Ritani — Attraction in City of White Plains

First, let me say that I am a normal person not associated or affiliated with Ritani in any way, this is a completely unsolicited and honest review about my actual experience. I hope that this review save you hours of stressing and research that I did. I read article after article and review after review trying to decide where was the safest and most reliable place to get the most bang for my buck, spent hours searching and agonizing over which online diamond was best. I even enlisted the help of an online diamond blogger that has an entire website and hundreds of articles dedicated to finding the perfect diamond. After weeks of research, it always came back to Ritani. They were hands down the best value for the money. I bough a 2.75 carat, excellent/excellent diamond (against the advice of the diamond expert who warned the dimensions were not good enough). I chose what I considered to be the safer 'preview' option. Which is where you buy but an actual representative in your area meets you with the diamond so you can decide before you purchase. The Ritani representative reached out to set up a time and date to meet and she was everything we hoped for, however, the diamond I chose wasn't, it was huge yes but slightly dark and in certain lighting very dark. But that didn't stop me from taking it home. However, once home and after hours of staring at it, I decided that I wasn't happy with it and wanted to return it. Now it's important to note that this was not the fault of Ritani. They had lived up to their part & sent what I ordered promptly with quick & responsive customer service. There were hundreds of choices and this is the one I picked & bought & I received exactly what I ordered. The flaw in this process was the picker (me), I just hadn't chosen a good one. So I contacted Ritani devastated and concerned that I was for sure out five grand. But fortunately, they were understanding and very responsive sending me a return label promptly with the choice to either return or exchange. I chose to return. In the meantime, I set out to find a better one. Meanwhile, I shipped the diamond back. My fiancé worried Ritani would claim it never arrived, or wouldn't refund my money or would claim I sent back a fake, sending me into a frenzy of anxiety. NONE of that happened. The return was checked in promptly. I received an email just a few days later, letting me know that my money would be refunded to my original form of payment in a 7-10 days, which it was.Whew! Now more confident, I tried again & purchased a 2.61 carat excellent/excellent diamond. Again, against the advice of the online blogger expert who said even though the dimensions were within excellent limits per industry standards, they were approx 0.1 or more off in 1-2 areas which in his opinion, would cause leakage and resulting darkness. I thought surely that 0.1 off mad so little difference in the cut that it wouldn’t matter. Plus, they recommended it & it was cheaper! Well, turns out, the blogger was right and the diamond did leak light causing it to be dark. So now I was somewhat panicked as I wasn't sure if I could return it, but fortunately their customer service is excellent and assured me I could but if I wanted to try again, the policy was on 2 returns per year so this next one would be a final sale. So, scared I couldn’t pick a decent one, I decided to look elsewhere but guess what, I couldn't find prices even close to Ritani's. They were $3000-5000 more for the same quality diamonds so I came back. And boy am I glad I did. Three times was a charm!! This time I ran the cut dimensions past my diamond expert BEFORE buying and once I found one he thought would be acceptable, I purchased it and guess what!! IT'S ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!! It's bright, sparkly and beautiful. It's a 2.71 excellent/excellent and came in at $5200. It's everything I hoped it would be. When it arrived, my fiancé opened it first and sent me a picture with the caption, This is the one, it's gorgeous!! You can trust Ritiani, you can get your $ back if...

