Day 185: customer disservice award of the day

…goes to Zales.

Earlier this week, one of the diamonds in Katie’s engagement ring fell out.  It made for a half hour or so of great stress before Katie managed to find it in in her purse.  It must have come off when she reached in to grab something.  What a relief!

I had bought the ring at Zales over four years ago and at the time had paid for their lifetime diamond commitment.  I had never read over the full details, but I suppose I should have.

Our interaction at Zales today went something like this.

Katie: This ring is from Zales and we have this lifetime coverage.  The diamond fell out of it earlier this week and I was wondering if I could get that fixed.
Zales Lady: Sure, let me go take care of this.

(She goes to the little room in the back with the ring and our commitment, and comes out a few seconds later.)

Zales Lady: This warranty is expired.
Katie: Isn’t it a lifetime warranty?
Zales Lady: That’s only the diamond.  It doesn’t cover the ring repair.

(There’s an awkward silence for a few seconds, as we wait to see if there’s any further explanation forthcoming.)

Katie: I guess we’ll just take this someplace to get it repaired then.

And we walk away from the smiling Zales Lady.

So it’s a slightly disingenuous policy.  I mean, I took the lifetime commitment to mean that if the diamond falls out of your ring through no fault of your own, Zales will fix it for you.  But no – that, it seems, isn’t enough of a “broken diamond” and falls under ring repair.

I suppose if the diamond had fallen out of Katie’s ring and she hadn’t found it, Zales would have replaced the diamond for us.  Would they have replaced it in the ring?  Or would they simply have handed us the diamond in a bag and thanked us?

Either way, it was a disheartening experience and enough to turn us off from purchasing from Zales again in the future.  Which is a bit of a shame, seeing as how we’d gone there for our engagement rings, our wedding bands, and Katie’s bridesmaids’ presents.