Hi all! My fiance proposed in October with a ring from Zales. I know, I know. We're young, and he hadn't ever bought jewelry before let alone a diamond and he figured that a store so popular HAD to be a good place to buy an engagement ring. While I have become very attached to the ring, on par with everything else Zales produces, the stone is cut improperly and of poor quality, and it's unimaginably fragile - a two prong tension setting. 
Anyhow.. We've been engaged since the beginning of October, and I've had to send the ring out three times to get the stone put back in place, and every time it's come back (after being gone 3-4 weeks), the stone's come loose again within 24 hours. The last time that it came back from "repair" the stone came loose before I even left the mall that the store is in, so I went back in and talked to a rep briefly about a more permanent repair for this. She rattled off something about not being able to add prongs to that ring design and needs a new head and something something something I don't even know. The gist of it was that despite having purchased their "Lifetime Warranty/Protection Plan/Whatever other things they offer when you purchase a ring" none of them will cover what needs to be done and it will cost us upward of $150. I know that's not much in the grand scheme of things, but between the warranty and this repair we're looking at spending over half of the purchase price of the ring just to make it wearable. On top of that, with the repair, it will essentially be an entirely different ring as it will compromise the design of the original. It all seems silly, in my opinion. After that conversation, I decided to put the brakes on sending it back out until we had made a real decision about what to do with this ring and had enough room in our budget to upgrade it or purchase something new.
My big question here, is if anyone has experience with returning something to Zales.. Is there any chance at all that they will accept a return outside of the 100 day return policy? Are there any loopholes (such as upgrading the ring, and returning the upgraded ring) to get our money back? Or is it much more likely that we're going to have to just suck it up, buy something new, and allow this ring to sit in a jewelry box gathering dust for the rest of forever?
Thanks all for any ideas!
Anyhow.. We've been engaged since the beginning of October, and I've had to send the ring out three times to get the stone put back in place, and every time it's come back (after being gone 3-4 weeks), the stone's come loose again within 24 hours. The last time that it came back from "repair" the stone came loose before I even left the mall that the store is in, so I went back in and talked to a rep briefly about a more permanent repair for this. She rattled off something about not being able to add prongs to that ring design and needs a new head and something something something I don't even know. The gist of it was that despite having purchased their "Lifetime Warranty/Protection Plan/Whatever other things they offer when you purchase a ring" none of them will cover what needs to be done and it will cost us upward of $150. I know that's not much in the grand scheme of things, but between the warranty and this repair we're looking at spending over half of the purchase price of the ring just to make it wearable. On top of that, with the repair, it will essentially be an entirely different ring as it will compromise the design of the original. It all seems silly, in my opinion. After that conversation, I decided to put the brakes on sending it back out until we had made a real decision about what to do with this ring and had enough room in our budget to upgrade it or purchase something new.
My big question here, is if anyone has experience with returning something to Zales.. Is there any chance at all that they will accept a return outside of the 100 day return policy? Are there any loopholes (such as upgrading the ring, and returning the upgraded ring) to get our money back? Or is it much more likely that we're going to have to just suck it up, buy something new, and allow this ring to sit in a jewelry box gathering dust for the rest of forever?
Thanks all for any ideas!
I reasoned with the manager, finally he said he'll do the exchange but just this ONE TIME. 
So there you have it. That's Zale's "LIFETIME" protection plan.
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