If I purchase only a GIA certified diamond from a retail jewelry store, am I assured of getting exactly the stated quality?
The answer is No. This game is played by jewelry stores in every city and state in the country. Example: They have a very nice, high-quality diamond on hand. They send this diamond off to the GIA lab and get a certified report showing the high quality of this diamond. Now they lay this certified report aside and send a note to the GIA lab stating that they have lost the original certificate, and for $35 they get a replacement certificate. They do this four or five times and end up with 6 certificates. They then take each of these high quality certificates and place them with an average quality diamond and make $3,000 to $4,000 extra on each of the five replacement certificates. This gives them an extra profit of $20,000, and the customer ends up with only an average quality diamond even though he has paid for a high quality diamond and has received a phony certificate. This is an extremely common practice in the retail jewelry store trade.
