Jeweller broke engagement ring

Penn

A friend of mine left her engagement ring in to a jewellers to be cleaned. While in the shop, the ring got broke. The jeweller has offered to handmake a new ring, but my friend wants to know if she is entitled to keep her old ring too (even though its broke. Sentimental value I suppose)

I was just wondering what her rights are

Cheers in advance

Cabaal

I don't see why she's not entitled to keep her own ring, is the jeweller the same one that sold her the ring?

its their fault after all and by saying they'll make a new one means they have admitted liability

Enii

I assume by saying they will remake a new one they mean they will take the diamond out of the old broken one and reset it in the new ring.

If so I am sure they will let her keep the old broken ring setting.

dudara

I really don't know what her exact rights are in this situation, but I would imagine that they have to return her original property to her.

bungaro

not 100% on this but if they offer to fix your ring then i think they can claim to keep your setting to recoup some of their loss. like if your car got damaged in a crash and an insurance company said they'd replace it then they would keep your car and sell parts to minimise their loss.
best bet is just to ask the jeweller straight out though and explain the sentimentality behind the ring

Run_to_da_hills

If its gold she could get the old broken ring melted down and formed into a new one.

Penn

bungaro wrote: »

not 100% on this but if they offer to fix your ring then i think they can claim to keep your setting to recoup some of their loss. like if your car got damaged in a crash and an insurance company said they'd replace it then they would keep your car and sell parts to minimise their loss.
best bet is just to ask the jeweller straight out though and explain the sentimentality behind the ring

Apparantly my friend tried to explain the sentimentality to the jeweller and was promptly told that she'd 'get over it' and that she herself was on her 3rd engagement ring.

Surely its not a case of them 'offering' to fix her ring though, surely they have to fix it regardless. Not only was the diamond chipped, but the ring setting was broke beyond repair. While my friend understands that these things happen and the jeweller is making a new ring, surely its only fair that she's allowed to keep the original ring. I understand about the recouping losses bit, but a car is completely different. A car would never have as much sentimentality as an engagement ring. She just wants the original because it was the one presented to her.

Thanks for the replies guys. Hopefully the jeweller understands

ttm

Are Jewellers still pulling this old SCAM. If its an old heavy ring then the gold in it could be worth far more than the gold you'll get in a new ring. Traditional scam is for a ring to be resized and loose a good bit of the good original gold and have it replaced with lower value gold.

Get the ring back and get a repair estimate from another jeweller. You took it to an "expert" and didn't get expert work done, so wtf would you trust them to "hand make" a new one.

Defo case of if there's blame there's a claim.

I'd be very suspect of the Jewellers attitude if she said your friend will get over it. The older the ring the more suspicious I'd be. I'm also very suspiciuos of a chipped stone which I'd want to see before it was replaced or recut otherwise your friend will end up with a smaller cheaperstone.

Guess with the price of gold going up this SCAM is comming back in fashion.

On the other hand if it was a newer "department store" type ring it might not been that valuble in the first place.

Bottom line is the jewellers can make a ring exactly the same as the original if they wanted to but it doesn't sound like they have any reason to bother if they can dupe your friend.

Cabaal

paddyirishman85 wrote: »

Apparantly my friend tried to explain the sentimentality to the jeweller and was promptly told that she'd 'get over it' and that she herself was on her 3rd engagement ring.

Thats that persons view that it doesn't matter, I understand wanting to keep the ring as its the one given on the day of the engagement; just because somebody else is on their third doesn't make it acceptable for somebody else to be on their second due to the poor workmanship/handling oa third party who have now admitted liability.

I'm curious how "helpful" they;d be if you sought the value of the engagement ring so you can buy it elsewhere based on the fact that you feel you can't trust their workmanship as they already screwed up a pretty simple task.

amdublin

I appreciate the sentimentality but I assume the jeweller is going to use the diamond from your original ring?

S/He might also be melting down your gold and using that? If s/he is not I am sure s/he will give that back to you.

Why would you get back a broken ring and a diamond which you could sell and thereby end up with a new ring plus money thereby profiting.

Ultimately the compensation (ie. the new ring) is putting you back in the position you previously enjoyed. I would think that you are not entitled to more than that, sentimentality aside.

foggy_lad

amdublin wrote: »

I appreciate the sentimentality but I assume the jeweller is going to use the diamond from your original ring?

S/He might also be melting down your gold and using that? If s/he is not I am sure s/he will give that back to you.

Why would you get back a broken ring and a diamond which you could sell and thereby end up with a new ring plus money thereby profiting.

Ultimately the compensation (ie. the new ring) is putting you back in the position you previously enjoyed. I would think that you are not entitled to more than that, sentimentality aside.

not when the new replacement is not as valuable as the original ring as stated previously. also with something like an engagement ring sentimentality is not something that can be set aside!

amdublin

foggy_lad wrote: »

not when the new replacement is not as valuable as the original ring as stated previously.

Well we don't know that for a fact. For all you/we know the jeweller could make her a more expensive one.

If it was me I would not trust this jeweller to make me a new one.

Personally I would be getting the ring back and giving it to a jeweller I trusted and getting them to remelt/resest/repair it and to bill the other jeweller.

But I would not expect to end up with a new ring plus my old one which I could sell and potentially end up with a profit. That is not what "compensation" (the new ring in this situation) is there for imo!

ttm

amdublin wrote: »

I appreciate the sentimentality but I assume the jeweller is going to use the diamond from your original ring?

S/He might also be melting down your gold and using that? If s/he is not I am sure s/he will give that back to you.

Why would you get back a broken ring and a diamond which you could sell and thereby end up with a new ring plus money thereby profiting.

Ultimately the compensation (ie. the new ring) is putting you back in the position you previously enjoyed. I would think that you are not entitled to more than that, sentimentality aside.

If the Jeweller damaged the stone then it is now worth a lot less than it was therefore the Jeweller should be replacing the stone with one of equal or greater value.

No comercial jewellery firm will be reusing very the old gold if its very high quality stuff, if the setting was damaged its far more likely to have been good gold than cheap stuff as unfortunetly the higher the carate the gold is the softer it is and the more likely it is to ware thin.

Then I'd only believe the "hand made" bull**** if I actually spoke to the guy who was making the ring not some hard faced cow behind the counter who's on her 3rd engagement ring.

My guess is your friend will get offered some mass produced over priced piece of bling with very little real value.

BUT as I've said it all depends if the orignal ring was a good one or not even so your friend could offer the Jeweller the scrap value for it and as a matter of good will why would they decline unless they were making money out of the whole deal.

Intersting item I found on chipped stones

amdublin

Very interesting article! Thanks for that.

Jev/N

paddyirishman85 wrote: »

Surely its not a case of them 'offering' to fix her ring though, surely they have to fix it regardless. Not only was the diamond chipped, but the ring setting was broke beyond repair.

If this is, in fact, true, how could she expect for it to be fixed as opposed to a new ring setting produced in a similar fashion? There isn't really an alternative, never mind the fact that the diamond is chipped

As amdublin has said, we don't know the comparable value in monetary terms and ttm's comments might be moot if the broken ring was relatively 'new' - just because it has sentimental value doesn't mean it has been handed down for generations...