Diamond Prices Gone Awry
As I browsed through several websites selling diamonds the other day, I noticed something that I thought was strange. I noticed what could be described as a kind of “Play on Words” or should I say a “Play on Prices” from many companies offering diamonds for sale. It made me stop and wonder why there seemed to be this common practice taking place?
One particular example that really caught my attention occurred last Tuesday, when I was browsing through an auction style website. I noticed a 1.3 carat diamond ring being offered “Up for auction.” This Diamond Ring was stated as being an (I) color grade and what is referred to as an (I1) clarity grade diamond. If you are not sure what that means, let’s just say an I1 clarity diamond is not exactly the cream of the crop. Now given the fact that I know a little bit about “TRUE” diamond prices, I was shocked to see a “Compared To” price of $19,250 sitting right next to this diamond ring being offered “Up For Auction.” My first thought was that someone made a major “Typo” when posting the price of this ring. You see it would be almost impossible for a 1.3ct diamond ring to ever be worth that kind of money, especially considering it had a low I1 clarity rating. Well since I believed the actual value of this diamond ring in the “Real world” should have been CONSIDERABLY LOWER, I became very curious and wanted to know if this was a mistake, or if I had just missed the largest Diamond Price Increase in History!!
At this point I decided to contact the seller of this diamond ring and ask them if they made a mistake or if they knew something about diamond prices that I didn’t know. What I was told by this diamond seller really surprised me. The $19,250 price was indeed a “COMPARE” price and not a typo. My first thought was to ask “Compared to what?!” So I did. You can imagine my surprise when the representative told me that this price is simply provided as a “Courtesy” and the price is “Comparable” to other websites on the internet and the “Compare” price could be higher than what you might find in a retail store. (NO KIDDING!!) I asked if they could please offer more details, however the representative promptly stated they could not provide any further information.
At this point I started thinking about all of the people that are looking to buy a nice diamond at a good price. You see the actual value of a diamond like that one is probably more like 1/5 to 1/8 of the “Compare” price that was put on the site.
Compare pricing is legal. It is common. If you do not do some research on the diamond of your interest, and take blindly that the compare price is the ACTUAL price, or worth of the diamond, you could very well be setting yourself up for one immense disappointment. Take your time, and do a little research yourself find out what a particular diamond is actually worth. ASK as many questions as you can, and understand a "compare" price is never the actual worth of the diamond.
