Zale Jewelers / Zales.com review: bad customer service and repair 105

Greetings to all,
On behalf of the jewelry professionals in the world I would like to say I'm sorry but I won't! That sounds a little rough but I'm not going to say I'm sorry for those companies anymore!
I am a trained and certified "Bench Jeweler". I wear a leather apron and a visor to work. Not a tie and cologne. I have 3 stores. 1 is in a mall and not on the corner at the center of the mall next to the food court. Those locations cost over $12, 000 per month in rent! Did any of you complaining about the poor service ever once asked to talk to the Jeweler in the store prior to your purchase? No, You didn't! Would you take your car in for repair at a place that did not have a mechanic? Do the math...I have one store in a mall (not on a corner) it's in one of those "wings" away from the center of the mall. Guess what is sitting in our front window? That's right ... A jeweler! Go downtown in your hometown and you will most likely find a jeweler.
To make a long story short, A local independently owned jeweler spends his money on Jewelery and jewels. They do not spend it in real estate and marketing Vice Presidents and directors of east coast operations and company Airplanes. You put your faith in a large faceless corporation and fell for the marketing scams that are currently being offered by these C-Block corporations. I had many Zales contracts in both the Repair and Manufacturing side of Zales Corp. I will no longer do business with them quite simply for the fact that they want the product manufactured as cheaply as possible and will sacrifice quality of goods sold for marketabilityand appeal! They don't care about the product. The accountants are selling and selecting the goods, Not jewelers! How else can they pay $12, 000 per month in rent? That's right they don't pay that rent...You did! Zales spent 42 million dollars on their National Advertising Campaign last year...Guess what? That invoice was paid by cutting quality in their product which resulted in everyone loosing their stones and bad customer service. The Zale's Diamond is still just an I-1 I in color. The certificate you received is not from the GIA or the EGL so it doesn't mean anything! You are all on the internet complaining, but how many of you researched your major purchase? How many of you researched the different grades of diamonds before you bought? You fell for a beautifully orchestrated TV commercial and have now been disappointed! I am truely sorry for your loss but the simple basic understanding of economics would have prevented it... Look up the next time you "Walk Past" a Zales or any of the other C-block jewelery retail distribution centers. You will see so much lighting you'll wonder how they pay the electric bill! They don't... You did! I feel really sorry for most of you but after 22 years of making jewelry and selling "quality" I have learned that most of you will either go to a Roger's or Kay's or one of the other C-Blocks and make the same mistake over. But I did give it a portion of my time to help you understand when "the Problem" occured. The problem occured when you purchased from a faceless corporation instead of a trusted reputable jeweler. And if you bought an extended warranty or gold gaurantee, I have a fishing boat for sale but I'll charge you more if you want it to float... Sorry for the indignant reference, but you paid more for the boat to float. Quality is Quality and requires no extended service plan.
I feel your pain, especially when it is related to such a sentimental object of commitment. I wish you all the luck in your endeavores against the "Big Diamond" people and you have all been hand selected by them!
Regards,
Walter "Chip" Haines
Jeweler/Goldsmith

Wow. I'm sitting here looking at my engagement ring and feeling a little ill at the difficulties I know I'm going to be up against. My fiancee bought my ring in May 2008 at the Canadian branch of Zales (People's Jewellers). It was absolutely gorgeous and I was thrilled. I was going away for work for 3 weeks only a week after we got engaged. Since I didn't want to wear my ring working (outside) I thought it would be a good time to have it sized.

I took the ring to a different People's Jewellers than he bought it at because it was closer to get to. They said that it would be sent for sizing the next day and he could pick it up on the following Tuesday while I was still away. All fine. He picked it up but didn't look closely at it.

When I got back, he gave me back my ring. The inside engraving was almost completely gone, there is a line where the ring was cut to be sized down on the band, the diamonds had large inclusions (visible to the naked eye black chunks that were NOT there when I brought it in!) and the diamonds were mis-sized and set crookedly. I brought it back to the store and told the associate that there must have been some mix-up in the rings since this is definitely NOT the ring I brought in. She stared completely blankly at me for a minute and then said that I would have to talk to a manager. Who just happens to be away for the next three days. And if- just if- this "mix-up" was true it would be the first time she had ever heard of such a thing.

I went back to the original store that he bought the ring in and they have no records or information about any diamonds that don't have certificates. And this particular style of ring sometimes doesn't come with certificates. No explanation. They just don't. I was offered an exchange on any other ring in the store, but they didn't have the same ring in stock anymore. I'm only under the exchange policy until mid-August and the 30-day refund period has already run out.

