JCPenney Jewelry Counter

I am not a fancy lady.  I don't own more than one or two nice pieces of jewelry, but I did decide to buy Mark a nice watch for his birthday.  I got it at JCPenney's because I had a rewards certificate for $10 off.  I found a very nice watch with a metal band that had a black finish.  The face was a deep blue, and it was perfect for Mark.  Since I know he can be a bit clumsy, I spent $10 to get the service plan.  We had to return to the store to have links removed, since Mark has tiny little girl wrists.

A couple weeks ago, the band got messed up.  Where the band rests against the face had somehow gotten messed up, angling the wrong way.  We took the watch to be fixed, but the very nice lady had no idea what she was doing.  She suggested we find the receipt, which would allow us to just exchange it, as opposed to sending it away to be fixed.

Tonight, we gathered the receipt, the watch, and my service plan documents to visit the JCPenney jewelry counter to have the watch exchanged.  We easily waited for at least fifteen minutes or more before the lady could even get to us.  There were two people there before us and only one employee working.

When it was finally our turn, the girl wanted to try and fix the watch, which we were fine with.  The watch was in perfect shape, save for the band being messed up.  She fiddled with it for quite some time before announcing it good and properly broken.

Once realizing it was a lost cause, she grabbed the new one out of the case to exchange it for us.  It turns out that they were unable to just exchange the watch.  She had to do a refund and re-purchase it.  Because I used a certificate before but not now, the watch was $10 more.  This meant I had to cough up more money if I wanted the service plan again.  Needless to say, I was pretty annoyed.  For a moment, I thought maybe the service plan was "used up" when we needed to exchange the original watch, but that wasn't the case.  She insisted it was because of a price difference.  I thought it was because of the coupon I used.  She said the initial watch was on sale.  Either way, when there is a defect that requires exchange, the customer should not be punished.  Mark hadn't handled the watch roughly, nor were there any other issues.  There was simply a pin in the band that wasn't holding right.

I am a huge fan of how JCPenney has been running its stores lately.  They've dropped prices all over, as opposed to having constantly changing sales.  That being said, I'm going to avoid their jewelry counter.  The employees don't have a good working knowledge of the products, and there always seems to be a wait when you need help.  From now on, I'll do my jewelry shopping at Sam's Club.  They will always take back defective items bought at the jewelry counter, no questions asked.  The young lady there is also incredibly knowledgeable.  Buy clothes and such at JCPenney, but I would get your jewelry elsewhere.