Product Recall

[yazrose]

This type of recall happens all the time wether it be jewellery, food, clothes, toys etc etc etc the recall always comes to late in the day when people have already bought them and possibly given them as gifts, it means no-one is checking at the time but instead it is weeks or months later that they are checked and they are put up for sale anyway otherwise this would never happen.

(remember the food scare the other year and all the food was nearly out of date anyway when they gave out the warnings so people had eaten it in good faith, then their was the clothing dye warning and then mattel toys were doing a recall that affected toys going back years)

Graham is right they are doing the right thing.
But is it out of good faith or cause they were backed into a corner?

 

[Tabs]

Quote from Graham's post
I didn't contact them, they contacted me. It took 8 months as GemsTV were just not aware of the problem till it was brought to their attention by a customer. Then they did IMO the correct thing and ordered a full product recall.


Actually i think this make the whole thing worse!!! IF Gems didnt realise untill it was brought to their attention by a customer, what would have happened otherwise??? Some poor customer sat with a "dodgy gold plated item" which they had paid for in good faith as being 9carat gold not gold plated. I can see that Gems are offering refunds, and yes this is to their credit, but still, it has only come to light after they have been told!!! Sorry Gems, but IMVHO this just isnt good enough, you provide certificates of authenticity, which plainly arent worth the paper they are printed on in the case of the recalled items! What faith are we meant to have in Gems quality control if things like this are allowed to happen???

 

[yazrose]

Good points but who is checking them at GemsTV to make sure they are REAL GOLD before selling them to the public?

If I go to a high street jewellers and get a ring 9ct gold then the gold wears off I am going to blame the jewellers for not checking and selling it to me when it is not 9ct gold at all after all that is their trade and GemsTV are always saying they know all about jewellery and that is their trade also so IMHO it is them who are to blame because they should check that what they are selling is the genuine deal.

 

[Sazza]

Assuming it was hallmarked at the assay office?? I've bought items from the internet before with fake hallmarks, I was informed by the London assay office that it is pretty common, they can tell if it is genuine or not but it is difficult for the customer to tell apparently.

Another good point!!!

 

[Graham]

Quote from Graham's post
I didn't contact them, they contacted me. It took 8 months as GemsTV were just not aware of the problem till it was brought to their attention by a customer. Then they did IMO the correct thing and ordered a full product recall.


Actually i think this make the whole thing worse!!! IF Gems didnt realise untill it was brought to their attention by a customer, what would have happened otherwise??? Some poor customer sat with a "dodgy gold plated item" which they had paid for in good faith as being 9carat gold not gold plated. I can see that Gems are offering refunds, and yes this is to their credit, but still, it has only come to light after they have been told!!! Sorry Gems, but IMVHO this just isnt good enough, you provide certificates of authenticity, which plainly arent worth the paper they are printed on in the case of the recalled items! What faith are we meant to have in Gems quality control if things like this are allowed to happen???

The base metal was Gold, White Gold, it does not affect the value at all.

 

[Graham]

Sorry Graham,

But I disagree with you. GTV should, at the very least, offer to refund the original P&P. That is where I think Trading Standards would come in.

Meggie

GemsTV have no problem refunding the original postage.

The Assay test for Gold, as they were Gold although not Yellow Gold they would have passed.

GemsTV have also had the items independently tested themselves and they came back as Gold.

 

[reddwarf]

- the signs are bad so far, with all the web aggro and so many of the old faces jumping ship. They're definitely losing their sparkle, this could tarnish them even further.

I can't help it, I'm going to say this and s*d the consequences, I only found this site because I was having troubles with Gems tv, they were horrible to me because I was just one little customer IMO, I couldn't believe how much help all the members of this forum received when they had a problem. Sadly, I did it in the wrong order, had I been a member here first, prior to the issues I raised, I'm sure Gems reply would have been a lot different.

I feel that they have always had a darker side but the personalities they employed always managed to keep everything sweet, neat and tidy to the greater audience. I think the Gems tv plate is wearing off as a whole and we are seeing the base underneath.

 

[Pimms]

Graham - thanks for clarifying the hallmark point.

 

[fluff]

Let's face it .. it's a mess whichever way you look at it!

I haven't received a letter but I'm not sure if I'll ever feel the same way about Gems again. It'll take an awful lot to restore my faith in the company because it'll always be in the back of my mind that if it happened once it could happen again.

