Johnson's Jewelers of Cary — Local services in Cary

A while back I took my diamond stud earrings into Johnson jewelers. One of the screw backs had broken off of one of the studs and I needed to have it repaired. I also had a diamond fall out of one of my rings and I took a replacement diamond up there to have them put into the space where the diamond had fallen out, when I handed the jeweler my broken diamond earring, he looked at it and said why don’t you leave both, I didn’t really think anything about it. I figured they would make sure the setting was tight for the stones. my cousin was with me as she had something done for a piece of jewelry as well. when they called me to come pick up my earrings and my ring, as we were leaving the store I opened the bag and took them out and looked at them, and I told my cousin these are not my diamonds I’ve been wearing them for 17 years and I cleaned them once a week I know my diamonds very well. She said I’m sure they are because they are very reputable jeweler. I had my ears gaged so I put them up and I was saving them for when I got my ears pierced again. I was going to use the diamond studs for the new piercings. I took them out this weekend to decide where to get my ears pierced again and I noticed something wasn’t right , there are so many inclusions and the clarity is so bad that I’m at a loss for words. my lapidary in Jacksonville Florida that I’ve been seeing for over three decades 12 years ago told me that they would cost $6000 to replace. They switched my stones for some low quality low-grade diamonds in hopes that I would never notice , every jeweler I ever went to because I buy a lot of jewelry always informed me that they would have to order those because of the quality being so high and would ask me where I got them from. I am livid and disgusted that I put trust and faith in Johnson jewelers to repair my earring , and they stole my high quality diamonds and replace them with low-grade low quality Diamonds. my friends were always amazed when I would pull out a jewelers loop and allow them to look at them because it was literally like looking through a piece of clear perfect glass. my house in Florida has been undergoing major renovations so I’ve been up here for the past couple of years. my earrings were literally flawless. The fire that came from them was amazing these earrings barely even sparkle at all. Livid and disgusted doesn’t even describe how I feel right now. No matter where I was, people would always come up to me and complement on how beautiful they were You could see them from across the room because of the fire that radiated from the stones. Screwbacks are reserved for high-quality diamonds so that is harder for them to ever be lost. The diamonds in there now may be worth a few hundred dollars. If you ever have work done at a jeweler, make sure you go to a different jeweler if you don’t already have documentation and certification for your stones and after the repair is made, make sure you go to another jeweler to make sure that you got the right stones back. They were more than just diamond earrings. They meant more than you could ever imagine. All weekend long I have been wondering how to handle this situation. The fact is if I called up there to say something, they wouldn’t be honest about it because if they were honest, this never would’ve happened. I will be making a trip back to Florida next month to try to find the paperwork and certification for the stones. I am very lucky that I have multiple people that I have been trying to teach about diamonds and how to differentiate low Quality from high-quality diamonds. So I’m lucky that I have multiple witnesses that can back up my story. Please be careful when using this jeweler or any jeweler because this is a common practice that’s done more than you would ever realize. I will be getting in contact with someone to tell me what steps to take next to rectify...

I regret ever bringing my rings to Johnson's Jewelers. I purchased my engagement ring and wedding band online from an artisan and have only ever brought my rings to Johnson's of Cary for service. My engagement ring was very unique, the artist cast a twig found in her yard so the ring was very natural looking and textural. I have brought my set to Johnson's 3 times for services and each time, they have over polished the ring to the extent that now it is perfectly smooth and there is no texture left. The first service I brought it to them were to have my rings fused together, and they did this. A bit later, the rings fell off the counter and broke apart, so I brought them back - they said they should not have broken apart, but they repaired them (and still charged me for the service, even though they admitted it shouldn't have happened). This was the point the over polishing really started to show, the texture on my engagement ring was much less defined. I assumed it had happened because the rings were rough where they split apart and they had to smooth that out. Finally, I lost a small stone from my wedding band and brough the combined rings in for the stone to be replaced and the prong to be repaired. When I picked it up, my engagement ring is now totally smooth, except for the part they weren't able to polish between the two bands where you can still see the texture. Because the width of the ring throughout the band still varies where the natural shape of the ring existed, it now looks defective because the band is polished instead of textured. I pointed this out when I picked up my rings, and they had many excuses, saying it was bound to happen over time and suggesting it may have happened at another jeweler when I had another service done - but I pointed out all my services had been done with them. The only solution they had for me was to contact the original jeweler and ask her to recast the ring - at my expense, of course. The jeweler doesn't make this style any more and it was one of a kind. I am now in mourning for my beautiful, unique ring and regret ever bringing it to Johnson's, as they obviously never treated it with the care it deserved and over the course of my time with them have ruined it (removing a significant amount of gold in the process). Now, again, the two rings where they were fused are splitting apart (I have not dropped them, they just started bending) but I will never bring my rings back for Johnson's to fix and further ruin them!

I have added 2 old photos of my rings where you can see the texture on my engagement (middle) ring and a new photo where you can see they are...

I know there are a lot of positive reviews for this place on here. That's why I wanted to use them, and to support a local business. Unfortunately, I just had one of the most bizarre and unprofessional interactions I've ever had with a business. I went in with my fiancée to have her engagement ring resized. The woman who waited on us gruffly looks at it, looks at my partner, and says "you know this is a fake diamond, right?" It's moissanite, which is what my fiancée had wanted. The woman then says "you know we can put a real diamond in there, honey" like she was pitying us.

This was bad enough, but then she walks to the back and loudly says to one of the jewelers "this ring needs to be resized. It's 10k. Fake diamond" as loud as she could. This woman truly wanted to hammer home that I should somehow be ashamed of myself. They didn't even seem confident that they had the ability to resize it. I gladly took the ring and left. Not only was she extremely rude, I wouldn't trust them to work on the piece anyway.

Hopefully other people have better experiences, but the idea of trying to shame a couple in front of the entire store was pretty absurd. It's a shame that they make it impossible to support a local business. Maybe the rest of the staff is great, but this lady (I didn't catch her name but she was middle age, heavy set, very short grey hair) shouldn't be interacting...