Complaint Review: Diamonds International - New York New York

Diamond purchase from Diamonds International Store # 953 in Grand Cayman on May 25, 2017.

Carnival Cruise Line Ship Breeze (May21-28)

My husband bought me a new wedding ring set on the day of our 21^st wedding anniversary while on our vacation in Grand Cayman. We experienced some problems with the purchase & have been trying to handle this directly with Diamonds International and Carnival Cruise Line. Carnival has forwarded our case to Onboard Media representative Nadine Winter, who is the Customer Relations Manager and deals directly with Diamonds International. She has put us in touch with Diamond International’s representative; Kerry Clare.

We communicated the problems about our purchase immediately after returning to the ship and reading through the paperwork. We did not read through any of the paperwork until we got back to the ship as we were about to miss the last boat taking us back. Carnival Cruise Line’s employee stayed behind & held the last boat going back to the ship to ensure that we did not miss the ships departure. When we got back to the ship, we noticed that the stone itself had more yellow in the color than the stone we had expressed interest in before the stone was set in the ring. We read through the contract and paperwork and found that the contract conflicted with everything we were promised when we purchased this ring. The sales person wrote up the contract and placed a written appraised value on the contract and had the stone set in the ring while we went to purchase a couple souvenirs from a nearby store as we were running out of time. Ms. Buxani, store manager & the sales woman said that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to invest in a stone that is priced well under its appraised value of $110,000 in the U.S.A. She promised to put this value in writing but only wrote a value of $69,000.

Due to the conflicts in what we were promised verses what was in writing on the appraisals, receipt contract, and the stone being slightly yellow, we felt very uneasy about the entire purchase and decided that we wanted to cancel the transaction. The next day, we tried to cancel our contract and return the purchase within 24 hours at D.I.’s Cozumel store. The manager of the Cozumel store, refused the return of the ring and stated that we must deal with the return directly with D.I. Corporate offices in New York upon returning home.

Carnival Cruise Lines shopping expert, Kelvin met us at the Cozumel store and is a witness to the problem and knows that we intended to return the ring that day. The only thing that we accomplished was that we did get the Cozumel store manager to contact Ms. Buxani and have her email the letter with the promised written guarantee of value. However, Ms. Buxani did not put the promised $110,000 value that she and her sales person verbally guaranteed to us in the store. She did write a guarantee of value in the amount of $80,000. The very reason we asked for the letter to be faxed or emailed to the Cozumel store before we left Cozumel was to clarify in writing the things we were promised at the time of purchase in the Grand Cayman store. We were promised this would be included in writing in the paperwork handed to us with receipts and appraisals, but was not. There was nothing written up until we insisted on getting something in writing before leaving Cozumel.

After corresponding with Kerry Clare about what happened and that we would like to acquire return instructions, we were emailed a response implying that we are lying. We feel that this is not only extremely unprofessional, but feel that D.I. has shown unethical business practices. D.I. has refused to take the ring set back unless we take the ring to “their” specially trained appraisers who work directly with them and has been trained by D.I. on how to evaluate, grade and place a value on their Crown of Light stones in the U.S. They stated that the only allowance they would honor for us to cancel our contract was if the value does not come in at a minimum of $80,000 by their trained appraiser since we were able to get the letter we insisted on before leaving Cozumel. We feel that requiring us to take the stone for appraisal by D.I.’s appraiser is a conflict of interest. We do not want the ring and do not feel that we should have to pay for an appraisal as we have the right under the 72 hour FTC Cooling Off Rule to cancel this transaction and return the ring set. However, we have consulted with an Attorney who is handling a class-action case against Diamonds International and they recommended that we go through with an appraisal by a highly respected and recommended GIA certified appraiser in our area to prove that the stone is over-graded. We had the ring appraised and the value came in at $28,500. This appraiser was a certified and highly recommended GIA appraiser and is the third party to value the ring at between $26-29,000 since returning home. As of today, we still have not received return authorization or been able to cancel our contract.

Immediately upon our return home, we tried to enact the FTC Cooling-Off Rule but D.I. refuses to take the ring back. We have sent letters by Certified Mail to both Diamond’s International and Comenity Capitol Bank, their finance company out of Columbus, OH, to cancel the contract and to ask D.I. for return instructions.

Last but certainly not least; We trusted that our purchase was secure as Carnival Cruise Line’s shopping expert not only promotes Diamonds International as one of the best locations for unbeatable deals on quality diamonds, but also warns against shopping at other stores; telling us that the 925 sterling silver stamped jewelry in some of the stores at the ports on the islands we visited are in fact counterfeit. Therefore, making us believe that we should listen to Carnival’s advice and only shop where they tell us to in order to be safe from scams. We feel that Carnival Cruise Line should certainly take some of the responsibility of the problem and certainly should be helping us to resolve the matter.