Tuesday, March 28, 2006

There's Lies, and then there's DARN lies

I saw this on a competitor's site a few weeks ago. It made me very cranky then and after having been promised that it would be changed one of my friendly competitors brought it to my attention this morning and I see that it has not.

Quote:

WELCOME

PRICESCOPE VISITORS

We will beat any internet competitor's lowest advertised price on any diamond seen on pricescope.

All diamonds seen on pricescope are available to us. You will receive the absolute lowest price from us......guaranteed!!!

Once you know the diamond(s) that you are interested in please fill the following chart. XYZ Diamonds will contact you very shortly. Or, feel free to call 1 555-555-5555 and discuss the details of any diamond(s) that you have seen listed on pricescope. If calling outside of normal business hours (eastern time) please leave all the details concerning the diamond(s) and we will call you back shortly. Thanks.

Please note that XYZ Diamonds will not be responsible for any errors in pricing made by pricescope. All diamonds are subject to availability.

End Quote:

What a crock. Yes, they can get some of the diamonds listed on Pricescope, but there are many diamonds and lines of diamonds that they can not touch, such as the Cut by Infinity diamonds that I carry, or the A Cut Above diamonds by WhiteFlash. Of course, if you are looking for one of those diamonds, well they are subject to availability, of which they have NONE!!!

It saddens me to think that the American public is so easily duped, yet this company have been doing this type of thing for many years, so obviously a large enough portion of the public is this easily duped or the "fine folks" who tell these lies would have long since gone out of business. There business model is to list huge "inventory" lists of diamonds that they do not have and have never seen on their site, and if you want one of "their" diamonds they will have it drop shipped to you. They never see the stone, they never inspect the stone, and they take the word of the vendor that the stone is as specified, when in fact often it is not.

My hope for those of you reading this blog is that you are smart enough to spend a little time getting educated about the finer points of buying a diamond and make your own decision. If that company has the diamond you want and are willing to shave $10 off the price to make the sale, then wonderful. But if you want one of the truly best cut diamonds on the planet, then they will not be able to acquire them and you might actually have to pay 3-5% more for the diamond. The extra price also brings extra service, and of course the extra quality of the best cutting available for the diamond that you are buying.

Not every one will want only the best cut diamonds, but if you do, you will need to look at them with people who actually have them, not people who dropship diamonds they have never seen to people who are not qualified normally to know for sure if the diamond is in fact what it is touted to be.

As you might guess, this is one of my pet peeves. Sigh, I think I will get over it, but I will leave you with this little example of why you might want to pay a little more and be happier with your purchase.

A client called me from here in Boise. He had been searching on the internet and found three diamonds, all H&A that he wanted to look at. He agreed to pay me a slightly higher price for each stone, plus the cost of postage and insurance to bring them in and return the unbought stones. I believe the total was about $300 more for the stone he bought on a stone of more than $10,000 so less than 5% and shipping and insurance on the unbought diamonds, another $100 each round trip. Let's call them diamond A, B and C in the order in which he thought he wanted to buy them. I called the diamond owners of the diamonds, not the sites they were listed on. I specifically questioned each dealer about the stones and stressed are the diamonds Hearts and Arrows quality cutting.

"Oh, yes, they are AGS 0 cuts."

"But are they H&A?"

Oh, yes, they are AGS 0 cuts.

"I understand that, but are they H&A as well as AGS 0 cuts"

"Oh yes."

To make a long story short, diamonds A and B were not Hearts and Arrows quality cutting. Diamond C that he almost did not let me bring in to save the $100 in shipping and insurance costs was the only legitimate H&A cut in the batch, AND it was the least expensive of the three stones by several hundred dollars. So my client, buy spending a little more for service, actually saved money in the long run, and will never have the "experience" of finding out somewhere down the road that he did not get what he thought he was paying for.

By the way, when we sat down, I put all three diamonds before him to let him choose, and he immediately gravitated towards the H&A cut diamond as being the most sparkly of the three. Sometimes you can tell, sometimes you can not. Me personally, I think it is always wise to let your eyes do the walking. If you can not be in a place to let YOUR eyes do the walking, then maybe you want to be talking with someone who has good eyes and is willing to let their eyes do your walking. It is up to you, but please do not be fooled by someone willing to lie and say that they have access to all the diamonds listed on Pricescope, when they are NOT EVEN CLOSE to be able to access all of the diamonds.

Wink

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