Sold ring to jeweller now he wants his money back

[Chopsticks2829]

Hi can anyone give me advice for a friend…
My friends mum enjoys buying bits and bobs of costume jewellery and beads from eBay as she enjoys arts and crafts and making things.
She bought a bag full of rings, beads and other bits and bobs recently, and inside it was a men’s gold ring. My friend took it to her local jeweller, she signed paperwork to say she had the right to sell the ring and was given £425 for it.
The jeweller has now come back to her several weeks later and said he wants his money back as the ring isn’t what he though and is just heavily plated.
The ring was sold to an experienced jeweller in good faith. The price was agreed and the deal was done. Had the opposite happened, and the jeweller made a mint, my friend would have had no come back.
Is the jeweller within his rights to ask for the money back? He’s been sending my friend screenshots from the internet about sale of counterfeit and fake goods which I don’t think applies to this case.
Thank you for reading 🙏🏻

I can't see how?

it was sold to him as 'as seen' she didn't give him any false paperwork etc. he's supposedly the professional here.

id be telling him to fuck off & that if he contacts me again I'll be contacting the police.

As a jeweler he knows about hall marks I would be saying it needs to stop or I will be reporting you for harassment

I’d be blocking him

Oh well. I wouldn’t be giving him his money back. He needs to be a better jeweller

Caveat emptor. Block and ignore.

How did she describe the ring when she sold it?

If she said “I’ve got this solid gold ring I want to sell” and gave the impression that she knew its provenance, then he might have a point. If she said “This ring was sold to me in a job lot of old jewellery - would you be interested in looking at it to see if it’s something you’d buy?” then the jeweller doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

If a jeweller cannot tell, that's his problem.
It does not work the other way round, if a jeweller sells it to you as gold, and it isn't, then you do have a comeback

"If it had turned out that the ring contained an expensive diamond and you'd only paid £425, are you telling me you'd voluntarily come back and offer to pay me more money because of your mistake? No? Well then why should I? You're the professional jeweller. I sold you the jewellery at a price you offered based on the appraisal you carried out at the time. I will not be giving you any money back and will be warning others that your valuations and pricing obviously cannot be trusted."

Irrelevant the jeweller is a professional skilled person if he can't tell you can't expect a layman too. It's not like a professional miss selling to a layman.

The jeweller is presumably a professional, whose opinion the seller would rely on to value an item correctly. They saw it, valued it and paid for it, and if it turns out that they made a mistake with the valuation, tough.

That jeweller sounds like a crook to me. Does he want her to take the ring back, and if so, how will she know that he's giving her the same ring back that he sold her? Sending links about counterfeit goods sounds well dodgy to me, and not the sort of thing a reputable business would do.

He could have had a fake made up that looks just like the one she sold him, give her the fake in exchange for the money, and keep the real (genuinely gold) one himself.

It was sold as seen. He examined the ring before purchase and chose to buy it. I would be very wary of him. I fear he is trying to scam her and the ring he plans to return is not the one that he purchased.

Sale of Goods act doesn't apply to private sales - he's the professional, he valued it, it's entirely his problem and she has no obligations here at all.

Plus it's the Consumer Rights act now - which also doesn't apply to a private sale

Tell him to do one. At best he's trying it on, at worst he's trying to scam your friend. Just block and ignore, he's got no comeback here.

No it's literally his job to appraise jewellery. If he made a mistake it's on him.

I’d go with this but I’d leave out the last sentence in case he then somehow can prove loss of earnings because OP and her friend have warned others not to use his business because his valuations are not trustworthy. I’d also send a screenshot from the Internet about harassment and then block him.

Block him. That’s it. He has no recourse at all.

And do not engage with him on it. Don’t send a long text message.

Personally I'd just tell him to fuck right off, but you do you.

He can't be a very good jeweller if he has had to Google a gold ring!

Your friends mum shouldn't even bother sending back a message, she should just block him.

Sold as seen.

Block and ignore.
He valued it and he offered the money

I wonder if a trainee staff member did the deal, instead of the actual jeweller? Even so his expensive mistake. If it was a qualified jeweller you'd think he'd be a bit embarrassed about making such an error! Fake hallmarks are generally easy enough to spot, and should be doubly so for a qualified person. Just ignore, he has no come back.

Ahh it gets worse… here’s the jewellers reply to the reply my friend gave him based on the replies on here yesterday….

Surely trading standards only investigate traders i.e. businesses and not individuals.

They would not be able to prove fraud or misrepresentation of goods either so this is just a case of scare tactics.

They may well report to the bank but this does not necessarily mean they will win the dispute if the sale was made in good faith and even if they did the best that they would achieve is a refund anyway.