From QVC to Gems TV...

Hello All
Previously to this week I had never watched Gems TV. Always tuned in to QVC during my bored moments.

Luckily my first experience was with Steve Bennett live on air .. (the CEO??) Lovely guy, he seems.

Firstly I was very impressed by the quality pieces, price wise, they blow QVC out of the water, for example
Gems TV..
morganite ring 2.21 ct
QVC..
morganite ring 2.9ct

similar rings, very different price bracket

I have watched an array of presenters, from a lady who always makes star shapes with her hand (I think her name is Adina) and a gent called Scott (reminds me of 'beaker' from the muppets for some strange reason, must be the eyes)

I really enjoyed watching. Sure a little enthusiastic in their presentation, and I guess there are cheaper alternatives direct from China, but....

I like the ethos regarding supporting African schools/mines etc etc, and Gems deserve all the support they can get in that respect

After my week with Gems, I will never order a gem item from QVC again.

I've yet to order an item from Gems, but will share when I do .. Is it truly good quality or do gems fall out?

Hi to JR's Ego - I have been buying from GemsTv for years, and I have a stash of jewellery to show for it. I used to buy from QVC but not any more. I have never had trouble with stones falling out on items from across all price ranges but I know some people have posted about this. I have certinly used the 30 day money back guarantee when I haven't wanted to keep something and have never had any issues with that either.
All of the details are available about gem sizes and metal weights and you do need to be careful to ensure you know what you are getting - they do a lot of close-up shots so stuff does look much smaller when it arrives.
I don't buy aas much now but if I come across something that takes my eye I'm in there!

Hi Glitterbug - thank you for your kind reply.
I can imagine there are a lot of items that get delivered and are in real life, a lot smaller - appreciating how detailed some of the manicures get zoomed to, in some respects "oh that's too magnified! I don't want to see the gunk behind the nail" situation! Also the gems in daylight may be a little darker once out of studio, I guess

I am particularly liking the Lehrer collection..
The design is so unusual, sadly not keen on the round headlamp ring look, preferring oval

which narrows the choices a little as most are circular
I really cannot decide what ring I should order from Gems TV as a first purchase.. any suggestions?
I'm tempted to go diamond route.

Hi JR's Ego,

I have been a customer of Gems since they began. In general I would say that I have been a happy camper. Yes, I have had stones fall out and had some quality issues but I can't fault their customer service. Even after I bought a beautiful pair of Tahitian pearl earrings last year. I had bought them for a evening do and it was some months prior to the event. I wore them on the night and when I got home I found that one had come out. I searched high and low but to no avail. Alarmingly, I found that the second earring was almost out too. The problem was they were 11.5mm pearls, so quite heavy and the poor gold weight was the issue. There was less than a gram of white gold between the pair of earrings and the pearls just weighed too much for the gold to support them. I telephoned Gems and explained what I thought had happened and they just asked me to return the remaining earring (even though it was 3 months out of guarantee) and they refunded the earring price plus all postage to and from. You can't say fairer than that can you?

My main complaints with Gems is the poor metal weights, particularly in gold. Also, the way they play on the locations of stones. It is just a pet peeve of mine but they big up a particular mine, the best they have ever seen etc and then they move on to another mine and lo and behold, same stone, best they have ever seen - right! Sometimes the "education" spiel winds me up a bit too. It is nice to hear about the geology and geography but some presenters overdo it somewhat with every sodding piece and I get a bit miffed - just sell me darn thing

Anyway, in general a thumbs up from me. I certainly do not buy my jewellery from QVC after I had a major issue with quality from them and they just were not interested as it was out of guarantee. So, I voted with my middle finger several years ago and won't be tempted to go back.

I hope you acquire lots of pretty sparklies from Gems and have lots of pleasure wearing them over the years.

Inge x

Thank you Inge for your kind reply. It does make a difference when a regular buyer gives FB, especially when threads outside QVC are usually very quiet.
I was concerned about my first purchase after reading some independent feedback

MeasuredUp Review site

I also adore Tahitian pearls, how upsetting to find one missing though. Hope you were able to buy a pretty replacement pair - can you imagine QVC dealing with that return the same way, 3 months post purchase? In our dreams!! Yes middle finger well justified Kudos to you!

x

Agree Ballerina, the metal weight is just awful now compared to the early days. The Gems section used to be as popular as the QVC one, people got amazing deals. I have white gold rings with 4gms of weight for around £60, amethyst and pink sapphire, yellow gold and pink sapphires, Star Ruby and diamonds. Brilliant deals back then. I have quite a few rings from Gems, some bought on ebay and great deals back then too. Then the price of the metal went up and now you are paying for silver what we paid for the 9ct gold.

I agree with Inge's point that My main complaints with Gems is the poor metal weights, particularly in gold. Also, the way they play on the locations of stones
I bought a princess cut yellow diamond ring over xmas and the stones were not lined up correctly or lying flat. I contacted CS who advised returning for a replacement, but the replacement had poorly matched stones with one section of yellow diamonds that were so dark they were practically brown/moss green! Of course, this is the kind of attention to detail that you pay for elsewhere as "time is money" and its far quicker to be shoddy with stone selection and fitting.

QVC is expensive and some of their gold weights have also fallen and so I now call CS to get the gold weight of anything im thinking of buying: if a ring comes in near to 4g, then that is an okay weight IMO. I will say this for QVC, i've never had a problem with poor matching or fitted stones. So I suppose you pay your money and takes your choice...

I have recently bought a couple of things from Gems and have been very pleased with them. I got a set of 10 pearl bracelets the other day and the pearls whilst small, but not tiny ,are lovely quality as good as my honora which cost an awful lot more and an amethyst ring a few weeks ago which is just gorgeous. I used to buy from QVC years ago but they have just got too expensive, I agree that the price of jewellery has rocketed and we now pay for silver what we used to get gold for but then the price of both silver and gold has rocketed so I guess its only to be expected