Return, Refund, Repair, Exchange and Cancellation Policy

Document code: RJ-LS-02

Version: 3.12

Version date: 29 September 2026

Effective date: 1 October 2026

Issued by: Ralph Jacobs SA (Pty) Ltd (reg. 2019/101093/07) and Ralph Jacobs NZ Limited (company no. 9334729) — see Where We Sell for which company sells to you

Supersedes: all earlier published versions of this document

This Policy explains how Ralph Jacobs handles returns, repairs, refunds, exchanges, cancellations and return authorisation. It works together with Terms and Conditions, Warranty and Care, Payments and Verification Payments Policy, Shipping and Delivery Shipping Policy and Complaints and CGSO Complaints Process.

If you are buying from outside South Africa, read this together with Where We Sell and Who You Buy From.

Nothing in this Policy limits rights that cannot lawfully be limited, including:

• South African CPA rights relating to quality service, safe and good quality goods, implied warranty of quality, repair warranty, misdescription, defective goods and statutory remedies;
• South African ECTA rights where an electronic transaction is in scope, subject to lawful exceptions for goods made to the customer’s specifications, clearly personalised goods and other exclusions that apply in law;
• New Zealand Consumer Guarantees Act and Fair Trading Act rights where New Zealand law applies;
• Australian Consumer Law consumer guarantees and misleading conduct protections where Australian law applies;
• EU/EEA, UK or other destination-country rights that apply to online or distance sales.

For transactions with Ralph Jacobs SA (Pty) Ltd, section 44 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act gives you seven days to cancel an online purchase without reason — except for goods made to your specification or clearly personalised. A separate five-business-day right applies to purchases resulting from direct marketing.

For transactions with Ralph Jacobs NZ Limited, New Zealand law does not give a general change-of-mind cooling-off right on a shop or online purchase. Your protection is the Consumer Guarantees Act: goods must be of acceptable quality, fit for purpose and match their description, and you have remedies if they are not. Our own discretionary returns in section 8 apply to you as well.

If your order is delivered in the European Union or the United Kingdom, distance-selling rules give you 14 days from receiving the goods to withdraw without giving a reason. You bear the direct cost of return, and we refund you — including standard outbound delivery — within 14 days of getting the goods back or proof that you have sent them. This does not apply to goods made to your specification or clearly personalised, and where that exclusion applies we tell you before you pay.

Where your own country gives you any other distance-selling or cooling-off right, it applies.

Most Ralph Jacobs goods are made after you order them, and that includes items which appear on the website as ordinary products. This is the point customers most often miss, so it is set out here in full rather than left to the bespoke policy.

Your item is made to your specification — and so is not returnable for change of mind — where any of these is true:

• you built it: you chose a setting and then chose the diamond or gemstone that goes into it, through our Ring Builder, Earring Builder or Pendant Builder, or with our help in the showroom;
• you chose the stone, from the stones listed on our website, from stones we showed you, or from a stone sourced to your brief;
• you supplied the stone — your own, an heirloom, or one bought elsewhere;
• it was made or sized to your ring size or measurements;
• it carries engraving you specified; or
• a standard design was altered at your request.

You do not have to have designed anything from scratch. Choosing which stone goes into which setting in which size is a specification. There is no second customer waiting for that exact combination in that exact size, which is why the law allows these to be treated differently from stock goods.

These items are not returnable merely because you change your mind, except where the law requires otherwise or we agree as a goodwill concession. A loose, unmounted stone is different — see section 8A.

So what cooling-off right do you actually have?

The two rights protect different things. Section 44 protects you against buying something at a distance that you could not see or handle — and it does not reach a piece built to your own brief, because nobody else is waiting for that combination in your size. Section 16 protects you against being approached and sold to, which is why it does not care whether the goods were custom.

If you found us yourself and ordered a made-to-specification piece, there is no change-of-mind window. Section 13A of Terms and Conditions sets out what cancelling costs instead. None of this affects your rights if something is wrong with the item — see sections 2 and 4 above.

Section 8A of Terms and Conditions sets out the same test in full. Section 2A of Bespoke and Custom Jewellery repeats it with worked detail for commissioned work.

None of this affects your rights if an item is defective, unsafe, misdescribed or does not conform to what you ordered. A made-to-order or final-sale item is still covered by those rights, wherever you are.

If goods are defective, unsafe, materially non-conforming or materially misdescribed, the customer must notify Ralph Jacobs as soon as reasonably possible and provide proof of purchase and available supporting information.

Within the statutory warranty period, Ralph Jacobs will assess the goods and apply the remedy required by law. Where the customer has a statutory choice between repair, replacement or refund, Ralph Jacobs will honour the choice as required by law.

