One of the hardest things to purchase online is jewelry and second to that is clothes.

I recently went through the experience of buying a wedding ring online for my fiance and ran into difficulties with a vendor. My hope in publishing this article is that it reduces the likelihood of this happening to someone else. Here’s what you need to ask ANY vendor before buying (something as important as a wedding ring) online:

• What is the metal the ring is made of? Is it durable like tungsten carbide?
• How the ring is finished?
• What is the return/exchange policy if I/my fiance doesn’t like the end product?

That last one is key because that’s what happened to us.

Here’s the ring we saw advertised on Instagram:

Pretty nice, right? We thought so too and decided to reach out to the vendor to inquire about the price. It turned out to be a custom order by this particular vendor since that item was no longer stocked online. Fine, we still waned it. We placed the order. However, when the physical ring arrived, it did not look anything like the shiny one we had seen online.

Here’s what we observed about their physical product:

• There were random, small dings throughout the ring.
• It didn’t have the weight of a legitimate piece of jewelry; it felt like light– almost like costume jewelry.
• The rose gold stripe looked dingy, more like copper.

After several emails back and forth with the vendor about fixes and improvements they could try make on our behalf, we were still unhappy with such an unsightly ring.

So, the ring sat in its box for weeks on end.

While on vacation, we found and purchased another ring from a different jeweler, this time, IN PERSON, where we could clearly see the finished product and feel the weight of the ring in our hands.

Here’s the side-by-side visual comparison of the ring purchased in-person (left) versus the ring we purchased online (right).

We’re simply unimpressed with the overall look and feel and quality of the online ring from this particular vendor (can you spot the tiny dent too?!). And although we remain unhappy, we’re also unable to get a refund.

Why? This vendor is only extending a refund if they can sell the ring to another person. But, I might, add, they seem unwilling to advertise the ring again on social media so it’s highly unlikely that anyone would even know the ring is available for purchase.

In conclusion…

We just want to return the online ring and receive a refund. We didn’t think we’d be this unsatisfied with the final product because every ring on their website looks gorgeous.  But, according to the vendor: “Due to the custom nature of this product, we do not accept returns.”  Really?! Well, then you have a very unsatisfied customer on your hands because there appears to be nothing about this ring that is custom. I’m not letting my fiance out of the house with this on his finger.

I never want anyone else to be fooled like this from an online vendor or to to potentially waste their money.

Full disclosure, we got an amazing deal on this ring but, because of the disclosure wording in the vendor invoice (below), despite the fact that we’re unhappy, we cannot receive a refund. Unfortunately, we didn’t expect to receive a ring we were so dissatisfied with.

What would you do? Has something similar to this happened to you before? Or, do you want to buy this ring? If you do, I’ll give you a good price…but no refunds 😉