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When Erin Pei brought her ring into the Kay Jewelers at Meridian Mall in suburban Lansing to be measured, she never expected to receive a phone call saying the diamond had gone missing.
To celebrate her tenth anniversary with her husband, Pei of DeWitt Township, was working with Kay's to create a custom setting. Her ring featured a 1 carat stone that cost $8,000—a price that her husband had taken on extra jobs to pay off, according to Judy Putnam of the Lansing State Journal.
Her husband became worried after stories surfaced from customers who suspected Kay's had switched out their diamonds for gems of poorer quality, the paper reported. There was the Tampa, Fla., woman claimed Kay's burnt the crown of her ring and loosened the diamonds and a Maryland woman says she discovered her diamond was swapped out for a moissanite stone.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Kay Jeweler's CEO Mark Light denied the claims.
At the end of May, Pei called the store and asked for her ring back, planning to take it elsewhere to ensure the diamond hadn't been switched. Instead, in early June, Pei received a call that the diamond had gone missing, though the old setting was found, the Lansing State Journal reported.
“I was beyond shock,” Pei told the paper. “…My husband is extremely, extremely upset.”
Though Kay's has shown her a variety of replacement stones, Pei has rejected them all, feeling that the quality doesn't match up with her original.
“With everything that has gone wrong, to just be like here’s a replacement, take it and go, it’s not going to make me a happy camper,” Pei said.