If we repair something and the repair does not hold, you do not have to accept a second repair. For transactions with Ralph Jacobs SA (Pty) Ltd, section 56(3) of the Consumer Protection Act requires us to replace the item or refund you where the same problem recurs, or a further defect appears, within three months of our repair. Our workshop work also carries a three-month statutory warranty on parts and labour under section 57. See Warranty and Care section 8A.

What counts as a defect, and what a zoomed-in photograph shows. Hand-set and hand-finished jewellery shows small characteristics of that work under magnification or phone zoom, and a finished piece differs in small details from a CAD render. How we assess workmanship, and what we treat as a defect, is set out in Warranty and Care section 6A, and CAD renders and measurements in Bespoke and Custom Jewellery section 4A. A design you chose below our recommended specification, after signing a risk acceptance, is dealt with under Warranty and Care section 7.

Customers should inspect goods on collection or delivery. Visible transit damage, shortage, tampering or obvious discrepancy should be reported as soon as reasonably possible, preferably within 48 hours, with photographs of packaging and the item.

This reporting request does not remove latent-defect rights or mandatory statutory remedies.

A customer should request a Return Authorisation Number (RAN) before sending, delivering or presenting an item for return, repair, refund or exchange assessment. The request can be made through JewelFix, our repair division (a trading name of the company that sold you the item), at jewelfix.co, or sent to claims@ralphjacobs.org, with proof of purchase, order number, reason, photographs or videos where useful, and any certificate/report number.

The RAN process is an administrative and security process. It must not be applied as an absolute bar to a statutory remedy where the law requires Ralph Jacobs to assess or accept a return.

We issue a RAN to the person who bought the item. Returns, cancellations and refunds are matters under the sale agreement, and that agreement is with the buyer. A refund goes back to the account or card that paid it, and to no one else. If the buyer wants somebody else to handle the return, an email from the address on the order is enough — see section 2A of Terms and Conditions.

This does not apply to a fault. If you are wearing a piece that is defective or unsafe and you did not buy it, bring it to us anyway. South African law treats the user of goods as a consumer for quality and safety purposes. We will assess and deal with the fault. What we cannot do on somebody else’s purchase is cancel it, refund it, disclose what was paid, or release the item to a person other than the buyer or the person who left it with us.

Ralph Jacobs may refuse unsafe, unidentified, uninsured, untraceable or non-compliant parcels where refusal is necessary for security or practical reasons, but the customer must be given a lawful alternative process where a statutory right may exist.

Returned goods must be packed securely, concealed in unbranded outer packaging and insured for the full replacement value unless Ralph Jacobs confirms otherwise in writing.

For discretionary returns, the item remains at the customer’s risk until Ralph Jacobs receives and checks it. Where the law requires Ralph Jacobs to bear return risk or cost, the law prevails.

Ralph Jacobs may, in its discretion, agree to a return, exchange, store credit or refund where no law requires it. Discretionary returns may be subject to:

• a reasonable administration or handling fee disclosed before the return is accepted;
• courier, insurance, cleaning, inspection, laboratory, packaging or payment-provider costs;
• deductions for damage, missing packaging, missing certificates, wear, alteration or loss in value;
• exclusion of custom, engraved, resized, sourced or personalised goods; and
• FIC, fraud, payment-provider or security checks.

We do not offer free returns or a blanket 30-day return window. If you ever see us say otherwise, this Policy is what governs your order and you should tell us, because one of the two is wrong.

An unmounted stone is not made to your specification, so it is not a custom item and it is treated differently from a finished piece.

Why seven days, and not longer. Our own return window with our diamond and gemstone supplier is seven days. After that we cannot return the stone ourselves, and we would be holding a stone selected to somebody else’s brief. We would rather give you the real reason than present the number as arbitrary.

To return a loose stone within the window it must be unmounted, unaltered, and come back with its laboratory report and packaging, in the condition we supplied it.

Once a stone is set, it stops being a loose stone. From that point the item is made to your specification and section 2A of Bespoke and Custom Jewellery applies.

None of this affects your rights if the stone is defective, not as described, or not what the report says it is. See section 8B.

Where the stone you ordered turns out to be unavailable, section 6A of Terms and Conditions applies: we offer you a replacement of at least equal grading and value — never lower — and you may decline it and be refunded in full. That is a cancellation on our side, not a discretionary return, and it costs you nothing.

A laboratory report is issued by the laboratory that examined the stone. It records that laboratory’s opinion on the date it graded it. We do not grade stones and we do not issue reports. We sell the stone with the report it came with, and we describe it as that laboratory graded it.

Laboratories differ, and that is normal. Grading colour and clarity involves judgement. Two respected laboratories can reach different conclusions on the same stone, often by a grade. A different opinion from a different laboratory is not a defect and is not a ground for return. If it were, any stone could be returned by taking it to a stricter grader.

