Buyer Beware!

As the weather is starting to lift(?) thoughts for many are turning to holidays in foreign climates. And why not? Its nice to get a break and get caught up in the atmosphere and romance of somewhere exotic. But please, please don't get caught out with that "bargain" piece of jewellery, that "cost a fraction of the over-inflated U.K. price.

I work for a jewellery retailer in the South West of England. I am forever having to break bad news to people that have purchased abroad. Don't get me wrong, some pieces have been bought well, for reasonable prices, but an awful lot have been poorly made, adjusted incorrectly, stones have been treated in ways that should be disclosed and some stones have even been totally different to what they should have been.

I have had to tell people that Rubies they have purchased are actually Garnets, although they have paid prices way above Garnet. A Synthetic (man made) Emerald ring was brought in where someone had paid £1000 for it, great colour but sadly the customer thought they were buying a natural Emerald, I would have paid £70 retail for the stone! Very recently I was shown a ring with ten perfectly matching Blue Diamonds set in it. Now, Natural Blue Diamonds are relatively rare, so finding ten perfectly matching ones is a VERY difficult task. Remarkably they had found these and managed to sell the ring with a free Diamond set wedding ring for £1,600.The conclusion was that these were treated by irradiation, a treatment that customers would definately be told in the U.K. Some of these were simple misunderstandings through language barriers and some were obvious attemps to con holiday makers that weren't likely to be back the folowing week.

In the U.K. consumer protection is taken very seriously, whether it's hallmarking, disclosure of treatments or use of correct descriptions. The U.K. jewellery trade make training a very high priority. In fact, in 2005 I was told that one particular eastern European country had fewer trained gemmologists than we have on our staff!

Occasionally an honest mistake will be made in the U.K. trade, but the stakes are too high here. If you repeatedly make these mistakes it is taken as deliberate and you would be alienated by most of the trade.

As a couple of last notes on this topic, if you do buy, don't forget to declare it at customs, otherwise technically it's smuggling. Be prepared for bad news unless your an expert, even I would be nervous and I know alot!

Take Care and enjoy your holidays.