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 🙏🏻

OP, I can tell you with absolute 100% certainty, your friends mum would never be deemed as having committed any sort of fraud (despite what some more twitchy posters seem to be suggesting).
The jeweller is attempting to scam her. Block him and don’t think any more about it. There will be no recourse.

But that's on them. I bought a ring from a charity shop a couple of weeks ago. It's sterling silver with two peridot and three sapphire stones, and cost me £3! I know a lot about gemstones and hallmarks, so even a cursory glance got me excited, and I bought it so I could take it home for a proper look. As well as that I bought it because I liked it and it fits. No doubt it's worth a lot more than £3 (it's quite heavy) but I have no intention of selling it. I'm also wearing a sterling silver bangle I got from another charity shop years ago (also £3) that a bloke was eyeing up for the purpose of selling it on, but I managed to nab it first!

He is trying to pull a fast one and scare her in too giving a refund there is nothing he can do. The next thing he will probably ask for a partial refund he sounds like a scammer. Tell your friend to tell him she will be leaving a bad review if he keeps sending messages.

I don't understand, presumably he looked at it before he purchased it- it wasn't on the internet or anything. Also what the hell are trading standards going to do if she is a private seller.

They chose to make the payment without completely testing it, thats on them.

Too bad. Probably had a fabulous stone which he’s had time to replace with a bit of glass now and he wants his money back as well. No takesy backsies.

This just doesn't make sense: why would he hand over £425 quid for a ring without doing the testing required to ensure it was worth that?

I'd be equally suspicious that the ring might be genuine, you agree to refund him and he returns you the "original" ring, which just happens to be a valueless lookalike.

No way. Block him.

Slimy little pricks like this make me mildly annoyed.

He has no right under law to ask for or receive "his" money back, because he hasn't got any money now - he's spent it, it's gone. The friends mother has a nice thick wedge of it in her back pocket, twenty purple portraits of Her Majesty (God rest her soul) and five of the smaller version in brown I reckon, but it's in her pocket because it's hers, not his. He could ask her if he could please have all of her money, but only in the same way that I could stop you in Tesco's and say "I've made a bad choice because I'm fcuking incompetent, can I have your money please?" - and the response would be the same either way.

The law is pretty clear on this one. Mr Ringpiece is acting in a professional capacity (or at least representing himself that way) carrying out a business activity. Mrs FriendMum is an ordinary member of the public. There are specific laws relating to this, but even just running the "reasonable person" test on this shows that Ringpiece holds all the power, sets the prices, defines payment terms and conditions, decides if it's a commercially viable proposition and so forth. Mrs MF showed up with the pull tab off a pop can and some ID, and isn't on the payroll of or responsible for Ringpiece's ring services. It's obvious who the responsible one is, and of course in legal terms "responsible" means "guess who's not going on holiday this year"...

As for making it go away, there's a magic spell for that. All you have to do is look at the nice wedge of cash in your pocket, smile contentedly, and say the magic words "the nice lady at trading standards said...."

No, you're not - I had it myself when one replaced my 18ct chain with a 9ct and of course claimed that's what it was in the first place

He really must think she came down in the last shower; a professsional would have checked hallmarks, run a magnet over it (to detect base metal content) and so on, so a call to trading standards is probably in order

Somehow I doubt it would be the first report they've had ...

Gold is going for a bomb now….a friend of mine recently sold some necklaces to a jewellers who said they were going to be melted down and was given 2k for one of them!

This, don’t worry about it. Just speak to citizens advice. I very much doubt your bank will side with them. Call up the bank in advance perhaps though to explain the situation but if you need to - just send one final message to him saying you will not be engaging with him further and you like him to stop messaging you.

And I had to laugh at him reporting an individual consumer to trading standards.

I don’t think that makes much sense.

Tbh I’d turn it around and say I’m reporting you to Trading Standards - I agree with others and think something is off here.

It just doesn’t add up and I don’t know what he is trying to do exactly, but I feel he is trying to cheat you somehow. Also if he has a Google page I’d be posting a review so other people are aware.

I am shocked that an apparent professional would behave in this way

Agree with PP, block

Im not sure he’d be able to do a bank charge back for this either

What a prick

Please reassure her she does not owe him a penny.

Hi I’m a jeweller and this exact thing has happened to me.

It is an easy enough mistake to make, especially if we are doing appraisals on the hop with the customer watching.

We just suck it up. It’s annoying but it’s just part of the job. All sales are final. There is no legislation to suggest that they can claim back money from you.

How could they take money from your account and trading standards investigate businesses not individuals. Unless you, or your friend are a company? It sounds very odd. I'm surprised they gave you so much for the ring though. Whenever I have had jewellery valued they value low so they can make a profit when they resell. Which is understandable. It could be a scam, perhaps they would return you a very similar ring which is worthless which would give them your "refund" and they original ring too. But again that seems quite convoluted.

Here you go OP. Tell him that you consider any attempts to contact your bank or yourself from now on as harassment and block. There is no way of knowing if it's the original ring back and he might do this regularly.

He cannot speak to her bank. If it was via credit card then yes. He cannot report her to trading standards because she isn't a trader/business. I'd block him and ignore him. It would cost him too much to take her to court over £300.

What a chancer. 🤣

Complete CF.
THEIR mistake.
Tell them you will be contacting the police if they continue to harass you.

Their ineptitude is NOT your problem.
They thought THEY had made a killing, THEY were wrong.

Good point below, I wonder does he have form?
I think reporting HIM to trading standards might be wise.

His response is so lame. He is desperate and knows he has no grounds. Neither the bank nor stranding standards have anything to do with that.

Ignore him and move on.

Small claims court is a real hassle and if it comes to that he will lose anyway.

The Jeweller doesn't have a leg to stand on. If he needs to do further tests out of house to ensure authenticity, then he needs to explain this to the customer and ask them if they will leave the ring with them whilst it's done. I work in a different field, but it involves buying second hand items where fakes are common. On the couple of occasions we've inadvertently missed something and bought a fake then we've had to write off the loss.

Although if she had sold it saying it's sold gold etc etc then perhaps there's a case for false description.

This is perfect. Disgruntled man trying to bully a woman rather than own his own mistake.

@Puzzledandpissedoff then what happened? Did you get the original back?