking advantage of your lack of knowledge. I could do the same thing in front of your eyes with two GIA XXX where one was a much better performer than the other ... but I wouldn’t mislead you by trying to say either one was representative of one vendor vs another - that’s ridiculous. Why not go there? Because they are overpriced and have shady sales practices, with your experience as a case in point. Even the insurance is a scam, covering almost nothing and carrying a condition that is to be determined by them. You are WAY better off going with an online vendor.

If you have some time, there is a ton of information on these forum pages, and everyone here is happy to help you along. If not, we’ll do the work for you, lol. We like to follow people on their journey and see them end up with something that is exactly right for them. People like me have no affiliations with the vendors outside of customer experience. If you check reviews, like google, trustpilot, etc., you’ll be able to get a good idea of which vendors to go with.

If you’d like some help finding a diamond that will be a great performer, just post what you’re looking for and you’ll get a lot of choices.

Lab grown might be a good option for you. Usually the downside is that there is no resale value. I’m not sure if lab grown diamond vendors have trade-up policies or not ... they might. There is another forum on PS for man-made diamonds that might be helpful. This forum is full of die hard natural diamond fans, lol.

One thing - you’ll be dealing with the exchange rate (I’m a customer from Canada as well). I would suggest checking vendor exchange rates (I paid 1.48 at one point, which I thought was too much) and then deciding on your payment method. You can save a bit with wire transfer and the recommended vendors are all trustworthy.

I hope that you leave Spence for the moment and look at the online vendors. I would agree that Spence is better than your regular jewelry store, but you can still do much better, so why not?

Good luck on your buying adventure!
 
flyingpig said:
You said it well.
They play this scare tactic. They showed you a crappy GIA Good Cut, instead of a well cut GIA Excellent for any meaningful and fair comparison.

When I told them very clearly that I only consider a GIA ex with certain proportions, and they were like
"We can definitely order in some GIA diamonds. BUT, please take a look at our diamonds"
I made it very clear that I only want a GIA diamond. and the GIA graduate said"
"GIA laboratory is a for-profit organization. They should not be trusted. It appears that you read a few things online. YOU NEED TO BE BETTER EDUCATED".
And they require a deposit. Enough said.
And do you really think Spence will honour the warranty when you need it? They will make it so difficult and deny any responsibility for the loss.

Organizations like Spence Diamond is the exact reason why people do not trust B&M jewellers anymore and shop online.
Click to expand...

Well her whole thing was basically trying to say look these both are certified by GIA at the same specs but ours is much better as we get to choose the top diamonds and then we do our own checks on it to make sure it is a better diamond.

I did not really like the whole speech thing but it's sales, you trying to get someone to buy your product, I just liken them all to used care sales people. It is my job to cut through their crap and figure out what the truth is.

Verus the other shops we went to it was like super less pressure...like another shop in the mall she asked what size we where looking for and we said 0.55-7.0 and she grabs a 1.05 and shows us that what was like 5 times my budget

So right now if I would buy from actual store they are the top runner right now, but this is why I am here to see if I can get something better online which I just feel like I can and if the place I buy has the policy of you can return it in the first 30 days no questions asked even for Canadian Customers with free shipping and 100% return I am willing to try them first.

If it sucks(though I think with forums like this helping me, it won't) we always can go back to Spence as a last resort option.

kmoro said:
If you get good jewelry insurance, like from Jewellers Mutual, you’ll be covered for chips and loss and a bunch of other things. Whether it’s worth it to you for a $3500 purchase is for you to consider. The Spence insurance doesn’t cover enough and has a condition. JM does not require inspections. If you decide to get insurance, I would recommend any plan other than the Spence plan.

The fact that Spence showed you a crappy GIA “good” and tried to blame it on BE is enough to go somewhere else right there. That was straight up sales bs. The diamond was graded by GIA, it has nothing to do with BE, and educated buyers know how bad and good a GIA “good’ can be. To then pick another GIA “good” with nice performance and try to take credit is hilarious. Wow, lol. There are ranges in each cut category and GIA does not grade based on light performance. Spence is taking advantage of your lack of knowledge. I could do the same thing in front of your eyes with two GIA XXX where one was a much better performer than the other ... but I wouldn’t mislead you by trying to say either one was representative of one vendor vs another - that’s ridiculous. Why not go there? Because they are overpriced and have shady sales practices, with your experience as a case in point. Even the insurance is a scam, covering almost nothing and carrying a condition that is to be determined by them. You are WAY better off going with an online vendor.

