Seems like an eternity ago, my husband-to-be and I went to Jose to get our wedding rings. Then - like now - we were amazed at the wonderful quality of his work. He has always been a true artist, and we appreciated his time and care, working with us to design our rings. And the rings were gorgeous, and garnered many compliments over the years.\r
\r
To us, this was an exciting time in our lives, and Jose played a big part in that. \r
\r
Fast forward a few kids and 15 years... My ring was quite small and needed to be enlarged. I didn't trust anyone but Jose to do the job. I brought it in one Saturday and he said the ring would be ready that week. He told me to come in on Thursday; when I came by, the center stone was missing. He said it definitely would be ready the next day; when I came by after work, the stone was still missing. I was told that the ""stone polisher"" hadn't returned the gem yet.\r
\r
My family then went on vacation for three weeks. Upon returning, I called Jose and he said the stone still was at the polishers, but it would be ready next week. I called back the following week, and I was told the same thing: next week.\r
\r
The following week, my husband called on Tuesday; no one answered at the store. Starting to get tired of the runaround, and suspicious of the store being closed on a Tuesday, I crazily thought that, perhaps, Jose was screening his calls. I told my husband to call Jose from his personal cell phone. Sure enough, Jose answered the call right away! When my husband asked what the status was of the ring, Jose went into an obscenity-laden tirade, saying he wished me and my husband never had entered his life, and he threatened to ""come over and beat up"" my husband, twice! My husband said he felt his heart beating out of his chest, he was so upset and taken aback by this conversation! It was so upsetting and unprovoked. It was like Jose had snapped. We conferred with a police friend, wondering if we should press criminal charges (threats of bodily harm), and civil charges (breach of contract, as we still did not have our ring back). Most disappointing of all is how sad we felt, that someone who we respected and admired, and who we had very warm memories of, had treated us. At this point, I just wanted my ring back.\r
\r
The next day, Jose called my husband and, in the nicest voice, informed him that the ring was ready to be picked up. It was like nothing ever happened, and the earlier threatening conversation never even took place!\r
\r
We went the following day to get the ring.\r
\r
I thought long and hard before deciding to post this. Jose's work is truly unique and beautiful, and if you are purchasing jewelry from him, I doubt you would be disappointed. But if you need a piece serviced in any way, beware. He never once called us with an update, and he misquoted his lead-time by nearly 8 weeks. And there's the most disturbing issue of his sudden tirade and threats to us. This has been a very sad experience for my husband and me, and I just hope in time that, when I look at my ring, I remember the happy time when we were first designing it, and NOT this recent, upsetting event.\r
more