Giovanna's Fine Jewelry — Local services in Mountain View

Summary: shady under-the-table payment, they did not do an appraisal I paid for, and (worst, IMO) didn't even apologize for not doing the appraisal

I went to Giovanna's for my fiance's engagement ring. I had inherited a family diamond, and paid for an engagement setting, the labor of transferring the diamond into the setting, and an appraisal of the diamond. The finished ring came out fine (to my untrained eye, at least), but there were other problems:

When I tried paying via credit card, I was told that their credit card reader was broken, and told to instead send a payment to the owner's personal Venmo account. The Venmo amount did not include sales tax (which had been included in the original total I was going to pay via credit card), and I was instructed to "add a random emoji to the description so it doesn't get flagged". I guess it's nice to not pay sales tax (ethics aside), but this made the place start to seem pretty sketchy.

When I picked up the ring, there was no mention of the appraisal that I'd paid for. When I asked about the appraisal, Giovanna told me she would do the appraisal after the proposal (which was in a few days). When I asked her why the appraisal hadn't already been done before the diamond was placed in the ring (which is what I asked for, and would have obviously made more sense), she told me that "one of her girls had looked at the diamond" (whatever that means), but that it didn't constitute an official appraisal she "needs to take a picture of the diamond". She said this very casually and without apology, as if not doing appraisals that customers pay for is no big deal. There were a few other suspect things in this conversation:

She said that, when we brought the ring back for the appraisal, she would also need to check on the ring sizing (even though we had already done a ring sizing at Giovanna's) and perform a diamond cleaning (why didn't you clean the diamond before it was in the ring, or if that costs extra, have told me then to consider paying for a cleaning?)

She suggested, multiple times, that I not come back with the ring for the appraisal(+sizing+cleaning), but rather just my fiance come back with the ring. I suspect she suggested this because she believed that my fiance by herself would be a more pliable customer than the two of us together (one of the times, she mentioned showing my fiance wedding bands); in any case, it came across as manipulative.

Definitely would not recommend.

(Attaching a photo of my invoice to demonstrate I'm a real customer, and a screenshot of the Venmo payment to demonstrate I'm not...

Giovanna is as much of a gem as the GORGEOUS jewels she sells. She is so sweet, has amazing pieces, and works to make sure you feel appreciated. My fiancé got my engagement ring here and she helped him pick out a stunner of a piece! So of course we went back and got our wedding rings here too! We also got them engraved for no extra charge and she helped make sure it was a surprise for each of us what the other wrote. It

She made us feel like we were a high priority and all of her employees areso nice!

The best part about being one of her brides though is getting to borrow jewelry for our big day! As part of my bridal shower, we swubg by her shop and tried on a bunch of pieces and my wedding band. We ended up picking some really gorgeous earrings (with aquqmarine stones that remind me of earrings my Daddy gave me for my 11th birthday) and a beautiful rose gold pendant necklace.

Honestly, Giovanna's is one of the reasons our wedding...

After less than a year diamond on engagement ring is loose and spinning. Was told over the phone that they would fix it and clean it once a year for free and to come in anytime, with the impression that it would be a quick and convenient and same day. When we arrived the staff was incompetent and rude, everyone there dressed trashy and a completely unprofessional atmosphere. At first they were insisting to charge us and we had to explain the phone call before the owner yelled across the store as a way to communicate with their clueless employee. Even afterwards we learned they don't even have a jewelar onsite and we would have to wait a week for them to take it somewhere else to get it fixed. Very unprofessional, misleading, and...