If you have some time, there is a ton of information on these forum pages, and everyone here is happy to help you along. If not, we’ll do the work for you, lol. We like to follow people on their journey and see them end up with something that is exactly right for them. People like me have no affiliations with the vendors outside of customer experience. If you check reviews, like google, trustpilot, etc., you’ll be able to get a good idea of which vendors to go with.

If you’d like some help finding a diamond that will be a great performer, just post what you’re looking for and you’ll get a lot of choices.

Lab grown might be a good option for you. Usually the downside is that there is no resale value. I’m not sure if lab grown diamond vendors have trade-up policies or not ... they might. There is another forum on PS for man-made diamonds that might be helpful. This forum is full of die hard natural diamond fans, lol.

One thing - you’ll be dealing with the exchange rate (I’m a customer from Canada as well). I would suggest checking vendor exchange rates (I paid 1.48 at one point, which I thought was too much) and then deciding on your payment method. You can save a bit with wire transfer and the recommended vendors are all trustworthy.

I hope that you leave Spence for the moment and look at the online vendors. I would agree that Spence is better than your regular jewelry store, but you can still do much better, so why not?

Good luck on your buying adventure!
Click to expand...

Yep I got some time before we make a decisions, though I would like to decide probably in the next week or week and half on what to do. I think my gf will feel alot better when I tell her about this extra warranty I think that really made her feel better when they told her about it at spence, though I got to figure out a few things like(is the price I am putting in USD, do I include taxes and is their quote in USD).

As from what I seen through the quote it is like $50 a year and we could can start off with a year and decide after that how many years she thinks she wants or needs it.

I might post a couple natural diamonds as choices too and then decide between lab grown or natural. In the end I think my gf and I are on the same page, to try to get the best diamond we can get in the budget of about $3,000 CDN (including tax and settings) and she does not care if it is lab grown or natural as long as she can say it is a real diamond.

Mostly for natural I been looking at bluenile.

For me resale value really holds no value for me as the only way I can see of a scenario of selling it is really if we get divorced.....

With the upgrade part it does seem like BE will not do upgrades on their lab grown(I think Spence would) but from what I seen at blue nile usually to upgrade you got to buy something twice as expensive and that probably would leave to 1.2 carts which would not look good on my gf at all, she really did not like anything above .75 as she said it looked too big on her hand but of course this will be something I will make sure she understands with we go for lab grown and it does not have that option.
 
Last edited:
I too had a shady experience at Spence. They sure have got the distraction game down to a fault. I would not pay for any insurance. You said in another post you are looking at a 6 prong setting which is a very secure setting for the stone. Yes thing happen but when they do, you have insurance for that. Most upgrade policies are that you have to double the amount you spend. Who know in 5 yrs or 10 or more that you will have the chance to upgrade her stone. In the meantime, that .65ct from BN & the simple solitaire setting is a great combination. I wouldn't let that slip away.
 
ccuheartnurse said:
I too had a shady experience at Spence. They sure have got the distraction game down to a fault. I would not pay for any insurance. You said in another post you are looking at a 6 prong setting which is a very secure setting for the stone. Yes thing happen but when they do, you have insurance for that. Most upgrade policies are that you have to double the amount you spend. Who know in 5 yrs or 10 or more that you will have the chance to upgrade her stone. In the meantime, that .65ct from BN & the simple solitaire setting is a great combination. I wouldn't let that slip away.
Click to expand...

Cool, I will think about what you said, I also have to check my home owner insurance and then decide what to do.
 
I'm still stuck at their phrase "Consciously Mined Diamonds"

Is it even possible to mine diamonds when you are unconscious?