I'm really not sure what to do. I don't have proof that the ring was different (which granted I am kicking myself over not getting the appraisal first BEFORE sizing it!) but it definitely is NOT the same ring! Should I just try to get a refund and get a new ring somewhere else? Go for an exchange? GRRR!

I just wanted to thank everyone for the time they spent inputting these comments. I was thinking about buying an anniversary gift for my wife there(zales) and have decided that I have no desire to do business with people of such ilk. I will look elsewhere for a place to buy jewelry.

I had terrible experience at Zales. My engagement ring was originally purchased from Zales. It was a 1 ct. solitaire Tiffany setting apparently "colorless." I sent it off to be sized and when I got it back it was cloudy and did not look at all like the ring I tried on in the store. They told me it just needed to be cleaned..it was cleaned and remained cloudy etc. I took it to a different Zales because we were in that mall at the time. I took in my ring and decided to exchange it for a ring they had in my size in their store and that way I would get a diamond I was happy with (not to mention the diamond was on sale..as it was not previously) I exchanged my ring and the sales associate returned 900 dollars (the difference) back to a Zales account that I had not used and not to my Mastercard, which was the original method of payment. Now, I am waiting for the correction to be made. As of now I am not hopeful. I will not be returning to Zales.

When we were deciding to get engaged, I told my fiance that I had always had great experiences with Zales, and that we should shop there. Those words came back to haunt me. We ordered a ring online for a great price. We decided to put $600 on my Zales $1000 in cash. The associate told us for faster service to get a gift card for $1000 from our local Zales store. We ordered ring. The next day the order was cancelled because the credit card company had not updated my phone number from 3 years ago.

There was no call to me, they just cancelled the order. When we tried to reorder we were told that we couldn't because the gift card wouldn't be refunded from 7-30 days. We were told many different time periods by different customer service reps. I asked for the supervisor, who after lots of arguing, agreed to put the $1000 back on the card the next day. Problem solved, right?...wrong. The ring was now out of stock, so I chose another.

Everything seemed to be going well. I continued to call Zales over a period of 4 days so that I would know that everything was going the right way. I decided that I would put the remaining $600 on another credit card to prevent any other problems with Zales. I called at 2:00 to ask about the status. They assured me everything was fine, it just hadn't been processed yet, and told me this ring would still be there as it had been "saved" in inventory when I placed the order.

3:00 the same day, they cancelled the order, once again without contacting me. They had called my credit card company and tried to have them approve the entire $1600 balance instead of just the $600 they were owed. There was a $1000 limit on the credit card, so they refused the charge. Zales then cancelled the order while I was on the phone with them.

Next, I was informed that the second ring was out of stock. The manager said that she would speak with the employee who made the error, but that I was out of luck. After again, much arguing, she agreed to put the $1000 back on the gift card the next day. She also promised to call me the next day to help fix the problem.
I wanted my money back! she said this would not be possible, but I could maybe talk to the Zales store and they could refund the $1000.

By this time I was in tears and extremely frustrated. I had had so many problems talking to the customer service people. All except one that I spoke with of were extremely rude and nasty. I just wanted to go get a ring somewhere else.

The next day, I decided to try once again, because I was sick and tired of fighting with them. The manager never bothered to call me back. We ordered a third ring. It came and it was gorgeous. I ordered a size 7, the only one they had. I noticed it fit very tightly.

We took it into the Zales store. They sent me a size 5 1/2! You could tell that the ring had orinally been a size 7, but that it had been cut and resized. The ring wasn't even exactly round. I can't believe it. Now my engagement will have been sized two times. It was supposed to be a new ring. I am very very disturbed that a corporation could treat customers so badly. Zales has lost me as a customer.

My fiance and I just went to Zales about two weeks ago to pick out our wedding bands. When we arrived, the sales associate was extremely indifferent and not helpful in any way. We went ahead and picked out rings to be sized for us. My fiance's ring was supposed to take 6-8 weeks to special order and mine was supposed to only take 7-10 days. Well, a week later we got a call from the sales associate saying that my ring would also have to be special ordered and would take another 6-8 weeks. We went ahead and set that up to have it special ordered as well. This morning we got a call from the store stating that my fiance's ring was in and that they had put a ring guard on my ring. When I asked about mine being special ordered, they acted like they never knew it was supposed to be special ordered in the first place. By that point, we already decided to get a refund on my ring, because the wedding is only a little over 2 months away and there was probably a pretty good chance that mine would get screwed up again and not be ready in time. So when we arrived at the store today, the sales associate told us that my fiance's ring had not come in at all. We were shocked at how completely unorganized their store was. We asked for a refund for both rings, went to Helzberg Diamonds, and bought new rings. My engagement ring is from Helzberg Diamonds and I have never had any problems with it, so I'm certain our new wedding bands will be great. The customer service was 100 percent better too. I'm not surprised that many people have had problems with Zales because their customer service was horrific. We've both worked in customer service jobs and would have never treated customers the way we were treated. I will never buy anything from Zales again.

