Robert Haack Diamond Importers — Local services in Greenfield

WARNING: avoid this store at all costs.

Here's my story ... Online buying has given customers more power than ever before. Retailers need to not only earn business, but earn REPEAT business by providing outstanding customer service and transparent transactions. Shame on me for not looking at previous Yelp reviews before wasting money at Robert Haack.

My husband went to Robert Haack to buy me an anniversary band. He made sure to verbally ask the salesperson if the ring was returnable since it was a surprise gift. The answer was YES, within 30 days. He spent $650 on a ring. When he gave it to me, I decided I wanted something a bit different, so after looking around at the Layton store and not finding anything I loved, I headed up to their sister store on Port Washington Road. There, I found a $400 ring that I liked a lot, and asked the salesperson if I could buy it, take it home, look at it side by side with the original one my husband bought, then return the one I didn't want. She said YES.

After a day or two looking at both, I decided that I just didn't love either of them, so we went to the Layton store to return them. We were told that the rings could not be returned for a refund, only for a store credit. To be fair, at the bottom of the sales receipt in fine print it does say in store credit only. But having verbally heard from the first and second sales people that we could return the rings ... WITH NO MENTION OF IN STORE CREDIT ONLY ... this came as a surprise to us. What stores don't offer full refunds when you have a receipt and it's literally weeks later? The sales person went into the owner's office (like he was Oz or something) and had some behind-closed-doors discussions with him. He came back out and said the best he could do was refund us $500 and give the rest in store credit. At this point, I'm very certain I will never work with this dodgy store again, so we insisted on talking with Gary the owner.

Gary comes out and the conversation became very contentious very quickly. He tried to talk us around in circles, saying how he was being really generous by giving us half our money back, that he would be happy to help us design a piece of jewelry (yeah, right!), that it was our own fault for not reading the fine print. REALLY? I guess stores like this still exist, but my guess is not for long. In the end, he took back one ring, but insisted that we either keep the other one or take store credit. I kept the ring because there's no way in hell I'd ever walk into that place again.

UPDATE: 12/13/18 after the business's response:

Your response is just as irritating as my in-person interaction with you. What’s at issue here is that we asked your employees if the jewelry was returnable and they said yes. I think if you ask any fair-minded person, they would agree that “return” and “exchange” mean two totally different things. I’m not taking issue with the quality of the jewelry or the fairness in price. I have no comment on those things. I’m not even taking issue with the exchange policy… had it been appropriately communicated. What I do take issue with is the fact that YOUR employees told us one thing verbally, and then you didn’t stand behind it. For that reason alone I would never do business with you again. You can hide behind your “policy” but in my opinion you do not operate in good faith. The reason why I did not want to keep the rings is irrelevant. No, I didn’t wear them on a weekend or for an occasion and you have absolutely no reason to think that I did. I thought I had the flexibility to look at them at home and decide what I wanted to do. And I thought that because – again – YOUR employees told us that was the case. I guess the lesson here is: do not trust what Robert Haack employees say. Great, reputable business you’ve got there. And by the way, the ring you wouldn’t take back was off the floor for three days. I doubt you lost any big...

Robert HAACK diamonds is a HAACK! My wife and I stopped in twice to try and sell some gold and silver we had. Talk about highway robbery! The first time we went to have a sterling silver necklace and diamond pendant looked at. We were in need of money and wanted to see it's worth. We have appraisal papers for it, the appraisal for it was $6,600. The diamond has it's own papers as well from a gemologist telling what shape, clarity, color, etc... the diamond is in. We waited in line for over 30 min with no one helping us, much less even a word saying hello or we'll be with you in a moment. Nothing. The manager then said she'd take a look at. She told us the chain was only worth $35 and the diamond pendant wasn't really a diamond. She never did any tests on the diamond, just looked at it through a microscope. We showed her the appraisal papers and she said they were wrong. We said thanks, but no thanks and left. We took the necklace to 3 other jewelry stores, which all confirmed that it was a diamond. All 3 places performed tests on the diamond and confirmed its realness. We received 3 separate quotes for the entire necklace and diamond pendant of $3,000; $3,200; and $3,250...The HAACK's were only going to give us $35!!!

The second time we went in to sell some old gold necklaces and some sterling silver silverware (knives, forks, spoons) we had sitting around. Once again we waited around for 30 minutes waiting for someone to acknowledge that we were even there. The gold we brought it was all 14K gold. We had about 10 grams and at the current market (at the time) would have been about $250 worth. They told us the market price wasn't up to date, they would have to burn it down, and that we could only get $150 for it. We were ripped off on the silver we brought in. Everything I looked up told me prices for troy ounces. Haack only deals in grams. We had about 1400 grams of .925 purity of sterling silver that at the current market value at the time would have sold for about $900.... They only gave us $550. We were shammed! Granted it's our own problem (faults) for accepting this price, we were idiots. But be aware people. They will not give you what your worth truly is. The customer service here is horrible. Don't let yourself...

Extremely unprofessional. My partner tried to work with them to design a custom necklace as a surprise birthday present for me recently. After picking it up and paying in full, he realized the chain was not what he had ordered and checked his receipt. He called the store and the salesperson he had been working with tried to tell him he was wrong, even though the correct receipt did not match the chain on the necklace he was given. This went on for days and my birthday was missed. They implied, both in person, and over the phone that he was simply trying to return it because I didn't like it - when all he wanted was for them to correct their mistake. I STILL haven't seen the necklace - he wouldn't show it to me until they had fixed their mistake, which never happened. He returned the necklace today for store credit, with my never seeing it, because they refused to correct their mistake and he did not want to give me whatever they had put together for him instead. While he was returning it, the staff even had the gall to advise him to bring me along next time so that I could pick something I liked, once again, implying that I was the reason for the return. I'm very upset that he was forced to take store credit for their mistake and disappointed that we have to give these jerks any business at all. Had it not been a surprise, I would have advised him to go elsewhere and certainly will...