I married my wife last August. I bought the warranty plan on the wedding ring, where every six months you take the ring to the Jewelry store and they make sure no diamonds are loose. My wife took her ring to the jewelry store for her second semi-annual check up. One of the diamonds was loose so they had to send the ring in to get it repaired. It should take two weeks to get the ring fixed. Four weeks later they called and told my wife they lost the ring. They offered to order the same ring and give it to her at no cost.
Tomorrow we are going to the store to talk to them about a resolution. I want to know what type of questions to ask, and how to use the leverage of the situation to our benefit. As a guy I thought getting a replicate of the ring would be reasonable. However, I now know that was a typical stupid guy response. :smack: The lost ring has sentimental value to my wife, and even if they replace it, it wouldn’t be the original. I think the obvious wish would be to get the same type of ring with a bigger diamond. Does that sound like a reasonable thing to ask for?
I’d really like to know if this sort of thing has happened to anyone else, and what the resolution was. What would you do in this situation? Would you be happy with a replacement of the same ring? Thanks.
My mother gave me her old engagement ring (my dad had given her an upgraded ring), and I’d be devastated if that ring was lost.
Ask your wife about this. Really. I’d probably ask for a better stone, or more stones, or some sort of upgrade on the ring.
And then, when I had the replacement in my hot little hands, I’d take it to a competing jeweler and have it inspected and appraised, because I’d want to be sure that what they said they were giving me and what I got were the same thing. And I’m not sure that I’d ever let the first jewelry store have any more of my business.
I would call this a fair offer but your wife is the one who needs to be happy with the arrangement. I personally would push for store credit for the first ring’s original value and then have your wife come in and pick out a replacement. If the replacement costs more than the original then you may be able to negotiate a discount on the difference.
And I second Lynn Bodoni’s thought about getting the new ring independently appraised ASAP.
I can see no justification for demanding a ring of higher value than the one that was lost. Their insurance pays the value of the lost ring, not some trumped-up sentimental dollar amount. This isn’t a family heirloom, it’s a 10-month old ring. If a diamond had been lost, would you demand a better diamond because the old one had sentimental value? If you lost the diamond ring yourself, would you put in a claim with your insurance company for a higher value because of the sentimental value?
“how to use the leverage of the situation to our benefit” sounds an awful lot like “how can we grab more money out of this for ourselves at their expense”.
It does sound a lot like there is the possibility of them ripping you off, though. As Lynn Bodoni said, get the ring appraised. You may want to ask your insurance company about this.
Dude, but hte fact that it was their WEDDING RING makes it in fact a family heirloom. Their family heirloom. Just because it isn’t 400 years old does not diminish the heirloomness of the object.
It appears that since you’re coupling sentimental value to this loss of property, you may well be disappointed with the outcome unless your state has a law on the books allowing sentimental value to become part of a loss of property and I haven’t heard of any state that does that. Usually, US law allows someone entitled to collect for a apple with the replacement of another apple or the value of said apple.
If you opt for a cash settlement, you may discover just how high the markup tends to be on jewelry.
Regardless of any additional benefit you can swing from the jeweller, it will not be her wedding ring - there is no way they can recompense you for that. If you get a nicer ring - she’ll know when she looks at it that it’s not the same.
If you try to turn this to your advantage, you’re taking advantage. I would expect the store to restore your belongings as they were before they lost the ring, and nothing more.
Get the same ring you bought originally (or her choice to the same value) - and find a way to make this new ring special - get it blessed, have a new mini ceremony on your anniversary etc.
I’m totally with you on this. When I read the part in the OP where the jewelry store offered a straight replacement, I couldn’t see what the question was going to be.
Really, there’s plenty worse things can happen, attaching so much emotion to a pretty newly bought object just seems ridiculous to me.
Yes, but he’s not talking about filing a lawsuit for the value of the ring plus its sentimental value. He’s talking about getting the jewelry store to do something nice for his wife since they lost her effing wedding ring. You know, customer service and all that.
From a moral point of view, I think that you are owed a perfect replacement of the ring. From a customer service point of view, they should also give you a pair of earrings, pendant, or something else that is about 10% to 20% of the value of the ring.
The store cannot replace the value of this ring, precisely because of this. Jewelry stores sell emotional connections as much as they sell bits of metal and stone. Perhaps even more so. They also sell their reputations, and that’s why they’ll have little signs below their names, saying “Since 1947” or some such. The OP and his wife are NOT happy, and the jewelry store needs to bend over backwards to try to please them.
I’ve reconsidered my advice. The OP should ask for the full amount of the ring’s price, plus the amount of the warranty, in cash, not store credit. Then he and his wife should go ring shopping again, and not at that store, either.
You are owed a replacement ring of equal value. Sentimental value is nice but even an heirloom counts for nothing.
The store made an HONEST mistake. And now you seek to PROFIT from an honest mistake.
How would you feel if someone slipped on your floor and said “Great he’s got homeowner’s insurance, lets sue this guy for all he’s got.” I’d bet you be on here starting a thread on how ungrateful people are.
Stuff happens in life, there was no malice involved. It doesn’t surprise me that anyone wants to CHA-CHING cash in on an honest mistake.
I just hope if you do the next time you and or your wife makes an honest mistake you’re not on the recieving end.
Hello? What part of WEDDING RING do you not understand? Most people are slightly sentimental about things like WEDDINGS, something about that whole LOVE thang, hopefully ONCE IN A LIFETIME thang, forming lifelong MEMORIES thang.
Sure, the store made an honest mistake. However, the OP and his wife can never be made whole, unless the store suddenly finds that ring again. Jewelers count on sentiment to sell their goods, and in the case of the OP, they also used sentiment to sell a warranty as well.
This seems reasonable. But I wanted to ask about the idea of a “semi-annual checkup.” I understand that was part of the warranty purchased with the ring, but is that sort of thing really necessary? I don’t own any jewelry, but my mother has a lot and I don’t think she does this with her stuff.
And it’s entirely replaceable, with a ring that looks and feels exactly the same. The same ring they picked out. It’s not greatgranny’s-made-in-1902-nevertobereplaced ring.
I had a wedding ring which proved faulty - the stones kept dropping out of it. In the end, after round three of repairs, the store replaced it with the exact same thing. Some Big Deal.
I think if it were something like a ring that they’d had for years, I might be more pissed at the store. But this is the same store you bought it from and that same store is replacing it? I don’t really see the big deal. Then again, I don’t really like rings all that much and if I get ever get married, probably won’t wear mine. And I’m not really too big on sentiment for objects either.
The duplicate ring would be sufficient for me. In fact, it was.
My wedding ring is a gold inner band with 2 platinum outer bands. After only a couple of months, one of the platinum bands came loose. It didn’t fall off; it just spun around freely, which was quite annoying.
I took it back to the jeweler, and they said they couldn’t fix it – but offered to make an exact duplicate to replace it. I was quite happy with that resolution. Even if it’s not the same ring my wife put on my finger on our wedding day, it’s still my wedding ring, and it symbolizes exactly the same thing to me.
Lest anyone think it’s a male/female difference, I recall briefly lamenting at the time that I wouldn’t be getting the original ring back, my wife said something to the effect of, “It’s just a thing. Don’t worry about it.” 13 years later, it’s such a non-issue I’d forgotten it even happened until seeing this thread.