As a zales employ i can say that evfen with my discount i still refuse to buy from zales. I've been in the company for a year or so and have seen more people go through all the things that you poor people have described. when i diamond falls out we are required to send it to coperate offices ( which takes 2-3 months) and then most of the time they give u a diamond of the same ### qualtiy and they reset it cheap as possible so it ends up falling out again. Yelling at the sales associates solves nothing though, most of the time we are untrained and learn from out managers who fill our heads full of ###. In the case of my store, our manager was recruited from a hair saloon she has worked at zales for only six months and is a lieing decieveing ### with no previous managment experiance. Zales prefers to promote associates to management simply because they save money on training that way. the problem with this is they promote until proven incompitant then they just fire them. In my year with the company our store has gone through two managers and now we are on our third. they switch presidents every year and change policies everyday. Zales is a chain jewler and the only training they give us is how to give you unsuspecting customers the run around when it comes to returns then they justify it by telling us "every other store is doing it" . I have worked at 3 other jewlery stores and i can say that at this point im done with jewlery in general its all a rip off but zales is the worse. you can expect poor quality jewlery and bad customer service but its hard to get quality associates when they start most out at 8 dollars an hour and treat us like ###. Im all but done at the company so im sending out this warning do yourself a favor if your gonna spend serious money on a engagment ring go to a real jewler not a chain store like zales.

Zales is a waste of store space. Their customer service is horrible, I get the same treatment from them in the store as you saw by the ignorant ### of an employee that posted. Of course you like your store, you like your job. Are we supposed to buy jewelry and leave it in the box so it doesn't get damaged. Yeah get real dude. Take yourself out of the gene pool.

I bought my wife a past present and future ring for her 40th birthday. Three weeks later one of the diamonds came loose. When I took it back to the store to have it repaired I was told that they would call me with an estimate when the ring gets to the repair shop. Imagine how I felt a little over 3 weeks after purchasing the ring that I had to pay to have it fixed. We both have rings with diamonds and they never came loose. The store manager treated me like I had the plauge. After hours of complaining they agreed to exchange it for another ring. I picked the next size up and we agreed to split the cost of the 2 rings. two months later when my ring finally came in they would not honor the deal. I wish I saw this site prior to spending my time at Zales.

Um... as for the Zales employee. What kind fo crappy rings are you used to. You should be able to wear a ring everyday and have the diamond stay end. I had mine made by a jeweler in New York's diamond district and it stays in the ring thank you very much. It that's the standard Zales is shooting for then that's pretty shabby workmanship.

I know exactly how you all feel. My fiance paid $3,000 for my enagement ring and it everything about it was perfect. After having it for only two months, I noticed that a diamond had fallen out of it. I took it to Zales on November 28, 2007 to have it repaired. The associate gave me a promise date of December 28, 2007. It is now January 19 and I still do not have my ring. I have called at least twice a week since the promise date to check on the status, and all they can tell me is "It's not here; call back in a week." My fiance called the store and asked to speak with the manager about my ring. Of course, there wasn't a manger working. He asked if the associate could give him the number to the regional manager and she stated that only the manager could give out that number. He left a message with the associate for the manager to call him back first thing in the a.m. He never received a call back. In fact, he called 3 times the next day and wouldn't you guess--the manager wasn't in. He finally called a different Zales and they were kind enough to give him the number to the district office where he left a message for the district manager to call him back. It has been a week and we still have not heard anything from the district manager. I am so upset and pissed at the whole situation. My fiance is at the point of telling them either to just keep the ring or he will stop paying for it and the can just repo it because we know that they will not give us a refund. It is so ridiculous what someone has to go through to get a ring fixed. It is not fair to either one of us- he is paying for a ring that I don't even get to wear and I only got to wear it for two months. I cannot believe the sales associate that posted a comment saying that we should take better care of our jewelry. These are our engagement rings-of course we are taking the best care of them. How many women do you know that just flail their hand around and let their ring hit whatever it comes into contact with? The settings should not be loose or weak after only wearing the ring for two months! He is just like every other disrespectful ### that works for Zales--making excuses for the poor quality jewelry that he sales. I will make Zales life a living hell until I am completely satsfied with the outcome-and if that means filing a class action law suit against them, then so be it. Ladies, I have the numbers for the Zales corporate custumer service and to the executive offices. The customer service number is [protected] and the executive office number is [protected]. It will probably be a complete waste of time, but it is worth a shot.