Stones sold without a laboratory report

Not every stone comes with one. Where yours does not, we tell you before you buy.

Those stones still show grading values on the listing — a colour, a clarity, sometimes a cut. Those values are the opinion of the seller who holds the stone. They are not ours, and they are not a laboratory’s. We pass them on as we receive them, and we label them as what they are.

If you later have such a stone graded and the laboratory reaches a different conclusion, that is not a ground for return or cancellation. You bought a stone described by opinion, not a stone described by a laboratory report, and the difference between those two things was disclosed to you before you paid. It is also why such stones are priced differently from certificated ones.

There is a limit to this, and we would rather state it than have you discover it. An opinion can be out by a grade or two — that is what an opinion is, and it is not a defect. What an opinion cannot be is so far from the stone that the description was simply untrue. Where a laboratory finds a stone materially different from how it was described — not a grade, but a gap no reasonable grader could arrive at — that is a misdescription, and the list below applies whoever formed the opinion. We are the seller. We do not get to pass that to somebody else.

Where the report exists, but only electronically

Some laboratories no longer issue a printed report at all. The GIA, for instance, currently issues its laboratory-grown diamond reports electronically only. The stone has been examined, the report exists, and it is verifiable on the laboratory’s own database — there is simply no paper certificate in existence to hand you.

We will produce a printed copy of the report for you. What we cannot do is obtain a printed original from a laboratory that does not issue one.

A stone cannot be returned on the ground that it did not arrive with a physical printed report from the laboratory. The report exists, and we tell you before you buy which form yours takes.

But a difference of opinion is not the same as a misdescription

Your rights are unaffected, and we will deal with it, where:

• the stone is not the carat weight, dimensions or shape described;
• a treatment was not disclosed — heat, fracture filling, irradiation, clarity enhancement, coating or any other;
• a laboratory-grown stone was described as natural, or the reverse;
• the report does not belong to the stone you were given; or
• the stone is damaged, defective or unsafe.

Those are misdescriptions or defects, not differences of opinion. The rest of this Policy and Warranty and Care apply to them in the ordinary way.

If you are unsure which of the two you are dealing with, send us the second report and we will look at it.

The images and video on a stone’s listing are of that specific stone.

They are supplied to us by the source that holds it. We do not photograph the stones ourselves, and we do not independently verify every image before it is listed. We treat them as true and we list them on that basis. If we see a discrepancy between the images and the stone when it reaches us, we tell you — before we set it and before we ship it.

What we are not doing is guaranteeing that we have checked each image ourselves. What we do guarantee is that the stone you receive is the stone you bought. If the stone that arrives is not the stone in the images, that is a misdescription, not a disclaimer — and section 4 of this Policy applies in full.

How a stone photographs, and how it looks on your hand

Media is captured under lighting chosen to show a stone at its best. That is true across the trade, and we would rather tell you than let you find out. Expect differences in:

• colour — most of all on coloured stones. A coloured stone is commonly lighter in ordinary daylight than optimal lighting suggests, because that lighting is chosen to bring the colour up;
• brilliance and fire, which depend entirely on the light in the room you are standing in;
• apparent size, which depends on the lens and how close it was.

None of that is a defect. A stone that looks different in your kitchen from how it looked on a screen under gem lighting is behaving exactly as a stone behaves. A stone that is not the weight, shape, treatment or origin described is a different matter entirely — section 8B.

We do not sell stones on approval, and we do not supply two stones so that you can keep one and send the other back.

Ordering several similar stones meaning to keep one is not what the seven-day window is for. Every stone that comes back costs us a supplier return fee, freight, insurance and handling, and none of that is recoverable.

How we deal with it:

• We may decline the order. Where an order looks like comparison buying — several similar stones at once, or a repeating pattern — we would rather say so before you pay than argue about it afterwards. We are not obliged to accept an order, and this is where we would rather deal with it.
• We can sometimes help you compare, and we would far rather you asked. It depends on the stones and on what the source will allow, so we cannot promise it for every stone — but ask us, because sometimes the answer is yes.
• On a showroom purchase, the seven-day window in section 8A is our policy and not a legal right, and we may decline to apply it to a purchase we believe was made to compare.

What we cannot do, and will not pretend otherwise. If you bought a loose stone online and you are inside the seven days given by section 44 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, that right is exercisable without giving a reason — so we cannot refuse it because we believe the reason was comparison. Our control sits at the point of order, not at the point of return, and that is the honest position.

Refunds are processed under the Payments Policy and generally to the original payment method or legally required route.

Where the law sets a deadline for a refund, we meet it. Where a bank or payment provider controls how long the reversal takes to reach you, that timing is theirs, and we will tell you what we have done and when.