It doesn't matter who's fault it was ... it should never have happened but once Gems were aware of the situation they should have, at the very least, had the courtesy to issue a statement on here explaining the facts and their intentions and before letters were sent out.

Their "take it or lump it" attitude certainly isn't helping either! If a refund is impossible where people can't return an item because it was given as a gift then, maybe, they could be given a Gems voucher for the original amount as a gesture of goodwill.

Obviously such an offer could be open to abuse ... some people could say they gave an item as a gift when they haven't ... but surely Gems is a big enough company to swallow the loss and it might, possibly, go some way to repairing the damage that's been done.

 

[Tabs]

The base metal was Gold, White Gold, it does not affect the value at all.

Point taken, Thank you, But what sense does it make to Yellow Gold plate over a White Gold item?

 

[Sacha]

Let's face it .. it's a mess whichever way you look at it!

I haven't received a letter but I'm not sure if I'll ever feel the same way about Gems again. It'll take an awful lot to restore my faith in the company because it'll always be in the back of my mind that if it happened once it could happen again.

It doesn't matter who's fault it was ... it should never have happened but once Gems were aware of the situation they should have, at the very least, had the courtesy to issue a statement on here explaining the facts and their intentions and before letters were sent out.

Their "take it or lump it" attitude certainly isn't helping either! If a refund is impossible where people can't return an item because it was given as a gift then, maybe, they could be given a Gems voucher for the original amount as a gesture of goodwill.
Obviously such an offer could be open to abuse ... some people could say they gave an item as a gift when they haven't ... but surely Gems is a big enough company to swallow the loss and it might, possibly, go some way to repairing the damage that's been done.

I was looking for a 'good post' smiley but couldn't find one. So anyway, good post Fluff.

I've had a word and there are no goodwill gestures (ie vouchers) being made where items can't be returned.........as in my case!
But apparently there are a lot of items involved in this recall.

 

[Graham]

Point taken, Thank you, But what sense does it make to Yellow Gold plate over a White Gold item?

None at all, no extra profit, which is why I believe that GemsTV did not know about it till it was brought to their attention.

 

[yazrose]

None at all, no extra profit, which is why I believe that GemsTV did not know about it till it was brought to their attention.

But why did it need to be brought to their attention?, why wasn't anyone checking?

Although they are doing the right thing now by contacting people this does little to comfort customers who buy in good faith, after all jewellery is their trade and they should know to check whether or not it is gold or plated gold on another metal.
I do not believe after such a long length of time that they are doing the recall in good faith I think they have been backed into a corner.

 

[Meeshoo]

I don't know if you've seen a product recall letter but everything in Graham's sticky was in that letter. However, they have NEVER agreed to refund the original P&P in anything that I've been sent. This is not mentioned and I have asked for clarification and been told that it's not (my original phone call to CS on Saturday).

As for asking for the gifts back, one of mine is in Turkey with my sister in law and my Aunt in Austria has the other! There is absolutely no way I'm going to go to the hassle of getting them to post them back to me - not to mention the cost involved!

Yes I agree that GemsTV are doing the right thing but surely they are required to do so by law? Once the original complaint was made and investigated I guess they could have buried it but decided not to which I applaud them for. However, at that point, you have to ask, do they do only what's required under law or do they walk the extra mile to apologise to customers in a proactive and constructive manner that would no doubt win them tons of brownie points that they've been lacking in just recently?

At the end of the day, they're a jewellery business and gold plating over white gold is a fundamental error - not to mention highly highly unusual. If they manufacture everything in house, why wasn't this spotted? How did this get past their QC department?

 

[Tabs]

It seems to be that Gems are doing the bare minimum to get people off their backs. They are offering a full refund and allegedly some postage costs, original P+P seems to be in question.

If you speak to Trading Standards, where a faulty item is involved TS state quite clearly that the customer "should incur no costs in obtaining a refund". If an item has to be returned by the customer using Royal Mail, the customer has to "suitably package" the item, take it to a Post Office, incur travel costs, parking fee's (if appropriate) time, etc.

None of this appears to be covered by Gems, not even a "goodwill gesture" appears to be forthcoming. Gems are doing the absolute bare minimum, and my instincts say the wouldnt be doing this, if the customer hadnt brought it to their attention.

