National Jewelers Supplies

Additional Notes

Complaint: When I received my purchase, a ******* Precious Metal tester , the unit was not in working order. I immediately contacted the vendor from whom I bought the unit under the impression that my issue would be quickly resolved due to their widely advertised "14 day money back gaurantee". Several emails and phone calls were exchanged with the vendor but they refused to address my situation and told me that they would not accept the return and instead directed me to the manufacturer in China to see if my issue could be resolved. Response from China was slow coming and in the end neither party agreed to stand behind their unit and accept the defective merchandise and provide me with a refund. As neither the vendor nor the manufacturer were addressing my concerns, I simply sent the product back to the vendor and after 4 weeks I finally received a refund. Sadly, the amount refunded was $1390...short over $300 dollars of the purchase price of the unit. I'm told that the discrepancy was for re-stocking. A restocking fee would imply that the defective product I returned was re-stocked it and the next person to purchase will end up in the very same situation as I. If I had simply changed my mind on the purchase, a re-stocking fee of some sort may make sense but in this case it was not a case of changing my mind on the purchase - it was DEFECTIVE and did not work. I do not think it is appropriate for me to be expected to pay over $1700 for a defective piece of equipment nor do I believe that it is fair for me to pay a restocking fee of over $300 on a unit that an ethical company would not, and should not, put into recirculation in the first place!

Desired Settlement: The refund I received should have been for the full amount of my purchase and I should not be responsible for paying any kind of "restocking fee". I would like to see the restocking fee refunded as well.

Business Response:

Customer originally ordered an ******* Gold tester on 9/8/11.  He contacted our office after receiving item and stated he did not like the item and wanted to return it.  I explained to him that gold testers were non-returnable.  This is clearly stated on our website.  He was persistent and then stated he would like to upgrade the item to a ******.  I agreed to let him exchange the item.  During this discussion, it was stated many times that this item was an item that was non-returnable.  A note indicating this was on the sales receipt the customer received.  He then contacted our office stating that he was unsure of the tester.  He did not think it was working correctly.  I gave him the distributors information and told him to speak with them directly.  He then recontacted me and was unhappy because the distributor was not contacting him.  Apparently he was out of the country for a time because his wife contacted me and stated she wanted to return it directly to me and I told her that she could not.  Customer then called me again and after a lenghtly discussion, he told me he was returning the item to me and it did not matter that he would be charged a restocking fee because the item was useless to him.  I received the item from the customer and we shipped the item to our distributor in Japan and they contacted me and told me the item was working fine and there was not a defect with the item.  They cleaned up the item with new directions, packing materials and new adaptor and sent it back to us.  The customer clearly stated he did not want the machine back and he was informed once again that he would be charged a restocking fee for this return.  This was done via email. The restocking fee consisted of original shipping costs as well as the return shipping costs to Japan as well as the packing material.  At all times, the customer was aware of this because he had emailed me wanting to know the costs and I had to have him wait until I received the information from the distributor.  Copies of these emails are available at your request.  I believe at all times we treated this customer fairly.

Consumer Response:

I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns.

The vendor is correct in that an original purchase was made and that piece of equipment did not test the metals to the degree that was necessary for my purposes.  I did not request a refund at that time but instead made a decision to upgrade to a more expensive, more powerful model.  The equipment functioned for one or two tests but within 20 minutes or so shut down and any and all attempts at powering up the equipment were unsuccessful.  I attempted troubleshooting the unit and ultimately contacted the vendor for assistance.  However, the only help that was received was to be directed to contact the overseas vendor for help.  Initially those attempts proved to be unsuccessful and once I was contacted, no resolution was provided and I still ended up with a "brand new unit" sitting on my table that would not even turn on.  The catalog from the vendor indicated that there was a 14-day money back guarantee on their products and any discussions or agreements that may have been made regarding "no returns" would have been made assuming that the equipment would power on and function as advertised.  It clearly did not.  If the equipment would have been in working order there would have been no need for it to be returned to the manufacturer to have the work done on it, done.  When the equipment was returned, I was told that there would be a restocking fee but my options were either to keep a unit that did not work and be out the full purchase price, or return it and fight the battle over the restocking after the fact.  An offer was made to send the equipment, once repaired back but with my experiences of both the equipment and the customer service offered by this company, that was not an option.   

Business Response: The customer called after receiving the tester and was not sure he was using item correctly as he tried it twice and it seemed to be working but was unsure.  he was advised to contact the distributor for some helpful hints and to walk him through the setup.  He was going to contact me in a few days if he did not figure it out.  Two weeks later, his wife called and said she was returning the item to us because it was not working according to her husband.  I advised her that she need to contact the distributor directly regarding this and she said no one answered her so I contact distributor and had them deal directly with customer.  The policies and return policies are posted clearly on our website and once again they were given the information that the gold testing equipment was non-returnable.  The customer called again and was very irate with the response given to his wife and I once again informed him that he needed to contact the distributor as the item was non-returnable.  A fact that was both written on our website and on the order form he received.  After much discussion it was decided that he would return the item to me and I would in turn forward it to Japan for review and that he the customer was going to be responsible for the shipping charges.  He agreed to this (as he states in his response) and also that he would be subjected to restocking fees depending upon what the problem was with the unit.  As stated previously, the unit was in working condition when the distributor received the unit.  I contacted customer with all of the information regarding this as well as telling him the cost of the shipping charges as well as the restocking fees.  He became very upset and told me to keep the machine as it would be my Christmas present (this discussion occurred on December 23) and not to bother crediting his card on file.  I then told him that was not how we do business and that I would be issuing a credit to him minus the charges stated above.  I once again state that we followed all of our posted polices for returns and we went above and beyond to try to help him.  He was advised that we would ship the item back to him which would have been an amicable situation and positive solution to his problem but as you can see by his response, he was not agreeable to this.  I believe we have treated this customer fairly.

BBB's Final Determination: Business offered a resolution. Consumer did not pursue further with BBB and the matter was assumed to be resolved