A untold story from the Cayman Islands

So in the Cayman Islands Anja and I saved our friends Laura and Ian a couple thousand dollars but we couldn't share the story until now.  Anja, Laura, and Ian had gone out shopping in the Cayman's and I had stayed out the condo having just been out shopping recently.  When they got back I was told the following story.  It started with Laura and Ian had gone engagement ring shopping.  We had discussed the topic of marriage with them.  After all we are still newly weds so the topic always gets brought up so the topic was not shocking.  What was shocking was that they began talking about a ring they had almost bought!  Apparently, if Anja had not been there to drag them out of the store they probably would have bought it.  They had been at a "discount" diamond store on the coast just up Harbour Dr. near this mall.

Well I was excited for them as they still kind of wanted to get the ring but Anja had said they should think about it and come talk to me.

Sidebar in the story: I have to give Kay Jewelers in the Montebello Mall credit here.  When I was looking for what ring to get Anja I had gone in and talked to a nice sellswoman there about the 4C's of diamonds.  She had very kindly given me a quick education on carat, clarity, color, and cut and the 5th C; certification.

With the knowledge from Kay's I asked how big is it?  I was given an answer but under questioning they were not clear if that was the stone weight or the total weight with the baggettes.  They had answers for clarity and color but knew nothing of cut.  When asked about certification, they said it was certified but had not seen the certification and did not know what lab had done the certification but no one had looked at it under a jewelery scope..  The price sounded pretty good for what they were saying and Laura did know it look shinny and pretty on her finger.

So down to the diamond store I went with Laura and Ian.  I got there and we asked to see the ring and they went to get it but not right away.  BAD SIGN.  There even seemed to be a little pow wow across the store from up.  I had the feeling that they thought the big gun had been brought in to checkout this deal.

Once they got the ring everything began to unravel under my questioning.  How many carats? and how many is just the solitary?  (Smaller than they had thought) What clarity and color? No not the baguettes the solitary?  (again less than they had thought)  Can I see the laboratory certification?  I don't understand what do you mean it is certified but doesn't have a report?  Ok, so you had someone come in and grade it but it is not certified.  At this point I looked at it under the a jeweler scope and it looked good from the top but looked heavily included from the sides.  At this point I could confidently tell Ian if he wanted an uncertified diamond ring like this he could easily get it in the US for less than this price so we moved on.  We checked out a few more shops and got Ian and Laura a better diamond education for when they really did this.