I was shopping for a diamond engagement ring and saw the website for Northwest Diamonds & Jewelry…read morein Portland. I live in Seattle, so I called and spoke to Wady about scheduling a time to drive down (3 hours) to look at his selection.
Wady assured me that he would treat me like a family member and find the absolute best diamond available in the range I gave him (shape, size, color, clarity, price). He said that he would arrange to have at least 2 and maybe 3 diamonds for me to review. I thought that was a little odd, since the website appeared to represent an established showroom.
When I arrived, I was surprised to learn that there is no showroom at all. I walked upstairs from the street and was met by Wady in a small office with a sliding bar door for security. There were some gray file cabinets, a couple of desks with chairs. His wife was there working on some papers. He retrieved 3 small envelopes containing diamonds he had ordered. He emptied them into my hand--no loupes, not even a black velvet background pad or a light to look at them. I asked for these things, and after rummaging through some items on the desks, they found them and set them in front of me.
Only one of the three diamonds was within the price range I had provided him; the other two were well above my budget. I looked the stones over and decided to think about it. Wady kept saying I was under no obligation, but that he had "paid shipping costs" and "spent several hours" researching the very best diamond for me. On my drive back to Seattle, he called my cell phone and tried to convince me to buy the diamond I was considering. I told him I still wanted to think about it, and he was not happy.
The next day (Sunday) I texted him a question about that diamond, and he responded that he wasn't in the office. No problem. On Monday, I called to ask him whether the diamond had any "bowtie" effect (an artifact that you can sometimes see in Marquise diamonds). He became defensive, told me "you want me to give you an education for free," and then when I pressed him on whether the diamond had any bowtie effect, he said, "yes, it has a small bowtie, but you know, you are dealing with a professional here; I am very busy and do not have time to talk with you." And then as I was answering him, he hung up the phone on me mid-sentence, and I never heard from him again.
I later found a marquise diamond that was nicer in just about every respect (size, color, clarity, no bowtie) for about $2000 less, using the major online websites, all of which have very close up photography and videos that are even better than using 10x loupes in person. My girlfriend said "yes," for the record, and she absolutely loves her ring.
Looking back, my personal impression of Wady and Northwest Diamonds & Jewelry is that this is a relatively low-budget, middle man operation, selling diamonds at a higher price than what is available in the market elsewhere. Perhaps most importantly, he became quite unprofessional in his interactions with me once I did not agree to buy his recommended diamond right away.
I would just recommend doing your homework and shopping around.