 

[Milly]

I was told by the cs person when i asked how this came to light he said a customer took a piece of jewellery to their local jewellers because the gold was peeling off ,my question was why was white gold plated in yellow gold he said it was in the designe of that item of jewellery i also asked if other items were affected he avoided that question by saying it only affected people if they had recived a letter how would any of us know about each others pieces if we did'nt read the forum so you see theres probably loads of people who think there just unfortunate to have a recall letter .lets face it they go on about only a few of this design was ever hand crafted in our own factories bla bla bla and this would make a lovely gift for xmas,valentines,mothers,fathers days etc etc .I had'nt actually thought about their vouchers but that would of been such a good pr thing for them to of done. by the way a friend of mine bought something from a shopping channel that had the wrong gem weight on screen she did'nt know and out of the blue she was sent a piece of jewellery the same but with the correct gem weight and told she could keep the original one as it was their error now thats good service

 

[yazrose]

I don't know if you've seen a product recall letter but everything in Graham's sticky was in that letter. However, they have NEVER agreed to refund the original P&P in anything that I've been sent. This is not mentioned and I have asked for clarification and been told that it's not (my original phone call to CS on Saturday).

As for asking for the gifts back, one of mine is in Turkey with my sister in law and my Aunt in Austria has the other! There is absolutely no way I'm going to go to the hassle of getting them to post them back to me - not to mention the cost involved!

Yes I agree that GemsTV are doing the right thing but surely they are required to do so by law? Once the original complaint was made and investigated I guess they could have buried it but decided not to which I applaud them for. However, at that point, you have to ask, do they do only what's required under law or do they walk the extra mile to apologise to customers in a proactive and constructive manner that would no doubt win them tons of brownie points that they've been lacking in just recently?

At the end of the day, they're a jewellery business and gold plating over white gold is a fundamental error - not to mention highly highly unusual. If they manufacture everything in house, why wasn't this spotted? How did this get past their QC department?

It seems to be that Gems are doing the bare minimum to get people off their backs. They are offering a full refund and allegedly some postage costs, original P+P seems to be in question.

If you speak to Trading Standards, where a faulty item is involved TS state quite clearly that the customer "should incur no costs in obtaining a refund". If an item has to be returned by the customer using Royal Mail, the customer has to "suitably package" the item, take it to a Post Office, incur travel costs, parking fee's (if appropriate) time, etc.

None of this appears to be covered by Gems, not even a "goodwill gesture" appears to be forthcoming. Gems are doing the absolute bare minimum, and my instincts say the wouldnt be doing this, if the customer hadnt brought it to their attention.

This is just what I have said in other posts also.

Are they doing it out of good faith or cause they were backed into a corner? I am rather inclined to say the latter.
And why did it need to be brought to their attention AND why wasn't anyone checking?

I do not care if it is gold over white gold or gold over silver, it stated that the purchase was 9ct yellow gold and that is what should have been sold.
IMHO it is their own fault for not checking and to not even have the decency to offer even a 5% or 10% discount on a next purchase to help their customers recover and go towards some good faith is a disgrace.

 

[originalmeggie]

GTV are doing what they HAVE to do, that is all. They are not doing what they could/should do.

I would still consult Trading Standards. Certainly the P&P should be paid, but I would find their views on gifts interesting.

Meggie

 

[Hampton]

Right let me first of all apologise beforehand because I know this is not going to sit well with most of you.

I honestly don't know what the fuss is about. Yes an error has been made - they are attempting to put things right. Does it matter whether it's been brought to their attention by a disgruntled customer or whether they have discovered the error themselves? Fact of the matter is, they have owned up and offered a solution. I would imagine they will now ensure that more stringent checks are made as this must have been a costly mistake.


If they had hushed it up and done nothing, then I would agree its a disgrace. They seem to have made a genuine mistake - if you were previously happy with your other purchases then I would say accept it as a one off and concentrate on the satisfactory transactions which have always delighted you. I know there are many ,as you are all eager to share them when you take delivery of a new bit of sparkle.

I think we can all think of real trauma and worry in everyday life without blowing a gasket over this.

I am now retreating to my bunker.

ps Graham - can we have a "white flag" emoticon please?

 

[LoopyLoo]

Eloquent and sensible as always Hampi