Sarraf Jewelry — Local services in Los Angeles

I was hesitant to buy a gold chain online for the custom pendant I had made for my wife from an Oregon sunstone I mined myself on a trip with my dad, but my local jeweler didn't many chains in stock at the time and I was trying to find a good one to complete my Christmas gift to her. Local department stores only seemed to sell cheap hollow chains and I figured I could find a better selection of solid gold chains online. Sarraf Jewelry popped up quickly on a quick Google search and seemed to have "fair" reviews on Google (3.8 stars at the time of purchase).

There were a few negative reviews (as expected), and a decent number of positive reviews. It seemed that the return policy was fair and the company even seemed to respond and reach out to those who left negative reviews (You should be able to see if they choose to respond to mine). A somewhat common source of negative reviews came from receiving gold that weighed less than advertised. Anyways, I took a chance and ordered a 14k yellow gold, 1.75 mm, 18" Wheat (Spiga) chain weighing 5.6 grams with a 10% Black Friday discount. With the discount, it came to a price consistent with what my trusted local jeweler gave me for his chains (approximately $50/gram).

Shipping was fast. Received my chain in 2 days. Chain looked great, but when I weighed it, it was 4.6 grams. It appeared they had sent me the 1.5 mm chain instead of the 1.75 mm chain, which would be difficult to spot by eye, but the weight certainly gives it away. It was a full gram less than what was ordered and what was on my invoice.

I called the number on the invoice, politely explained the discrepancy, and was promptly asked "What's your order number?" After put on a short hold, I was asked "So, do you want to return it or just receive a refund for the price difference?" I wasn't in the mood to argue, place blame, or accuse them of fraud. I also was not interested in dealing with a return and was fairly satisfied with the slightly smaller chain I had received, so I agreed to a refund of the price difference.

All along, there was no apology, no explanation for the discrepancy, and no real attempt to make right for their mistake other than a refund of the amount I might have been cheated out of. I would give my stars according to the following formula:

1 star: Inferior product with bad return policies. 2 stars: Inferior product with a decent return/refund policy. 3 stars: Inferior product with a decent return/refund policy and decent customer service (i.e. apology/concern for the customer). 4 stars: Inferior product with a decent return/refund policy, decent customer service (i.e. apology/concern for the customer), and an attempt to "right a wrong" (i.e an additional small refund for the inconvenience up to and including the amount that the customer was almost cheated out of or, at the very least, a discount code for a future purchase). 5 stars: Actually delivering the product you described as advertised.

As such, my rating is 2 stars. Be cautious when buying from this company. It seems as if this is more common of an occurrence than should be expected. If nothing else, the nonchalant attitude they took towards short-changing a customer with the weight of gold should be of major concern. It seemed as if this was nothing out of the ordinary for them. To me, this is one of the most shady and oldest tricks in the book in sending lighter weight gold than advertised.

Most average customers for a small or middle-range sized gold chain do not have access to a jewelry scale and would not notice the slight difference between a 1.5 mm chain and a 1.75 mm chain unless they were able to weigh it, which could end up happening down the road outside of the 30-day return policy. For all of the negative reviews out there saying they were shorted on the weight of the chain, there are probably at least a few others that did not even recognize it and may have even left a positive review due to speed of shipping or ease of...

• BUYER BEWARE!!! * I am writing this review of Sarraf Jewelry to warn potential buyers what you’re getting yourself into. I recently purchased from the Sarraf website (supposedly) an 18kt yellow gold Figaro bracelet that is listed on their site as “Made in Italy”. When I received the bracelet, the first thing that I noticed was how the bracelet seemed so cheaply made – had the look and feel of something you might expect to get out of a quarter machine at the grocery store. The bracelet also looked much more like 14kt gold, compared to all my other chains/jewelry that is truly 18kt. The bracelet did not come with any type of certificate of authenticity and also had no “Made in Italy” stamp anywhere on it. I reached back out to Sarraf about this right away – no phone number where you can actually call to talk to someone – all through email and online chat – ended up chatting with “Avi”, who told me that they get the spool of chain from Italy, but then they actually cut the chain to size and “assemble” into a bracelet at their location in California, USA. With that newly learned information, I argued with Avi that the bracelet then wasn’t truly “Made in Italy” if they made it into a bracelet in the USA, but he argued this with me and just said they “assembled” it in the USA, but he still thinks it was Made in Italy. This is a bunch of garbage, here I was thinking I was purchasing a quality chain and received absolute junk. To top it all off, Avi refused to provide a return shipping label for me to make the return and made me pay a premium for return shipping with a requirement to send the bracelet back both fully insured and direct signature required. He was also very rude during this whole interaction. This is not proper business etiquette and feels more like a scam than anything else. The bracelet also had a thin paper tag attached to it specifying if removed, then the bracelet could not be returned. What a joke. *...

I’ve purchase a lot of jewelry from Sarraf over the years, and while for the most part their jewelry is of high quality, this 18k emerald cross didn’t live up to that reputation. The ring that holds the cross is extremely soft and bends easily (this occurred the 2nd day of usage). I must add this is generally the case with 18k Colombian gold as it’s known for being a bit softer than the others. The emeralds, nonetheless, are beautiful.

I still wanted to get my cross repaired so…

After calling customer service to file a complaint in order to get my cross repaired,, the ladies told me that it wasn’t their responsibility if I somehow managed to damage the cross. Not only did they add that the cross isn’t “defective,” they also rudely juxtaposed that if I had purchased a car, and the car got damaged after driving it out of the dealership, it wasn’t the dealership’s responsibility.

—They clearly didn’t get the point. I think we may all agree this was merely a “quality” issue, not my fault.

In sum, it was frustrating getting past them (her) and speak to their boss. In the end, the boss answered the phone and offered me to get my cross repaired at no cost, free shipping.

If they had kinder people handle their customer service line, repeated customers like myself would continue buying from Sarraf. Now, I’m not so sure.

Good...