This section applies whenever your own property is in our hands — a piece sent in for repair or resize, an item left for valuation or appraisal, an heirloom stone supplied for a bespoke commission, or anything returned to us for assessment.

We are responsible for your item while we hold it. For transactions with Ralph Jacobs SA (Pty) Ltd, section 65(2) of the Consumer Protection Act says so in terms: we must not treat your property as our own, we must take proper care of it, and we are liable to you for loss or damage while it is in our possession, unless the loss was your fault. We do not ask you to sign that away, and we could not do so if we tried.

How it works in practice:

• We book it in and describe it. You get a receipt identifying the item, its condition when we received it, and what we are doing to it. Check that description before you leave or before you post — it is the record we both rely on if anything is disputed later.
• We photograph it on arrival and usually before it goes back to you. Those images are part of your file.
• We give you a timeframe for the work, and we tell you if it changes.
• We ask for identification when you collect. If someone else is collecting for you, tell us in writing beforehand and they must bring their own identification. This is how high-value items get taken by the wrong person, and we would rather be inconvenient than wrong.
• We ask you to declare its value when you book it in, and we record that figure on your receipt. It is how we both measure a loss if one ever happens, so give us a realistic number and tell us if you have a valuation or laboratory report for it.
• If you post it to us, it is at your risk in transit unless we arranged and paid for the carriage. Pack it properly, insure it for what it is worth, and use a tracked service. Section 7 applies.

Your own insurance still matters. Our responsibility to you under section 65 does not replace your own cover, and it does not cover you for anything that is not our fault — theft from your home, loss before it reaches us, or damage in transit on a parcel you sent. Most household and jewellery policies cover an item while it is away for repair, but you should check yours rather than assume it. For a high-value piece we may ask you to confirm that your own insurance covers it while it is with us before we accept the work, and we may decline to take in an item whose value is out of proportion to the work being done. Neither of those changes what we owe you if we are at fault.

Uncollected items. We hold a finished item for six months from the day we tell you it is ready.

During that time we keep trying to reach you on the contact details we hold. We will not sell, alter, scrap or otherwise deal with your item at the end of that period without first sending you written notice at your last known address and email, telling you what we hold, what we intend to do and giving you a further reasonable period to collect it or make arrangements. If storage or insurance costs arise after the six months we tell you what they are before they are incurred.

If you know you cannot collect in time, tell us. We would far rather extend the period than deal with an abandoned piece.

If your item is lost or damaged while we hold it, tell us and we will deal with it under this section. Do not wait.

Diamonds, gemstones, precious metals, laboratory reports, valuations and altered jewellery may require specialist or third-party assessment. Ralph Jacobs aims to give a substantive response or proposed next step within 15 business days after receiving enough information, even if final technical testing takes longer.

Where a laboratory, supplier or specialist assessment is needed, we keep you updated on progress. We will not use the need for an assessment as a reason to delay a remedy you are entitled to by law.

The full cancellation regime is section 13A of Terms and Conditions. This is the summary.

You cancel at no cost where section 16 of the Consumer Protection Act applies to you because you bought as a result of direct marketing (five business days from the later of conclusion or delivery — so on a made-to-order piece, from delivery; no reason and no penalty; refunded within 15 business days); where we miss the delivery period agreed with you; where the item is defective, unsafe, not as described or not fit for purpose; or where we cannot supply the stone you chose and you decline the replacement.

Otherwise, a made-to-specification order is not cancellable at will. Section 17 of the Consumer Protection Act — the right to cancel an advance order — does not apply to special-order goods, and section 8A of the Terms sets out when your piece is one. You may still ask; what changes is the cost.

The unrecoverable charges apply at every stage, on top of the table above: the payment-processing fee on your original payment (between roughly 1.75% and 7% depending on the method you used, and never returned to us when a payment is reversed), any refund or reversal fee the platform or bank charges, an R150 order-administration charge, and — where a builder-selected stone has to go back to our supplier — a USD 35 stone return fee converted at the rate on the day, plus any bank conversion charge. All exclude VAT, which is added at the standard rate where Ralph Jacobs SA (Pty) Ltd sold to you. Ralph Jacobs NZ Limited is not GST-registered and adds none.

A cancelled piece is not released to you; we retain it and recover what we can. You are refunded anything you paid above the committed cost, and credited what we actually recover on an unset stone returned to saleable inventory intact. Cast or worked metal carries no credit — the recovery is not there.

Ask for the breakdown and we will give it to you. We keep the cost record for every cancelled order.

Complaints are handled under Complaints and CGSO and Where We Sell. Customers may approach the CGSO, NCC, Information Regulator, Commerce Commission, Disputes Tribunal, ACCC, state/territory consumer body, privacy regulator, court or other competent body where applicable. This Policy does not require a customer to wait 90 days before using a statutory remedy.