Review of Bremer Jewelry

3 years ago

Edit 8/7/17:

Edit 8/7/17:
As per Bremer's response below, the shop has made every effort to make amends. In seeing our response, they not only sent us a hand written apology letter and gift, but refunded our services. Further, the letter said the staff would now expand their training to include greater familiarity with pearl jewelry. This a far better outcome than what I had expected from a bad situation. I want to send a big thanks to Bremer for going above and beyond to reconcile the issue. Thanks, we will be returning!

Original post:
My wife and I have been to Bremer twice for service on her engagement ring. The ring was a white gold cast band with a black pearl as the primary stone. The ring needed to be sized down and fortunately, Bremer has a laser soldering device that can size down the band without removing the pearl from its setting (as the intense heat can damage pearls). On this occasion, the work was completed on time and as expected. Their proficiency in this first incident is the reason why I gave them two stars.

My wife and I had a long engagement, so when the wedding day approached, we wanted her engagement ring to be cleaned and re-plated to so it would match the wedding band in appearance on the day of the wedding. We went back to Bremer hoping that their service would again be good. The attendants estimated the process would take about four days. They also explained that they would need to soak the ring to loosen the epoxy that holds the pearl in its setting before the ring could be re-plated. We expected this much, so we let them have the ring and went about our business. Four days later we had heard nothing from Bremer, so we gave them a call. The staff at Bremer said that the Pearl had not yet released from the setting, and they needed more time. This was slightly disappointing since they failed to meet their deadline but not a deal breaker. Some trouble should be expected on our part since pearls require more special treatment than diamonds but I would still expect that a full service shop like Bremer would be capable of handling this type of jewelry. We would soon find that it is clear that pearl rings are not their area of expertise.

We were getting the impression that we weren't getting the full story every time we called. The staff at Bremer became unsure of how long the simple process of cleaning and plating would take, even after we had passed their four day estimate. We talked to several different staff members, and each one of them gave us a different story about what stage of completeness the job was in. When we asked if we could pick up the ring early complete or not, we were told no. Two days (and many phone calls) after we have passed their initial 4 day work estimate, we were informed the work was complete. We pick up the ring and thankfully it made it through the wedding. However, the pearl fell out of its setting in less than two weeks.

No longer trusting Bremer's work, we mailed the ring and now detached pearl back to the Jeweler who had made the ring. Upon inspection the Jeweler found that the pin the pearl is mounted on is shorter than the one he uses for his rings! Further, he finds that the pearl had been re-drilled along the hole that it is mounted on. This new information began to fill in the gaps of why a routine cleaning and plating took extra time and left the staff sputtering for explanations. Bremer probably soaked the ring in an attempt to loosen the epoxy that holds the pearl. Initially unsuccessful, they pried the pearl off, breaking the pin in the process. To remedy their error, they drilled the old pin out of the existing hole in the pearl and soldered a new pin to the band. Due to their lack of familiarity with pearl rings, the pin they soldered to the band was too short for the size pearl that needed to be mounted. This didn't give the pearl much for the glue to adhere to, which is why it promptly fell off.