Are You Nervous About Mailing Pearls to Us?

Linda was nervous about mailing pearls to us. She sent us the following question, “Is your service bonded and insured? What safeguards are in place to insure that the pearls I send you are the same pearls I get back? I may sound obnoxious, but the completely trustworthy man that has always done my pearls has retired and I’m a bit leery of sending my necklace into the unknown.”

           

She is not the first customer who has expressed concern. I have received phone calls, too! “Are you legitimate? How do I know I can send my jewelry to you and it will be safe?”

If you are nervous about mailing pearls to us, I hope this blog post will ease your mind!

Who Are The Pearl Girls?

I get it! It is important to vet companies. We are so thrilled and so honored that customers and businesses all over the world send their jewelry to us for repair.

So, let me be clear, even though many people are mailing pearls to us, we also receive a lot of gems and beaded jewelry, too! How awesome!

But, I know some of you still want to know you are sending your gems to a good places! I am happy to tell you more about The Pearl Girls in hopes of easing your mind!

First, The Pearl Girls history! I started working with pearls in 2006 and started The Pearl Girls in 2008 because I love jewelry and I love to travel. But, I am also a deeply traditional woman who loves my china from my maternal grandmother and my marble top table from my paternal grandmother. I believe in tradition and family and the beauty of creating things and passing them on to the ones we love.

So, although I created a jewelry business out of my love for new experiences and travel, I soon realized people had a lot to preserve, too.

People started asking, “If you knot pearls, can you reknot pearls?” I didn’t see why not! The Pearl Girls Jewelry Repair division was born. Click HERE to get more info and to get started on your repair!

Ring, Ring

However, my own alarm bells started to sound! What if someone tries to claim I stole their jewelry or misplaced it or didn't send it back? So, I must admit, some of the safeguards I have in place are to protect The Pearl Girls. We never question our own integrity!

Fortunately, because we are strict in protecting ourselves, it undoubtedly helps our customers, too!

Picture it, a customer calls and says, “I received my repair and these are not my pearls.” Sounds awful, doesn’t it? Well, it doesn’t happen with us! Most people call us and say things like, “My jewelry looks amazing, are you sure it’s mine?” I like those calls!

And, the one person who did worry we had sent her the wrong pearls? Well, we take extensive photos both before and after we do our work so we sent her photos of her jewelry for comparison and she realized she did, in fact, get her pearls back!

And that was one person... not bad after 13 years in business!

Handling Things

We do a lot of documentation when your jewelry arrives. We take a before and after photo of every piece we work on. The intake and outtake photos are done by our office staff, not our repair staff. We also count the number of pearls, gems or beads in your jewelry. We also measure it!

The Head of Production reviews every piece of jewelry that arrives. She gets the supplies ready, orders any necessary supplies and makes sure the job is clear and all the repair information has been received from our customers. Rest assured we know your jewelry intimately and we take care of it as if it were our own. Click HERE to get started!

Either The Head of Production or our staff does the actual repair. All jewelry is worked on one at a time so there is never a risk of mixing up jewelry.

All jewelry is locked up before and after the work is done, at our office in Athens, GA. Our repair room is a separate locked room within our office which is also locked and guarded with a security system. We keep and return your packaging material so if there is a box or pouch you mailed your jewelry in, we will return it.

We also keep all material that was removed from your piece during the work. If we shorten a chain by one inch, you will receive that one inch of chain in the mail when your jewelry is returned. We simply are not in the business of keeping things that are not ours.

For Real

Speaking of, we are an established business! I have personally have been working with pearls since 2006. I opened The Pearl Girls in 2008. Along with our online sales and repairs, we have a shop in Athens, GA! 2021 marked our 6 year anniversary in our current space and we have no plans on moving anytime soon!

So although our out of town customers can’t pop by, know we are an established and well respected business in our community

Yes, we are insured! However, we expect our customers to insure any high priced jewelry they own.

We do not offer a huge payout for jewelry to keep scammers from coming our way. So, if you plan on making a claim, do it through your insurance first.

However, since we have never lost, damaged or failed to return anyone’s jewelry, we do not anticipate any claims. We treat your jewelry with utmost respect and we return all jewelry that we have worked on  in perfect condition. 

Click HERE to get started!

Easy on the Oops

Can things go wrong? Yes, they can. This usually happens when we have to drill pieces or use our chemicals to remove epoxy.

We tell all of our customers who have their pearls drilled by us there is an inherent risk in drilling pearls. The drill bit could break off or the hole could have something inside of it that damages the drill. This rarely happens although we have had one instance of a pearl breaking. A customer asked us to drill a pearl that was already cracked. We were wary of this and told her the risk but she wanted us to try anyway. The pearl did break when we tried to drill it. But, she knew the risk and understood. We still felt awful and we replaced the pearl that we damaged.

We use a special chemical to remove epoxy that does not damage pearls. This is how we take pearls out of rings, pins or off of earring posts when our customers want to replace them or use them in a different piece.

This chemical does not harm pearls, if they are real. We cannot use this chemical on imitation pearls. Once we had a customer who wanted to remove an imitation pearl from a ring and replace it with a real one. We warned her that the chemical would damage her imitation pearl. She decided to go for it and the chemical removed the epoxy and the coating on the fake pearl.

She was happy with her upgraded ring and we returned the damaged imitation pearl to her.

5 Stars

There is a reason we have such a good reputation in the jewelry industry. We did not receive this reputation by mistreating any of our customers or their jewelry. We look forward to many more years of good business and a good business reputation. Therefore, we’re not about to start damaging or harming other peoples jewelry.

Having said that I do you want to end on this note. This is to Linda and anyone else who worries about mailing your gems all the way to Athens, GA: If you are at all concerned about mailing your gems to us, I encourage you not to. It is not worth you stressing out over your jewelry. I would love your business, and I can guarantee you we will do a great job! We get 5 stars reviews everyday! 

Click HERE to get started!

Safety First!

We know your gems are safe with us but we respect your peace of mind. If mailing us your gems is going to affect your peace of mind, then I encourage you to find another jeweler to work with. They may not do as good of a job however you will save on your stress! And that is very important!

If you are confident in our abilities to do the work and return your gems safely to us then, please, get that jewelry to us! 

Click HERE to get started!

We love, love, love that we get to live our passion for pearls and jewelry every single day! This is love in action! Thank you for trusting us with your most precious things!

With Love,

India