I miss Rocks Tv

[Phill]

I have to say that after nearly 2 years since Rocks Tv shut down I am really missing it. What ever happened to the The Colourful Company Group.

We got a Freephone number 0800 644 647 and a genuine falling price auction. The offers used to be amazing and the web buyers were treated with much more respect that how Gems treat their web buyers now.

The numbers were always whole numbers and didn’t include pence. All this we were promised when Rocks Tv and Gems Tv merged. Now look we have gone back to pence, there is no falling price auction and the web buyers are treated differently to phone buyers. The presenters are all hard selling because there is so much to get through, there is no fun watching Gems anymore.

I remember when Steve first took the clock off of Gems Tv, and all the presenters were saying the clock can jog on, we are going back to our routes, this is a genuine falling price auction where the price falls until everything is sold. To be fair they may as well bring the clock back. There is no excitement involved anymore; if people don’t buy they take it off the screen. I thought Steve Bennett said it is better to lower the price to sell than have stock sitting around and being unsold.

I don’t know whether it’s down to the channel number, Snatch-it.tv used to be on Sky 646, and bid-up.tv used to be on Sky 647 where Rocks TV once stood. These used to be excellent channels and are now no more.

I remember watching and buying from some of the very first loose gemstone shows on Rocks tv and you had to be so quick, the price didn’t even get a chance to come on screen before the auction sold out. Watching Drew on Gems tv Extra yesterday, every gem they had just had one plunge and 15 seconds and then they moved onto the next piece because they had 31 auctions to get through. This isn’t fun or entertaining like Rocks tv was.

I feel so disappointed as an x Rocks Tv customer and for the other customers who helped Steve launch Rocks tv from the very beginning have all been forgotten.
Don’t get me wrong I am glad that Gems tv is still here and it’s obviously a good company to work for but I just miss Rocks tv so much. It’s fine if the Genuine Gemstone Company wants to run Gems Tv like this but why can’t we have Rocks Tv back as they stood out from the competition, watching now is just the same as watching Rocks & Co and TJC without the clock. Having said that I think that Rocks and Co have a better auction format it’s much more intense, but they are on the pricey side.

Come on Gems tv I am sure a lot of other customers feel the same, I want you to go back to your routes. Yes you have gone back slightly with manufacturing and designing your own jewellery, and the P&P is cheaper than it has ever been. You launched Rocks Tv in America with a free phone number. Why have we not got one here. Time and time again I have sat in a queue calling up Gems Tv. Over the last bank holiday weekend I brought my Nan some Tanzanite earrings for £12.99 there were about 750 in the game, and Rae said there are no queues everyone is being answered straight away, 5 minutes later I’m still on hold waiting to be answered. This is not good, even when I call customer services the team are most of the time friendly and helpful but 4 minutes to answer my call because the item you sent me had a chip in, and it wasn’t even the correct item, come on I know you can do better.

I guess over time that things change and we can all live and hope that Gems Tv goes deeper into its routes, but it saddens me to see how such a good company is not as good as it was.

 

[Ballerina]

Hi Phill,

Yes I agree with you. GemsTV has lost it's appeal to me too and I am sure for many others the love affair is well and truly over.

The gold and even silver weights are by and large very low and often the settings are just not substantial enough to support the stones set into the piece.

The freephone number would be very nice,they are happy to allow people from the USA to call a UK number free of charge, so why not UK buyers? I think they suckered us in at the beginning and then dumped us as the company expanded, we are just not important these days.

It is not a genuine reverse price auction because, as you have said, they stick anything left unsold on to the web. If it were a genuine reverse price auction they would keep dropping until the last piece was sold, that would be genuine.

Back to their roots? I think not and to be honest, sometimes I feel like I have been "had" (not in the physical sense LOL). The presenters are a pain in the rear with all the shouting hard sell, the channel is no longer much of a joy to watch. I watch for a fraction of the time I used to and spend a fraction of the money I used to.

Another thing that annoys the heck out of me is the naming of gemstones ie. with the mine name stuck in front of the stone, Cruzeiro rubellite for example. You then get a short video of Steve banging on about how it is the best he has ever found. Do you remember Carneiba (spelling?) emerald being the best? As soon as he flogged all of that, he moves on to Zambian and how that is the best he has come across. It really gets on my nerve, the country of origin is fine but spare me all the bull about being the best deposit this side of Christmas.

Rant over! Does anyone else find that annoying?

Inge xx

 

[Phill]

Yup that annoys me too, and the fact they bang on about Sizes 5, 7 and 9. Excuse me we are in the UK I have no idea what that means.

