Bricks and mortar jewelry stores aren't my thing, because you can get much higher quality jewelry and diamonds online for less. However, I lost my beloved ring in a garden back in Germany, and the insurance company referred me to John Atencio and wouldn't let me go to another store.
Where do I even begin? Let me count the ways this whole experience could have gone better...
1) Delane Atencio, who normally works out of the Cherry Creek location, waited until the very end of the 30-day period given by the insurance company to submit the paperwork stating how much the replacement would cost. This was very stressful for me because we were down to the last month before I was due. I wanted to get everything done before the baby came but she had no consideration for that. In fact, she took until the near end of the 30-day period to even give me more than one diamond to consider, pressuring me to make a decision because of her deadline to submit the paperwork.
2) Delane kept trying to get me to agree to a diamond without ever seeing it. This could have been fine, except that she kept pushing diamonds that were lower in quality than the one I had lost. There was even one where she cropped the certificate to emphasize what matched the original diamond and hide where the diamond was inferior. Luckily, this Millenial knows there is this thing called "the internet" where you can easily just go onto gia.edu and see the entire certificate for any diamond certified by the GIA. Nice try.
3) Despite the fact that I knew what my ring size pre-pregnancy was, Delane insisted on fitting the ring to my finger size in the final weeks of my full-term pregnancy. This meant that I had to get the ring resized down 3/4 of a full size to my pre-pregnancy size. Surprise, surprise. To add insult to injury, I had to pay to get my ring resized, even though the ring was made by John Atencio and it was one of their own who got my ring size wrong.
4) There was a complete lack of attention to detail in the ring design. I provided a photo of the setting, which had pink sapphires on the side. Lo and behold, the ring came with white melee diamonds on the side, but Delane offered to switch them out at a later date (probably at a cost to me).
As if losing my ring wasn't bad enough, having to deal with a company like John Atencio to get a replacement made it so much worse.
For those considering buying a diamond ring from here, don't. Their diamond selection is very limited and much lower in quality that what you would find on James Allen or Blue Nile for the same price. Plus, you can tell how slowly their inventory moves by the dates on the GIA certificates.
The upside was that Shelly Getty, who I met at the Boulder location while getting my ring resized, was pleasant and got my resized ring back to me when she said she would. (For the record, turnaround time was about a week and a half.) read more
