diamond change

Some people will tell you that this never happens. I’m here to tell you it happens because it happened to me, and at a jeweler I trusted and everyone in the area told me they could be trusted.

The diamond change can be done very quickly by someone with a lot of practice. Don’t believe anyone who tells you that a minute or two “isn’t enough.”

What happens is that you take your diamond to clean it or to have the points adjusted, or something like that. Maybe browse the display cases while it’s done. Whatever you do, you are not looking at the bench jeweler who is doing the work on your jewelry. It doesn’t take long for them to exchange their diamond for a similar sized CZ.

The reason this works so well is because they have complete negation the moment you realize a change has been made. In most cases, a good quality CZ will fool you for months, possibly even years (the shine of CZs fades over time – you’ll eventually notice the difference). The more time that passes between the change and its discovery, the more denial they have. Very simple: you can’t prove anything unless you discover the switch while standing in the store.

How can you prevent this?

• Never lose sight of your diamond. When you take him in for a teeth cleaning or adjustment, let them know you insist on looking all the time. If the jeweler protests, go to another jeweler. No reputable jeweler will refuse this request.
• If you must leave it for more extensive work, go over the diamond’s anatomy with the jeweler before you leave it. Let them know that you are familiar with your diamond and what it looks like. If you don’t have a certificate, review the diamond’s qualities with them and map any inclusions. If you have a certificate, that’s even better: take it with you and show it to her, check the inclusions, and make sure you both agree that the diamond you’re leaving matches the certificate. The idea of ​​this exercise is to let the jeweler know that you know how is your diamond. When you pick it up, repeat the process to make sure you’re getting the same diamond back.

Many jewelers have a device that “rings” the stone and beeps to inform them that it is a diamond and not a CZ. Do not trust this process. The device may be inaccurate or tampered with. The only way to know that you are leaving the store with the same diamond you brought in is by following one of the steps above. My Story Many people have asked me “how come you don’t know?” My diamond was a very high quality GIA certified diamond. One of the remarkable things about him was that he had a lot of flash. On the theory that it’s hard to lose something you wear all the time, I rarely took my ring off, not even to wash my hands. I used a toothbrush to clean the diamond and a couple of times a year I took it to the jeweler to have it cleaned. Because I was wearing the ring all the time, the band needed adjustment frequently: I would gain weight, lose weight, or the band would get out of shape. The jewelry store was one of the few places where I took the ring off.

I realized something different about the diamond, but it never occurred to me that a jewelry store I had been going to for years and at the time, I didn’t even know that swapping is a very common scam could not be trusted. He had hit the ring very hard on a metal door frame and one of the prongs was loose. At the particular store I went to, they used the device that beeps if it’s a diamond. However, they didn’t do this if you weren’t leaving the stone, so to clean or just squeeze a tip, there was no stone check. I think the stone was changed when I took it to tighten the point.

Over the next few months, I noticed that the diamond looked different, but I put this down to needing a good cleaning. About a year after prong adjustment, I took the ring to the jeweler to have the band adjusted. Since that required me to drop it, they “pulsed” the stone and told me it was not a diamond. I was shocked. I told the owner that was impossible: the only place I took the ring off was in her store. She insisted that I must have taken it somewhere else and forgotten about it. It was my word against hers.

Still, I found it hard to believe that this had actually happened. I didn’t leave the ring with her that day. I took it and took the certificate to a local forensic jeweler, who removed the stone from the ring and weighed it. CZs weigh more than diamonds and that’s the quickest way to tell the difference. In fact, the stone weighed over 3 carats, when it should have weighed 1.01 carats. I was the victim of one of the oldest jewelry heists in the business.

It wasn’t just the loss of an expensive, high-quality diamond that bothered me. That diamond was the first gift my husband gave me. It was my engagement diamond and represented over 18 years of marriage and our commitment to each other. It had a lot of sentimental value. A replacement could appearance the same, but never be the same.

You can report the theft to the police, but there will be nothing they can do about it. The only reason to file a police report is so they can see if a pattern has been established with that particular jewelry store.

You should also be aware that your homeowners insurance policy will not cover this theft, as it does not take place in your home. If you have a rider in your policy to cover your diamonds, make sure it covers all kinds of losses.