I want prospective customers to have information I wish I had before spending thousands of dollars…read morewith Bostonian Jewelers. Bostonian sells its custom work on collaboration, direct designer involvement, and customer happiness: "We don't sell things--we collaborate with you to create them," "We keep you involved throughout the whole process," and "We want you to be completely comfortable and happy with all aspects of the final design created." What happened when we were unhappy with the finished ring was the opposite.
The defining element of our custom platinum ring was an infinity symbol. It did not visually translate in the finished piece. When we raised that problem and tried to find a solution that recognized both Bostonian's work and our loss, Bostonian's position became: you approved the CAD and wax, the job is complete, there is no credit, and you can "walk away."
And the advertised collaboration itself was taken away. We had worked directly with designer Allie throughout the project. After Allie said she had to determine whether she could continue working with us, and owner Hagop said our emails made him feel like "a student in the classroom being reprimanded," Hagop told my husband: "It'll be me you'll be dealing with moving forward." From that point forward, he would control whether and how Allie--or any designer--participated behind the scenes.
So when the customer relationship became difficult, the direct designer collaboration Bostonian had initially provided became conditional. We found no disclosed policy saying designer access could be withdrawn, no written process governing that decision, and no agreement telling us that management could unilaterally replace the collaborative structure we thought we were purchasing.
The return issue was disturbing. Bostonian's policy stated that special orders may be returned for store credit. After the dispute arose, Bostonian relied instead on a "no returns" sign in the store. We had been in that store repeatedly, for hours. Neither of us ever saw that sign. No one pointed it out. No one told us our custom purchase was nonreturnable. We signed no contract, no agreement, and no acknowledgment of any no-return policy. We were told that any credit was at Bostonian's discretion--and they chose to offer none.
The financial "solution" was one-sided. If we left, Bostonian kept the full payment and we kept a ring that did not carry the defining symbol we commissioned. If we continued with Bostonian, we would pay for another redesign and essentially receive only the scrap/smelter value of the platinum from the ring we had already paid thousands to design and fabricate. There was no shared-cost remake, partial credit, reduced redesign cost, or other proposal that distributed the loss between Bostonian and its customer.
Meanwhile, we repeatedly had to audit our jeweler: reconciling diamond counts that did not add up, questioning changing prices and measurements, reconstructing chronology, comparing handwritten tickets and invoices, and asking Bostonian to explain its own platinum calculations. Instead of being able to rely on the professionals to maintain the integrity of the project, we became the accounting, documentation, inventory and quality-control system ourselves.
Custom work can go wrong. What tells you who a business is comes after something goes wrong. For us, that was when Bostonian's promises of collaboration, transparency and customer happiness disappeared. Direct access to the designer was removed. The published return language provided no meaningful protection. Bostonian retained complete discretion over the process and the remedy. And every path offered protected Bostonian's financial position while leaving us with the ring, the loss, the cost of fixing it elsewhere, and the burden of untangling what had happened.
That is what I would want to know before trusting Bostonian Jewelers with thousands of dollars and something irreplaceably meaningful.
