Warranty vs Guarantee: What You Should Actually Expect
A warranty, a guarantee and a return policy are three different promises. Most disappointment comes from expecting one of them to do the work of another.
Three different promises
A return policy is a window for changing your mind: send it back unused, get your money back. A warranty is a statement about how the piece was made — if the metal fails or a setting lets go in normal wear, the seller fixes it. A guarantee is usually a marketing word around one of the other two, and it means whatever the written terms say.
None of the three is insurance. That distinction explains most of the arguments.
What a warranty normally covers
| Situation | Usually treated as |
| A stone works loose or falls out with no impact | Workmanship — covered |
| A prong snaps at the solder joint | Workmanship — covered |
| A clasp fails in ordinary use | Workmanship — covered |
| Scratches, dents, worn plating | Wear — not covered |
| Damage from a knock, a gym, a car door | Accident — not covered |
| Repair or resizing by another jeweller | Third-party work — not covered |
What it does not cover
Wear is not a fault. A ring that has been worn daily for three years has thinner prongs and a duller surface than it did on day one, and no warranty is designed to reverse that. Nor does it cover a ring after somebody else has worked on it: once a third party has soldered or sized a piece, the maker cannot vouch for the joint.
Damage is the other gap. A prong bent by a doorframe, a stone chipped by a granite worktop, a chain snapped by a child — these are accidents, and they are repairs rather than claims. A fair seller will still fix them, at a price.
Plating: wear or defect
Rhodium on white gold and silver is a finish. It wears at the points that touch things — the bottom of a band, the edges of a setting, the underside of a pendant — and that pattern of wear is normal use, not a manufacturing fault.
A defect looks different. Plating that blisters, flakes in sheets or peels away within days of delivery is a finishing failure. The test is time and pattern: even wear at contact points means use; bubbling in a recess means the surface was not prepared properly. If you are unsure, photograph it in daylight and ask.
The 30-day return is not a warranty
Our 30-day return covers unworn pieces in their original packaging. It is about changing your mind, and it ends on day thirty. A warranty answers a different question: did this piece fail because of how it was made?
The difference matters at the boundary. A stone that falls out on day forty is a warranty question. A change of mind on day forty is outside both. A custom piece, which cannot be resold, sits outside the return window entirely, which is why the approval drawing matters more.
Keep the paperwork
Keep the certificate — GRA for moissanite, IGI for lab grown diamond — and the order number, somewhere you can find in two years. The certificate identifies the stone, which matters if it is ever replaced. The order number is what lets a seller pull up the metal, the size, the engraving and the date of purchase in one search.
Without it, a claim starts with a conversation about when the piece was bought, and that is a conversation nobody wins.
Cross-border repairs and freight
When buyer and seller are in different countries, freight is the part to settle before anything is posted. The common arrangements are: the seller covers return shipping on a confirmed manufacturing fault, the customer covers it for wear-and-tear servicing, and duty on a repair shipment is normally the owner's responsibility, because the parcel is re-entering the country.
Ask which applies to your case, and get the answer in writing. On a piece costing around a hundred dollars, two international shipments can approach the value of the repair itself.
Five questions to ask before you buy
| Question | Why it matters |
| What exactly is covered, and for how long? | "Fully covered" with no list is not an answer |
| Is stone loss covered, and is it a repair or a replacement? | Stone loss is the most common claim of all |
| Who pays shipping in each direction? | Freight can exceed the cost of the repair |
| Are resizing and re-plating included? | Plating wear is the usual disappointment on silver |
| What do you need from me to make a claim? | Order number, certificate, photographs — know in advance |
What a good answer looks like
Specific, written, and honest about limits. A seller who can tell you what is excluded has thought about the policy; a seller who says everything is covered forever has not. The best answer names the time period, the parts covered, who pays freight and what evidence is needed.
Ask before you order, not after something breaks. A warranty you have read is worth more than one you assume.
What we make
Everything is made in our own workshop in Wuzhou, which we have run since 2008 — moissanite with GRA certificates at D colour VVS1, and lab grown diamond with IGI certificates, set in 925 silver, 9K, 14K and 18K gold. Pieces run from $17 to $2,020, median around $98, and every one ships with its certificate in the box.
If you want to know what a specific piece is covered for, ask before you order and we will put the terms in writing, along with what we would need from you if something ever goes wrong.