Avoid like the plague!…read more
Timothy J Sharp used to be known as "Myriad" and was situated at the far end of the high street. It was a run down, cramped shop with little to offer, the staff were abrupt and service was slow, but recently they moved to new premises in a more central location...and things have gotten much worse.
All right, I'm not being entirely fair. The shop looks a lot better. It's bigger, brighter and, for the most part, has an air of class about it. The appearance, however, isn't flawless. The white marble effect floors are attractive, but are ruined somewhat by a rainbow lighting strip along the stairs at the entrance, a feature better suited to a 1980s sex shop than a quality jewellers. The display cabinets are large and well lit, though sadly bright enough to highlight the dead flies and grimy fingerprints on the displays. It's hardly a polished outfit, but it is a vast improvement on the old place.
Unfortunately, the staff seem to have developed an entirely unwarranted superiority complex since the move and seem to regard most of their customers as unwelcome plebs. They are rude, seem to think that customers will wait until they feel like serving them, and anyone who offers there merest criticism is unceremoniously ordered from the store and physically accosted if they don't exit quickly enough.
The jewellery is decent enough, though far more expensive than most of the other jewellers in a forty mile radius, but the quality of their in-house pieces leaves much to be desired. Don't get me wrong, their designs would be popular on a market stall in Glasgow or some other big city (at an appropriate price), but they lack the originality and quality of some of the other designers they feature.
Timothy J Sharp's website is an accurate representation of the shop itself - at first glance it looks flashy, but you don't have to look too hard to see the flaws. Their butchery of the English language is hard enough to stomach without all the spelling mistakes ("dazzelingly" sic) and I refuse to believe that any jeweller in Scotland who truly knows their stuff can't spell "Mackintosh". I'm sure some will think I'm being a bit picky talking about spelling mistakes on a website, but as that same website boasts about their "attention to detail" I feel the criticism is justified.
My own experience with this jewellers is brief and unpleasant. I took a pendant in to be repaired. It was missing three stones. I was quoted a price of £10 to get it fixed and told it would be ready in time for Valentine's Day (which was eight days away at the time). I returned to the shop on the morning of Valentine's Day to find that they hadn't even started the repairs, leaving me without a gift for my wife, and had to wait two further weeks until they finally got around to it.
When I finally got the pendant back I was far from impressed. The metal had been stressed and scarred by tools, and while three stones had been put in they, the stones around them and the metal were covered in a frosty substance I later learned was superglue. A beautiful pendant missing three stones was returned in appalling condition and for the £10 charged for "fixing" it I'm now facing a bill of £67 to rectify the damage they caused.
I complained, of course. I told them I wasn't happy with the quality of the work and wanted them to fix it. Were they apologetic? No. Instead, the staff member I spoke to ordered me out of the shop and when I didn't run for the door he hit me, kicked me and pushed me into the door. I suppose that's what they call customer service.
In short, Timothy J Sharp is a bitter blend of arrogance and incompetence best avoided.