Also like you say Inge that the description has changed to accommodate for the Americans, Gems tv always used to call it Russian Diopside and now its Chrome Diopside, and since when do we say 1/10th of a ct of diamonds over here, it’s always been 0.1cts.

 

[Ballerina]

Agree with you entirely, the carat weight thing is annoying and when a ring has 2.75g of gold they say nearly 3 grams of gold. It is is quite a lot less, 2.99g would be nearly 3g.

 

[Phill]

Just watching Steve now on the Charoite showcase and they are not really selling at all

Design LVZS98 started at over £200 Quantity 100, £29.99 Quantity 72 then £27.99 and the quantity stayed at 35 when they closed the auction.

Next item LEZS73 started at £265 Quantity 78, £37.99 quantity 63, then £29.99 quantity 63, then the final price of £24.99 left with a quantity of 47

This is really bad can’t Steve see himself that Gems Tv is struggling. I feel like I’m watching Gems Tv before Steve took over it again.

 

[Phill]

Oh I think they are actually having technical issues at the moment

 

[The Insider]

Oh I think they are actually having technical issues at the moment

That is Steve's usual line when something isn't selling.

I'd be interested to know whether the quantity on the Gems graphics is still manually controlled by the producer...

 

[Saffy]

I've just tuned in for the first time in ages to see Steve selling "Tuscon green fluorite" ... agree with Phill that putting the location where the stone was mined is getting out of hand!
I can see why in some cases it may be helpful ... Colombian emerald, Ceylon sapphire or Burmese ruby for example But Tuscon fluorite?!!!
It is a shame how things have changed, and not for the better. I very rarely watch now. It used to be my default channel & I remember the days when this forum was buzzing with activity and people dying to post pics of their latest buys. When was the last time anybody posted a picture of anything they've bought? Nowadays people post to voice their concerns & disappointments and yet Steve Bennett & Co still carry on regardless.

 

[Anjo]

am with you on the naming of gemstones - when they do that I immediately mistrust them - The Tucson Green Fluorite was presumably swept up by Gems at the Tucson international gem fair, I have a vague recollection the chinese were flooding the fair with the stuff. As for Cuamba garnet - last time I saw it being sold Gems were touting it as extremely rare - while these garnets are known as cape rubies for a reason my knowledge is that mechanisation of the mines means production is going up and currently runs at about 8,000kg of gem quality being sold a year - not so rare then........

What really irks me is that staff in my basket can suddenly become unavailable - it's several hours after it was auctioned. The help team say it must be because the piece is scheduled to be auctioned again - that may be so but why does it have to come out of my basket in the meantime?

For me the problem with Gems is the relentless under £30/£50 hours (and I like a bargain as much as anyone else) - but if you go off the channel you can find similar or the same as Gems tout in these hours more and more often being sold for the same or cheaper on certain auction sites and well known book sites that have expanded. The advantage of the other sites is they also don't seem to despise you because you are using the web either

 

[Springflower]

Certain countries are the benchmark of fine stones, Burma, Ceylon, Colombia. Why, oh why, must they shove these also rans down our throats, set in 9ct gold or worse still, coated, as being of comparable quality.

 

[sweetpea]

This naming of gemstones gets on my pip too............it's marketing bollocks and an insult to intelligence in all honesty,done in an attempt to make mediocre gems sound more special than they actually are.

I am sick and tired of constantly being told......nay shouted at.....that absolutely everything is boutique,designer and exceptional quality,no it's not and I would appreciate more honesty and a lot less hyperbole in presentations to make me watch for any length of time.That is the problem now,I turn on to see what's what and find myself switching over within a very short period of time.

I fully appreciate that the initial days of Rockstv will not come again as the cost of gold and silver etc is so high,but I simply hate being patronised and that is how most of the channel comes across currently.

I hate star buys that go on for bloody eons too or it certainly seems like they do,show the piece constantly in the lead up and spend 7 minutes(which is a long time!) waffling on about the designer and exceptional quality of this really,really stunning garnet in ruddy silver!:dull: just drop the sodding price and get on with it please I am losing the will to live......................which given my current condition is not a good place to be!!!!!:doh:

Gradually I believe that many people are losing respect for Steve Bennett which is sad,because once that goes there is no way back.

Sad times indeed

 

[Vienna]

Money, greed, profit is what makes such companies go downhill. Mind you they go to the wall then reinvent themselves in another name. Unless customers walk away they`ll simply continue to ignore us and continue with the spiel and cr*p quality. Yep gold and silver have risen in cost but that`s across the globe not just for Gems.