Complaint Review: Gem Shopping Network

It's too late now, you got screwed, and you are stuck with jewels that are not worth any thing near what you paid for them. 

I would do 2 things.

1.  Sell the Jewels for what they are truly worth, you will lose lots of money, but then write it off your taxes.

2.  Next time you see a TV Info Mercial, run, dont walk to the tv changer and change the channel to the cooking channel, or the evening news, or the TV Late Movie.

3.  If you really insisted on buying, and selling these "precious" gems, then you should have bought 1 gem , and had it appraised,then you would know what they were really worth.  Instead you wasted 1/2 million, and about to lose your home on the advise of a "Salesperson" from this operation.       W O W!!!!

Anyone who starts a new business must be responsible for doing their due diligence, especially; 1.)  if they are contemplating investing a large sum of money, and 2.) if they are investing in something that is very knowledge oriented where advanced degrees are offered.
 
I have personally started businesses from scratch and also purchased several existing business. 
They were fairly mundane service businesses and I still involved my accountant and attorney in the decision making process.  The process took anywhere from 3 - 6 months to come to a rational decision.

I'm sorry that you have lost most or all of your savings, but some or most of the responsibility lies with you.  I can think of 100's of questions to ask before doing what you did.  A $30.00 lunch with a appraiser or jewler would have gone a long way to answer some of those questions.  Once a year in Tucson and Las Vegas are two of the larger Gem shows in the country.  The cost of a week to each would have really outweighed your total investment a thousand fold.  Spending time at your local jewlers would also go a long way to help in determining value. 

After watching Gem Shopping and other TV gem shows I decided to get into cutting gems.  I am past retirement myself, and 30 days worth of research indicated that it will be a long road before I can do it for profit.  But in reality, that is not my primary reason for cutting.    I get great pleasure turning a purple rock into a beautiful stone, and the look on a friends face when they receive it for a present is priceless.  It took hours of instruction from a master cutter, hours of reading anything I could get my hands on concerning the subject, and many mistakes using inexpensive rough to get were I am in the process.  I have set a budget for rough and use the Gem Guide to make informed decision on what rough to buy. A publication that you subscribed too very late in the game.

 In my mind, what you did was take a big gamble, not make a informed investment decision.  Blaming the seller for your lack of experience and your failure in the business is not really fair.  If it was as easy as you thought, everyone would be doing it.  Caviat Emptor as the saying goes.

If being a car dealer was as simple as buying cars from a manfacturer and reselling them on a lot, then many more people would do that.  Or if you open a second hand store and then go to storage auctions to get inventory, without researching it thoroughly, would be a disaster.  But people do it all the time because of the TV shows.  Who do they blame, the auction company, the storage places, or the people who stored nothing of value in their units.

It is not right to blame Gem Shopping because you jumped into the pool before you knew how to swim.

Gem shopping does provide good products at fair prices.  You have to know what your buying.  I have purchased from them in the past.  Informal Appraisals indicated that the prices paid were in the ballpark.   I could not resell them for a profit the next day, but they were bought for others enjoyment.  Someday, in the future, they will be worth more than what I paid for them and our kids and grandkids can sell them at a profit.

I truly understand how you can be and are soooo upset - and I DO believe that you're own purchase decisions would be MUCH BETTER than any 'help' you received from "Kenny" (this is the "Kenny" in "Customer Service"?).  You sound intelligent and I hate that you got 'bogus advice'.  Is "Kenny even still there?  The times I spoke with a "Kenny", in "Customer Service", I thought he was incredibly arrogant and he was NEVER of any 'Service' to me.  

Hopefully, you'll be able to sell Enough of the items you purchased to keep your home - even if you have to take the loss on some of them?

I certainly don't condone the "advice" you got - they had No Business giving you ANY advice on re-selling their merchandise!  I pray that things get better for you.

Best,

1 Wise (Sometimes) Wolf

I appreciate what you said but there is more to the story. I asked if I could get things from GSN for the purpose of reselling. I was told deffinitely! Kenny suggested things I should get as did the show talent. Kenny would go down to the studio and the host would show me things. Kenny would bargain with them. I was assured through the whole process that I was getting excellent value. Once Kenny called me at home to tell me of a great deal they were having and that we could steal this stone away from a jeweler that was there to purchase. It was a red tanzanian spinel. It had a 135,000 appraisal and i got it for 70,000. I had it reappraised by an international appraiser a few months later and it appraised for 40,000. Things like this happened repeatedly. I bought about 25 color change garnets because they said there were no more as they had all been mined out. In Tucson I found a dealer with lots of rough and later at another show I saw it cut. Beautiful!

The things I bought on my own I seem to have done very well on. The things that I was encouraged to buy were ripoffs.

I am truly sorry for you financial loss!

I've purchase a lot of gemstones and jewelry from "GSN" and I'm a bit surprised that you would expect a Television Sales Network to act as your "wholesaler".  Your story should certainly be a lesson for others - buy from television networks and stores because you like what you're buying and you want to keep it - at least for quite a while; Don't expect that they are able/willing to "wholesale" items and/or that you can turn them around for a profit.

I do fell very badly for you and I'm sorry for your losses.  I do, however, want to say that I'm certain that when I've purchased something from GSN, that I've gotten the item that was shown.  GSN was happy to get the price that I paid and I was happy with the "deal" that I'd made.  In my humble opinion, that's the only way to buy.  Know that "buyer beware" is the first rule of purchasing anything.

The only way to get into any "business" is to do a lot of research, FIRST, become the best expert that you can, and be very careful and diligent in keeping up with the industry and your dealers/contacts/purchasers.

I truly hope that your situation will be resolved to your benefit and that you will keep your home.

Best,

"1 Wise Wolf"