OMG! Oh how I wish I would have thought to investigate Zale's before we bought my ring. My husband bought my engagement ring from Zale's 9 years ago. It was a 3 Karat band that served as my wedding ring also, with just a gold diamond band added to it. I absolutely loved my ring. A few months after receiving my ring, a diamond fell out. Imagine my shock! I was standing in front of my class teaching, when one of the students raised their hand and told me that my ring was missing a diamond. I was embarrassed. I immediately called my husband, who was my fiance' then, and told him about my missing diamond. We met at Zale's so that we could send it straight off for repair. We were told that Zale's would call us as soon as the ring came back. When the promised date rolled around, we decided to call to see if it was back. It was back. The next year, we were back, due to another diamond falling out. The next year, and the next year, and the next year, we were back with this ring because diamonds kept falling out. Each time we sent it off for repair, we had to call to see if it was in. The store never called us. I took my ring in for repair Oct. 6, 2007 because you guessed it; a diamond fell out! The promised date for pick up was Nov. 15, 2007. We called and were told the ring was not in yet. We called every week after that. We decided to go in to see a manager. The manager told me that she would trace the paper trail to find out what was taking so long and she would call me back. She didn't call me back, so I called her back. She said that unfortunately, they couldn't locate my ring and that I could upgrade to a new one. I called my husband and told him what she said and he told her that he wanted his money back! We were told that we would be getting a full refund. It is January 17, 2008 and my finger is bare and we don't have our refund. I am livid and I am telling everyone I know about what has happened. I feel as if I'm having a bad dream! My weekends are now filled with trying to find another ring. If I find one that I like, it will not have the same significance that the original ring had. That one was bought out of love, honor, trust and sincerity; this one will be bought out of need. I need another ring. Love, honor, trust and sincerity are still the guiding forces of our marriage, but our original symbol of these things are gone. DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM ZALE'S!

Zales has terrible customer service and the quality of their merchandise is very poor. My fiancee paid $4,000 for my engagement ring only to have a diamond fall out 3 months later. I'm not the type of person who is rough. My daily activities include going to class and homework. Zales has given me the run around since day 1. My merchandise was never in the store on the promised date. The first incident occured when I brought the ring in to be resized. The ring was supposed to take only a week. When I went into the store to pick it up I was told that the ring had not been sent off to the jeweler yet. The second incident happened when one of the diamonds fell out. I was sitting in class and just so happen to glance at my hand and noticed and empty place. My ring was a past present future ring so it looked as if it was missing teeth. I immediately informed my fiancee. We took it into the store on October 30, 2007. The sales associate informed us that it would take 2-3 weeks to come back. Three weeks from that date was printed on our receipt as the promised date. Three weeks later I went into the store to pick it up only to be told that it actually takes 4-6 weeks. About 5 weeks later I called to check on the status only to be told that it usually takes 6-8 weeks and that the original person who had told me 2-3 weeks was new and didn't have the right information. 8 weeks later which was last week on January 2, 2008 I called the corporate office. They really couldn't give me an exact date. They said that the repair center only accepts emails not phone calls and to call back on January 8, 2008 which would be exactly 2 months since my ring was actually sent off to the repair center (yes, my ring sat there for 9 days before being sent off). When I called the store on January 9, 2008 I was told that the repair center sent an email to the store saying that it would be another 3 weeks before I would receive my ring. The Zales staff in Baton Rouge, LA are very rude. Every time myself or my fiancee would call the to check on my ring we were treated very badly. After my fiancee paid $4,000 for a ring the last thing I would expect would be for a diamond to fall out after only 3 months. We have been engaged for 6 months and half of that time my ring finger has been empty. I will never do business with Zales again. I will also tell every single person that I can to do the same. I attend college out of state so imagine how sad and depressed I was when I went home back to California for the Christmas holiday without my ring. Every where I went people constantly asked about my ring. I had nothing to show for my engagement, only a terrible story about Zales. I honestly think we should all try to get a class action lawsuit going. This is really absurd. I'm afraid to get my ring back after hearing all of these horror stories about the diamonds not matching and not being clear.

I DISAGREE I HAVE SHOPPED WITH ZALES FOR YEARS AND HAVE NEVER HAD ANY PROBLEMS AND ALWAYS GET GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE! I LOVE ZALES!

