A GIA diamond grading laboratory recently discovered numerous stones with bogus inscriptions on the girdles. For your information, the girdle runs around a diamond’s edge, between its facets on the lower pavilion and upper crown. It separates the upper section of the gemstone from its lower area. The faceted, bruited (matt) or polished girdle contains a set of microscopical characters, which we describe as a GIA inscription.
As for GIA spokesman Stephen Morisseau, this has happened before. After the stones were submitted to the GIA for verification services or updated reports, their qualities failed to match the institution’s reports related to the inscriptions. The diamonds at issue were treated natural or lab-grown; the reports related to the bogus inscriptions were meant for natural or non-treated diamonds.
One diamond was presented to the GIA with its inscription indicating that it was an E VVS2 natural diamond that weighed 1.5 carats and had an excellent grade for the cut. However, it was actually a lab-made diamond with an inferior cut grade and D VVS2 clarity grade.
In these situations, the institute overwrote the bogus inscription, and then inscribed the stone’s girdle with the term ‘laboratory-grown’ when applicable, plus another report number. After that, the institute issued a fresh and correct report, noting that stone’s artificial origin or treatment.
Morisseau said that the Gemological Institute of America knows who submitted those fake GIA certified diamonds. Anyhow, it would make no statements about stone types, submission locations, or patterns.
The fraud attempt highlights the significance of updating the stone’s grading report before a purchase, especially one where the seller and buyer have no trusted relationship. The client agreement of the GIA offers the institute the option to notify law enforcement, the public, and the client that submits the stone about any purported fraud instance. Anyhow, Morisseau said that he could not comment about how the Gemological Institute of America handles these kinds of occurrences.
It is an act of violating the FTC’s guidelines for jewelry industry players to misrepresent lab diamonds as natural diamonds without conspicuously disclosing their origins. That disclosure matters here because the naked/untrained may not be able to spot the GIA’s inscription, even under a 10x magnification loupe. That means if the customer does not ask the seller about the same, they may not even know whether or not the inscription is present on the diamond’s girdle.