I purchased a 3.6 lab created diamond… It’s gorgeous! However, the setting IS NOT! A complete waste of $800 (that’s the current sale price plus the taxes I paid). The particular setting I chose is obviously not meant for a diamond as big as mine. (Which is hard to tell through pictures on their website with no real pictured examples on fingers.) In my opinion, with myself having personal experience in jewelry sales and experience with jewelers, the jeweler never should have set my stone in the setting! I should have been notified by Ritani to go over other options. At Ritani, (unlike other online diamond stores/businesses) their online ring setting descriptions has NO stone minimum or maximum listed. So in order to get my stone to fit in the/my setting, the prongs were stretched out and up to meet the size/height of my stone, therefore making the prongs look like little pieces of wire. One good knock on one of those extremely thin, delicate prongs and my diamond will be lost. I’ve called and left messages, and online chatted with (so far to date) 2 different people on Ritani’s website (all of which I have screen shots of) and NOTHING has been followed up on. On one of those chats, on January 29th at 3:38pm (PST) I was even left hanging and waiting for the “support agent” Shanee, to email me a return label. After chatting with her for about 45 minutes or so, 10-15 minutes after their closing time (at around 4:10 - 4:15p (PST), Shanee, ended the chat without warning, and failed to email me a return label as discussed. Then the next day on January 30th, I chatted on Ritani’s website with another “support agent” Laura H. from 2:18p to 3:48p (PST) discussing options. Durning that documented conversation the first thing I did was let her know about my experience with Shanee the day before. It was extremely obvious to me Ritani wants to do everything to avoid a return because Laura H. steered me in the direction of making several changes to my setting to turn it into how I want for my sized diamond. I really didn’t want to go that route but I reluctantly agreed to give it a try. Laura H. said she would “reach out to her team” to make sure these changes were possible and email me all of the information once she gets it. Needless to say I have NOT received any follow up emails. I also have a phone call I made to Ritani on January 29th and the 30th logged into my phone history. I left a voicemail on one of those calls. My calls and voicemail were ignored. Then yesterday (2/8/23) morning (PST) I received a call from Sarah. (From other reviews it seems as if Sarah is the one that reaches out when there are customer issues/problems.) Her call went to my voicemail because I have a baby and I’m up all hours of the night with my daughter. We aren’t up anywhere near 8am. In her voicemail she stated she’s at her desk until 5:00 (EST) I called Sarah back today at 1:19p (PST) and it went directly to voicemail with no ringing. I have a feeling we’ll play phone tag, then eventually I’ll be back to being ignored. Here’s the frustrating part, I actually want to pay MORE money to get a better setting where the integrity of the setting stays how it should be without being altered to MAKE my diamond fit and I cannot get any responses back. Since dealing with this we’ve looked up reviews for Ritani (should have done that first). There are many unhappy customers with their experiences being exactly like mine; They’re put off and ignored, some for months. (It’ll be two weeks for me on 2/12/23.) If I had the chance to do this purchasing process all over again, I’m sad to say, I would have purchased my diamond ring elsewhere. I had an order in at Clean Origin but I canceled when I saw I could save a couple hundred dollars with Ritani. I’m kicking myself now. And to make it worse, Clean Orgin had amazing customer service! I was able to live chat with someone and they canceled and refunded...

What can I say about the Ritani team especially the girls who work in customer service? Only the absolute best!

So, the website lets you pick a diamond/s of various sizes and prices and quality. They even tell you how much they're making on the sale (which is pretty great in my book). When you're browsing a diamond, it will give you full disclosure on the cut, colour, size etc. They even tell you if you're getting value for money and will offer you a better deal as you peruse their stock.

I chose the diamond then paired with a mount for my future fiancée (see photos). Then after a few days of wondering whether to pull the trigger, I went the bank and...

I wired the funds to Ritani and having never done this before was a bit apprehensive to say the least. Anyway, the funds didn't get there right away and contacted the customer service. Jaclyn (customer service) was super kind and put my mind at rest and followed up as soon as she found out the transfer had gone through. Phew

I got numerous updates from Ritani telling me my chosen diamond was secured and after a few days was on its way to their workshop to be mounted in the ring itself. Every day was getting a status update and finally was told the ring was being checked by Ritani QC (took two days). Then it was shipped overnight by FedEx express overnight delivery. I was able to track it from door to door.

The FedEx bloke showed up then promptly drove off up the road! I ran out the house and he turned around and flew past me in the opposite direction, which was very disconcerting to say the least!

So, whilst looking for the local FedEx number to bend someone's ear the doorbell rang and low and behold there's another FedEx employee wanting a signature. Signed and took delivery...

The package was sealed to perfection in a nondescript box, then I opened it, WOW! Even the packaging was amazing, certificates, receipt and a hidden compartment in the box with the ring sealed underneath to keep it from shifting.

Opened the outer ring box, to find a slightly small box inside that. Then the moment I'd been waiting for, took out the small black box and opened it...

There it was this stunning tiny Platinum ring (my fiancée is a small lass) and gripped by the clasps was the Diamond, I'd bought and yes, it is magnificent! I am over the moon and a certain special girl is going literally 1. pass out 2. Start crying 3. tell me where to go!

Fingers crossed I'm hoping it will be 1. or 2. I'll update the review on the 2nd/3rd of December to let you know.

All in all, like the diamond it's been brilliant and smooth sailing working with Ritani. The girls and staff at Ritani are top shelf people and I will definitely be back for wedding rings etc.

Thank you so much...