Almost a Gift... Almost.

In my exuberance of the pending celebration of LO's first birthday, I've been shopping for gifts for her from hubs and I. Of course we did order her pink gingham bean bag, which I'm totally stoked about. Another gift idea I came up with is earrings. She's still wearing the silver studs from when her ears were pierced when she was 8 months old. And I'm tired of looking at them. Obviously she couldn't care less (or as hubs would say, "could care less"--this is always followed by my correcting him for the zillionth and laughing a bit).

So I purchased some cutsie sterling silver earrings for her from Claire's in the mall a few weeks ago. Let me just say that changing earrings on an 11-month-old is not for the timid or lighthearted. It takes skill. Mad skill. Skill I learned quickly that I was lacking. I followed her around and tried to remove the stud earrings without interrupting her activities. Accomplished. No tears. Nice. Unfortunately, putting the new ones in was much more intrusive. It involved me holding her down, grabbing her head so she couldn't move it and somehow finagling the new earrings in.

Fast-forward less than 24 hours. One of the little faux rubies in the earring was gone. Yep! Just gone. I checked out one of the other pairs of earrings I had purchased (that she hasn't worn yet) only to find they, too, were missing one of the little faux gemstones. Seriously!? Ya. I couldn't believe it. So I had the joy of removing her new cute little red heart earrings and putting the studs back in (see note above regarding putting earrings in an 11-month-old's ears).

Okay, so now I'm finally getting to the point of this post. I looked everywhere online to find a cute pair of faux diamond earrings, preferably bezel-set, that were of decent quality and would totally match any and every outfit I put her in, thus eliminating the need to swap out earrings often, at least not until I get tired of looking at them.

So last Tuesday I placed an order for little 1/4 carat Round Brilliant Rhodium Silver Cubic Zirconia Stud Earrings from a merchant called--get this--"almostdiamonds.com." Okay, so obviously the name should have been enough to prevent me from ordering a thing from them. But no, I went ahead with it.

Aren't they cute?












Sign #2: I tried to use the "Chat Now" online applet and was told representatives were not available at that time. Sounds legitimate, right? I mean, I think it was like 10PM when I tried it, so I moved on.

Next I contacted them to ask when/if the cute bezel-set earrings, which were shown as "Out of Stock," would be back in stock. No response. You'd think I'd learn from all of this, right? Not so much.

Apparently they have this "Make an Offer" option where you can request to purchase an item at a lower price. I tried it. I thought it would be nice to save a dollar or two on a pair of $9.82 earrings (cheapskate, right?). Well, surprisingly enough, I received no response.

As if all the signs weren't glaring at me, last Tuesday I went ahead and placed an order for the earrings at the $9.82 listed price. I'm obviously a glutton for punishment, right?

Okay, fast-forward again a week later. I've checked my online order status. It's "pending." It's been pending for a week now. I emailed the company 3 times through their website. No response. I called them today during their stated business hours, only to get a recording telling me they were closed and restated their hours (which, again, I was calling between). Nice.

Then I had an epiphany. Check the Better Business Bureau! I did. And guess what I found?



Did you guess?



Um, riiight... On a scale of "AAA" (best) to "F" (worst), guess what rating almostdiamonds.com received from the Better Business Bureau? A big. Fat. F. Lucky me!!

Turns out that out of 26 BBB complaints against this merchant, 23 of them went unanswered. Lovely. I went ahead and filed a complaint with the BBB, but also contacted my financial institution to dispute the transaction, which, of course had already been charged to my account several days ago. Isn't that just peachy?!

So now I'm back to the drawing board. I want to find some cute silver, faux diamond or other earrings that are small enough for a 1-year-old, high enough quality that they won't fall apart in 24 hours or less, and are neutral enough to match pretty much any outfit.

Any ideas?