BUYER BEWARE.Engagement Rings or Watches "Van Der Bauwede"

[alexis5]

This is a quick note to warn anyone considering buying a ring, watch or piece of jewelery.

Firstly, IMO you should NOT buy from the Geneva based jeweler/ watchmaker, Van Der Bauwede. www.vdb.ch
Secondly, please learn from our mistakes.. INSIST on seeing the GIA certificate and IMO trust an EGL Antwerp certificate alone (get a second opinion).

We had an awful experience with them and would highly recommend people to go elsewhere.

Short version is that we relied heavily on their reputation for honesty and integrity which proved to be a mistake. They told us the diamond was a quality far above the real colour. When we brought this to there attention after the sale, assuming a mistake had been made, they responded by suggesting we had swapped the stone (it was their own special VDB cut?!). We have never received worse service in any store, particularly not luxury goods. Store manager Danielle Pace swore in frustration because we were asking what she felt was''too many questions'' when the stone came loose less than 8mths after having it.

The owner Maxcence Van Der Bauwede, told us in person and in writing that the stone in our diamond ring had been GIA certified and was an E, VS1. They said they had misplaced a copy of this certificate. They got a certificate from EGL that stated it was F, VVS1. Based on these two pieces of info we paid around 22,000 Euros for the ring in platinum.

They agreed we could get the GIA cert at their expense any time after this. We did so when we were in New York. This is when we discovered it had not been GIA certified (they did not have any record of this stone) and was actually an H colour.

After several letters to Van Der Bauwede we have still not had an explanation as to why we were told the stone was E colour. They are aware we can not afford legal action so we can only make them accountable for this by telling as many people as possible.

I would ask that you would warn any friends or family in Swizerland, France, Holland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Lebanon, Oman, UAE to inform anyone they know to be very careful when buying from Van Der Bauwede and be sure to check what they tell you with the correct bodies.

Safe purchasing!

.

 

[purselover]

Good for you for standing up for yourself

 

[Savvymon]

What horrible people!

Good on you for letting others know about this.

Im not sure about the US but here in Australia we have lawers that have a no win no pay fee structure they asses the strength of the case and they take the fee out if you win.

 

[neatfreak]

Awww Alexis I am so sorry to hear that they aren''t resolving this to your satisfaction.

 

[arjunajane]

Crap Alexis, I am sorry to hear you have still not had this resolved - what jerks! ( I would like to say some other things too..)..

But thankyou for posting this.
Is there an equivalent of the BBB you can contact in Geneva..?

 

[Diamond*Dana]

I am so sorry that they did this to you.

 

[marypoppins]

Sorry to hear this.

Customer service is so important but some retailers just don''t get it. Way the cost of bad word of mouth about your firm vs. resolving such an issue amicably with the customer. What''s more costly. Just showing intent to resolve an issue is usually more than enough for most customers.

 

[arjunajane]

bump

 

[goobear78]

So sorry to hear this happened to you. I''m shocked at some company''s lack of customer service and the fact that they lied is unreal. I will advise my friends and family members NOT to shop at any of their stores. Good luck and I hope you are able to put this behind you and focus on your happy future.

 

[Steel]

I am sorry you feel dissatisfied with your purchase.

I would like to say if you have paid €22k for a ring, you must have a hundred or so €''s free to see a Solicitor for independent legal advice. If he/she says you have a case they will let you know how the fees would work out. Very often litigation is settled well before Court, or at the very least on the steps.

If it were me, I could not spend €22k on a ring and at a min not look into legal action. Where I live a Solicitors standard letter is only about €50, most of the time that is enough to scare wrongdoers into meeting at least half way.

 

[bee*]

That''s awful. I''d agree with Steel-maybe get a solicitors letter off to them.

 

[hearts-arrows_girl]

That totally sucks! And yes, they probably do bank on you not having extra funds to take legal action. It could turn into a very expensive "He said, She said" mess. Especially if they are already suggesting that you switched stones.

Is the stone you have at least beautiful? I can't imagine it is any less that stunning since you fell in love with it using your eyes only, to decide if it was the stone for you. I would love to see it. I have an "H" color stone, and I love it. H is still very much a stunning white color. What clarity did your stone come back as?

 

[alexis5]

Date: 11/25/2008 11:35:32 AM
Author: Steel
I am sorry you feel dissatisfied with your purchase.


I would like to say if you have paid €22k for a ring, you must have a hundred or so €''s free to see a Solicitor for independent legal advice. If he/she says you have a case they will let you know how the fees would work out. Very often litigation is settled well before Court, or at the very least on the steps.


