I've had a rough couple of weeks when it comes to jewelers, but this place has given me incredible…read morehope! 2 weeks ago my high school sweet heart proposed to me with a beautiful engagement ring he found online (a site called pompeii3).
A week after he proposed, and I had finally come back to earth enough to notice it was a little big, i took it to Karlise to get an estimate on sizing it down. Mike, the jeweler and owner, warned me that sizing down the ring would be incredibly difficult since the prongs holding the diamonds into the band were all forms of messed up, and would likely fall out. Me, wishing it weren't true, then decided to go look for a second opinion.
I found another local jeweler, who looked at the ring for me and said that it would be fine, and paid for them to size it down. WRONG!
Another few days after my ring was sized down, I began losing diamonds. Six to be exact. I tried to go back to the jeweler who sized it down, and they told me it wasn't their fault, that they had taken note that it was a possibility (even though they told me it was fine), and i should contact the seller.
The seller (pompeii3) however, has a strict refund policy however, where if another jeweler changes it in anyway or if it's past 30 days from purchase, they won't allow you to return or exchange it. This is most likely do to the fact that they sell incredibly poorly made rings as i found out.
So next i went to a third different local jeweler praying they would fix it for whatever price. Though they were very kind and apologetic, told me there was nothing they could do, that the setting was too poorly made.
Leaving heartbroken, i decided to try one last place, Karlise's, the jewelers who had been honest with my stubborn self from day one. I expected a little bit of an "I told you so" and was embarrassed going back in, but i was pleasantly surprised with a warm welcome.
Mike told me, as the last jeweler had, that it was in incredibly rough shape. I'll admit it, hearing this again, i wept like a baby right in the middle of the store. The staff was incredibly comforting however, and Mike reassured me that that didnt mean there was nothing we could do. After i pulled myself together, he talked me through countless ways we could reuse the diamonds in my ring, or melt down the white gold setting into a wedding band. I shared with him my troubles with Pompeii3 and previous jewelers and could tell he was genuinely upset about the circumstances i had faced.
He continued to offer several more creative solutions until we decided to take a risk and put the missing diamonds back in and secure them. He was honest with me once again, explaining that the old diamonds remaining that he hadnt replaced, may continue to fall out, and I understand that. Mike understood my attachment to the ring my fiance had proposed to me with, and took the risk with me, not knowing if i were the type of customer that would return and blame him for any diamonds that would fall out after. He even offered a discount on the 6 new diamonds i needed, aknowledging how badly the online jeweler had wronged me.
I can't comment on how the pricing is at this jeweler, as I really dont know much about the pricing in the area or for jewelry in general. But that doesn't matter to me after the kindness i experienced at Karlise's. They're a true family run business, not a bunch of robot salemen fighting for commission, and I refuse to buy my fiance and I's eventual wedding bands anywhere else.