(Don't mind me. I'm sitting here drinking coffee waiting on the designer/estimator for the heating and air company. We need a new system in the next few weeks. Heat pump makers have more flowery phrases than diamond merchants.)
 
If I may point out some interesting things about Jewelry Store insurance. As a member of the trade, I will avoid mentioning any names of specific jewelers, but what I am about to say did/does apply to similar guarantees made in the Boise, Idaho area.

Inspections. Miss it by even one day and your policy is void, no do overs, bringing it up to date, etc. Some stores require it quarterly, others semi-annually and other annually. Almost always they will advise repairs often, which may or may not actually be needed at the time recommended.

Large Loop Holes. You may expect to hear things like this.

  • I am sorry, but this prong is bent, this means the ring is not in good condition, so the insurance is void.
  • Oh my, look how thin this shank is, I am afraid the ring is not in good condition.
  • Oh my, this ring has been forced into an oval shape, you must be very hard on your ring and it is not in good condition.
  • etc.
You are going to be very hard pressed to depend on an actual replacement if the diamond and the head suddenly vacate the premises due to granulation of the peg holding the head in and poor soldering of the actual head to the ring shank. They may take one look and say that you must have been using harsh chemicals causing this granulated look.

You may actually be responsible for this if you have been wearing your ring in the hot tub or swimming pool where the chemicals keeping the water clean looking have been enjoying a snack on the alloys in your gold ring.

I have seen many of these rings and heard the sad tales from disillusioned former clients of some of these stores with the "questionable" guarantees. Every single one of the rings I saw would have been covered under insurance, whether on your homeowner's policy or from a third party such as Jewelers Mutual.

I will not comment on whether you should buy the ring you have found or not, it would be inappropriate for me to do so. I will comment that you should STRONGLY consider the great advice that you have received here to get insurance coverage independent of the selling retailer, whether on or off line.

Wink
 
Johnbt said:
I'm still stuck at their phrase "Consciously Mined Diamonds"

Is it even possible to mine diamonds when you are unconscious?
Click to expand...
LOL :lol:

Perhaps they meant conscientious??


Are they vetting the mines they buy from personally?

Or relying on the Kimberley process? (Which all legitimate diamonds must accord to, therefore is nothing to shout about??)


Wink said:
If I may point out some interesting things about Jewelry Store insurance. As a member of the trade, I will avoid mentioning any names of specific jewelers, but what I am about to say did/does apply to similar guarantees made in the Boise, Idaho area.

Inspections. Miss it by even one day and your policy is void, no do overs, bringing it up to date, etc. Some stores require it quarterly, others semi-annually and other annually. Almost always they will advise repairs often, which may or may not actually be needed at the time recommended.

Large Loop Holes. You may expect to hear things like this.

  • I am sorry, but this prong is bent, this means the ring is not in good condition, so the insurance is void.
  • Oh my, look how thin this shank is, I am afraid the ring is not in good condition.
  • Oh my, this ring has been forced into an oval shape, you must be very hard on your ring and it is not in good condition.
  • etc.
You are going to be very hard pressed to depend on an actual replacement if the diamond and the head suddenly vacate the premises due to granulation of the peg holding the head in and poor soldering of the actual head to the ring shank. They may take one look and say that you must have been using harsh chemicals causing this granulated look.

You may actually be responsible for this if you have been wearing your ring in the hot tub or swimming pool where the chemicals keeping the water clean looking have been enjoying a snack on the alloys in your gold ring.

I have seen many of these rings and heard the sad tales from disillusioned former clients of some of these stores with the "questionable" guarantees. Every single one of the rings I saw would have been covered under insurance, whether on your homeowner's policy or from a third party such as Jewelers Mutual.

I will not comment on whether you should buy the ring you have found or not, it would be inappropriate for me to do so. I will comment that you should STRONGLY consider the great advice that you have received here to get insurance coverage independent of the selling retailer, whether on or off line.

Wink
Click to expand...


Wink is wise - listen to him.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
GET 3 FREE HCA RESULTS JOIN THE FORUM. ASK FOR HELP
Jewelry Blog
PriceScope-Concierge-Ad
Find prime cuts.
Top