If it were me, I could not spend €22k on a ring and at a min not look into legal action. Where I live a Solicitors standard letter is only about €50, most of the time that is enough to scare wrongdoers into meeting at least half way.

Thank you everyone for your posts. I should have added that for details of this whole saga you can see ''Engagement ring disaster'' post by me - i just wanted to spare people the details (and I am sorry for people who have read the original thread for doubling up, i just wanted to put the jewelers name in a thread with a quick post). I also left out that this stone is just over 1ct.

In the detailed thread it says that we have paid for legal advice and paid for an initial letter to be written which cost around 1000 euro. The lawyer was excellent and very honest. He argued with swiss legislation that there is a clear error in the contract and it should therefore be canceled and the money/ring exchanged. He said the first step (the letter) is often enough and if they do not respond to this then you are in for a long and expensive legal process where we go back and forth trying to make them declare bankruptcy if they don''t cooperate and they can just keep coming back (at what is a minimal cost to them). Even though he said it was clear to any person that what they have done was wrong he suggested it would be a 60%-70% chance of getting what we want given how vague the law is in this area. We would then spend the next few months at least focused on this rather than our wedding, not have a ring for probably more than a year and not be able to focus on the most important thing- our marriage.

It is very sad it has been an awful experience. It was such a lovely time for us- we were engaged in Geneva, not far from this jeweler and it was another reason it all felt so right....
Oh well, such is life. I just want to be focused again on us and in the spare time I have, make sure that noone else is treated this way, and that Mr Van Der Bauwede knows there are consequences for his actions (however small these consequences may be at his level).

I really appreciate people passing this information on and any advice on where else I can post this information.

 

[alexis5]

Date: 11/25/2008 12:05:24 PM
Author: hearts-arrows_girl
That totally sucks! And yes, they probably do bank on you not having extra funds to take legal action. It could turn into a very expensive ''He said, She said'' mess. Especially if they are already suggesting that you switched stones.


Is the stone you have at least beautiful? I can''t imagine it is any less that stunning since you fell in love with it using your eyes only, to decide if it was the stone for you. I would love to see it. I have an ''H'' color stone, and I love it. H is still very much a stunning white color. What clarity did your stone come back as?

on the positive side - yes, it really is a beautiful stone and we have started to love it again. i have to admit it was difficult to look at for a while knowing we had been lied to and with all of the bad associations with Van der Bauwede... but now it is out of the setting we can see how gorgeous it is again. it came back from GIA as an VVS2 from GIA so this was positive at least.

we are starting to think about resets which is sad b.c that is the thing we loved about the old one (we actually chose it already set). but it will mean a fresh start and that is what we want (over a long legal process). we had already bought the wedding ring to go with the old ring, but I think it will go with most settings we would like anyway... ahh what a process.

 

[bgray]

what are the full spec of your stone per GIA?

 

[alexis5]

Date: 11/25/2008 2:52:15 PM
Author: bgray
what are the full spec of your stone per GIA?

hi- I have attached the GIA cert on the previous thread but I just tried again and it kept saying error... so i have written them out


1.07
H
VVS2
polish very good
polish very good

it is 6.65 x 5.31 x 3.69
they have called it ''rectangular mixed cut''. it looks like a mix between an emerald and a brilliant.

oh and i forgot to respond properly to Steel by saying we did pay the lawyer to send the letter which was due back from them on the 17th Nov and they just didn''t respond. it was at that point we weighed up the odds and emotional costs and decided against going all the way with it... we have already lost a lot of money here not to mention the upset surrounding such a special item and our advice.

 

[alexis5]

We have written to Van der Bauwede a final time to let them know that we will be telling as many people as possible across forums, magazines and other publications. I have told them that we have posted on here so want them to know that a lot of people have read about their actions and feel similarly to us about it. This will also give them the opportunity to respond which, despite what has happened, i think is fair. We have told them that if they would like to provide us with an explanation for the false information we were given then we would be happy to add this information at any time. I am not hopeful for a response but I thought it was right to let them know that we will let others know.

I will try to get this post back to the front page fairly regularly in the next few weeks so that lurkers see it so I want to apologise to regulars in advance for boring you!

I have read about a man named Chaim Even-Zohar who is a diamond trade journalist and has written about cases like ours in the past (with much larger quantities of diamonds).

I will contact him for advice but would REALLY appreciate anyone''s input or ideas on people or organisations where we can send our brief information on our experience.

I know ours is a very small issue in the scheme of things but we feel it is important for us to stand up for ourselves. It is one of those moments where the idea of doing nothing is the only thing necessary for unethical business to continue. One step at a time....

 

[pyramid]

Good for you.

Good luck Alexis