Jump to content
Chapala.com Webboard

Jewelry rip off leaves a bad taste in the mouth


Arjay

Recommended Posts

I was in Puerto Vallarta last week and enjoyed walking along the marina area each evening. On Thursday there was a huge market with probably hundreds of vendors.

We stopped at one vendor near the end of the marina and the two men were pleasant and chatted about people they knew near Toronto (where we live in the summer). A lovely silver ring with a beautiful opal stone caught my eye. We bargained and bought it for a price which kept us both happy. We walked away feeling good.

I wore it the following day and loved it. One day later I put it on before going to a party and noticed that there was no stone, just a grey surface with a tiny bit of opal left on it. The "opal" was just a thin veneer which chipped off after about 12 hours of being worn. Imagine my disappointment. I had returned to Ajijic before this happened so there was nothing I could do.

I know people say "buyer beware" but we had no way of knowing about this rip-off and it left a very bad taste in my mouth. This posting is to serve as a warning but it also unfortunately tends to tar the P.V. vendors with the same brush. This kind of thing has never happened to me in Ajijic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Arjay the veneer scam has been going on all over the world for a very long time. Like most frauds of this nature they feed on greed. Getting something for nothing. a deal! Does anyone really believe they can buy quality jewelry or cars or shoes from a curbside vendor? We've all been stung by these shams over the years and really get mad at ourselves for our gulibility. I'm sure the stone was lovely and probably just unfortunate it fell apart.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unfortunately buying from street vendors is not a good idea anywhere. We have the same thing going on in Chiapas while there ar good honest vendors of amber at the Santo Domingo market there is also a lot of plastic or resin being sold for amber. I would never buy from those markets in a tourist area. If you buy from a store and have their name and address you can go to PROFECO but finding an ambulent market is more difficult and would require for you to go back there and get the info you need to have..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of the silver, stamped silver, is not silver at all. It is a highly polished pewter called "Abaca" or something close to it. In defense of the vendors, there are many hardworking, licensed vendors who you can count on for an excellent price and stylish product (low overheads) but that requires local advice. In Puerto Vallarta Los Muertos area, Roberto and his wife are the go to source. Unfortunately for me, Ms. Chillin doesn't wear silver.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of the silver, stamped silver, is not silver at all.

All that glitters is not gold.

There was a shop in downtown LA that sold fake stamped gold jewelry to street vendors and con-men for re-sale to people who thought that they were getting a good deal,often it was marketed as "hot jewelry".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmm, the tales must be true. I worked my way through university selling jewellery in a flea market (we were honest, and the family has gone on to become very successful retailers). We used to hear all sorts of superstitions, rumors and odd bits of trivia from our buyers. One of them was to never buy jade or opal for yourself as it brings bad luck. It must be gifted to you to avoid this fate. Who knew after all these years?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unfortunately buying from street vendors is not a good idea anywhere. We have the same thing going on in Chiapas while there ar good honest vendors of amber at the Santo Domingo market there is also a lot of plastic or resin being sold for amber. I would never buy from those markets in a tourist area. If you buy from a store and have their name and address you can go to PROFECO but finding an ambulent market is more difficult and would require for you to go back there and get the info you need to have..

As far as I know, I've never been scammed in the Ajijic tianguis. I've bought quite a bit of jewelry over 10 years and have had no problems. Some of it has stones and although they may or may not be genuinely what they claim, at least they haven't been a thin, crappy veneer over a piece of concrete, so I didn't realize that P.V. would be much different. More fool me. I was also scammed many years ago in Cozumel off a cruise ship (they know you probably won't be back). I bought what looked like a lovely silver bangle, which turned pink after a couple of months. Is there any way of telling genuine silver?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ajijic is not a tourist resort.. People live here and stay around for longer than a few days so the sellers know not to cheat people. In resort areas like PV , Cancun and cruise ship areas people come and people go and by the time they figure it out they are far from the vendors, not so in Ajijic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...