I am having the same problem with Zales. We bought all 3 rings with them. My husbands ring is fine but the engagement ring was leaning to one side and the channels were not cut evenly. After their jeweler tried to "fix" it. It still looked the same. I said to send it back which created an uproar and I had to threaten them with my full insurance on the ring. After the jeweler would not try to fix it anymore they wanted to leave it as is. Yea right... after having to scream and yell and tell other customers in the store how bad they were, they said that they would order a new one. The new one was fine. Their sales associates will lie to you just as they did to me. 20% discount on the ring but when she rings it up she accidentally forgot that you don't get the discount if u custom order a size like I was going to do. They will lie and lie and lie... and lie. (I don't want to write a novel so I won't tell you every lie that was told to me or I will have an 8 page letter... my case that I sent to the district office) After a 30 min. argument they sold me the size 7 off the shelf and they would order me my size 4. I go into the store to check where my ring is at b/c it has been past the delivery date they told me and the sales rep shows me a ticket with the ordering managers initials on it saying that the ring has been checked into the store... but they look and look and can't find it. They say call in the morning and we will ask her where she placed it. I call and they tell me that the ring is still on order. Funny huh! About a week later(perfect rush order time for them) my ring arrives. I go to try it on and it falls off my finger as fast as I put it on. It was a size 5. The ditz sold my ring and accidentally ordered the wrong size... (which of course they deny... and they now can't find that ticket that had the managers initials on it of course.)They rush order a size 4 ring so that I can have a ring for my wedding day in 1 week! 5 days after the wedding a diamond falls out of the wedding band. They prob grabbed a size 7 off of the shelf and sent it to be sized down to the 4 instead of ordering a new one. The Zales store kept telling me that this lady Victoria was the manager when in fact she wasn't. The real store manager was Pat and she was fully unaware of the situation. She said the famous words of Zales "I'm sorry" and what would you like for me to do for you. Seeing as I am still on my honeymoon I told her that I wanted a full refund on my wedding band and a new one ordered. She said that she would take it up with corporate. She did and Mike Kalpatrick said "Here's the deal" Bla Bla Bla only half back and a new ring...I might as well take what I can get at this point. Zales corp. a customer can request to speak with the district manager but they will only call you back if they themselves feel compelled to call you back as Mike Kalpatick (over North Star Mall) does. Same goes for all their higher up managers... my guess is that they get so many complaints that they will not call, and don't have the time to call their unsatisfied customers back b/c there are WAY too many of them. It is now 3 weeks past my wedding and I still do not have a wedding band that has all of it's diamonds in it. And corp. still chooses not to call me back... prob. anyone else for that matter. Zales has a very low Quality product... DO NOT USE THEM! I wish I would have said I don't to Zales!

I wish i would have found this out before i got my engagement ring! I am horrified! This has been happening to me also and its awful!

Currently going through the same thing, however, I am dealing with their Canadian affiliate, People's Jewellers. The diamond has fallen out of the ring we bought at Zales, however, we are/were told by Zales that the warranty is also good in Canada. Upon going to People's today, we were told that they do not honor any such warranties. The manager at People's refused to do anything, and simply gave us the number to head office. Currently awaiting a call back from People's regarding this issue.

I'm having the same problem as others. The diamond on my ring(s) keep falling out. They have replaced 2 wedding bands and while I was at their store this past Sunday to get them cleaned and checked, 2 days later another diamond has fallen out. This is the 3rd ring I have had problems with. I talked to the corporate office, they told me to upgrade, yeah ok, then tried to put the blame that I must of bumped my ring. Their quality of goods is crap. The service is horrible. They treat you like a criminal when you go in to complain about the crap their selling.

Zales associates and management lied to me about their store policies in order to make a sale. Prior to buying the ring, I specifically asked about their return policy, I was told that there was an unconditional money back guarantee within 30 days of purchase, I was further told that the refund would be completed by the same method in which I made the purchase. I purchased a diamond ring, when I found the identical ring elsewhere for a significantly lower price, I attempted to return it---I had all the original paperwork and it had only been 2 weeks since my purchase----they did everything possible to prevent me from returning the item and instead of refunding the CASH that I paid for the item, they finally told me that I would have to wait 3-4 weeks to get a corporate check issued to me. All my aggravation could have been avoided if their employees were appropriately trained AND practiced honesty when doing business.

If you google Zales you will find out that so many people are having this same problem. They diamond falls out, you take it to the store, the fix it, the diamond comes back looking worse than it was, and then finally you are the one to blame. This same thing happened to me and I am in the same boat. They have horrible customer service and we need to get the word out.