I would be on the way to posting a four to five star review of Begeman were it not for an unexpectedly poor bit of customer service that's prompted me to go engagement ring shopping elsewhere.
I've been working with Bill H. to buy an engagement ring and until now, he was fairly helpful, walking me through any misunderstanding I had of elements of the 4 Cs of diamond buying, explaining the pros and cons of gold and platinum mountings, etc.
We were moving forward with the purchase of a particular ring and ran into some trouble finding the right diamond to match the designer's specs.
At this point, Bill showed me several stones he had on-hand. One of these was a diamond without papers. I thought I could find a better price online and consequently went home to do some research. Finding one on the Solomon Brothers website, I brought the listing back in to have Bill validate that the diamond's symmetry, weight, and other features, etc., were both adequate and would match the ring in question. When I came back in, Bill seemed a bit shorter than before, but I put this subtle change in behavior down to a bad night of sleep. No big deal. After a quick review, we ordered the diamond from Solomon Bros.
Later in the day, I got a call from Solomon informing me that that listing had already been sold. I went to James Allen instead, found a more or less equivalent stone, and called Bill to have him quickly look at the new listing so I could go ahead and order the diamond.
At this point, over the phone, Bill told me that he couldn't do it at the moment and that he probably wouldn't have time for the rest of the day (the shop closes at 6, leaving 2 full hours for him to look). He actually stated "I can't keep going back and forth." He demurred on taking a look at that diamond listing until late Monday. Given his petulant tone and the fact that the shop was more or less devoid of customers my previous three visits, I had trouble believing that Bill was actually this occupied; I think he was simply being passive aggressive and trying to communicate that he didn't want to help.
I think that's a bit rude given that a diamond purchase is, well, kind of important. I was unaware that asking for a jeweler to validate that a certain stone is what a certain mounting calls for places too great a demand on his time.
My total money spent would have been between $5 and 6K. Perhaps this amount doesn't merit good customer service? Alternatively, maybe Bill was just unhappy that I wasn't interested in purchasing his paper-less stone.
In any case, I think Bill and by extension Begeman acted unprofessionally. read more
