Guarding customers from the rampant misuse of the trade term '1-gm gold' jewellery

2008-10-24T16:30:00+05:30

Dear Colleagues from the Jewellery Industry,

As you must be aware, over the last few weeks, RL 1854 launched a campaign in all the major Indian dailies to educate and forewarn customers about the distortions prevalent in the industry from the misuse of the trade term ‘1-gm gold’, specifically distortions created by some fraudulent traders to give a false perception of gold content in imitation jewellery by reference to its ‘weight’.

I received a lot of feedback on this campaign and even saw some action (one trader changed their advertising campaign to simply distort it in another way). However, I’ve come to realize that an education campaign is not nearly enough. We, as industry players, need to make a more serious and concerted effort to safeguard the interests of our customers.

To this effect, I suggest we end the menace at the root. Although the term ‘1-gm gold’ was coined in good faith to refer to a class of imitation jewellery that is gold-plated, the misuse and distortions of the weight element in the term by some fraudulent traders have made it difficult to continue to operate with the same term in good conscience.

Therefore, starting today, we at RL 1854 have decided to boycott the use of the term ‘1-gm gold’ and will instead stick to describing our products as “gold-plated” and “imitation” jewellery. I implore you colleagues to join us in this effort and boycott the term “1-gm gold” so that fraudulent traders may not continue to take advantage of our customers by distorting the weight element of the term to their convenience.

Although these fraudulent traders may seem small, the extent of their menace is by no means negligible. They routinely pass off imitation jewellery with misleading terms such as “light-weight gold forming/covering jewellery” and some even go to the extent of shamelessly claiming that their products are “2-gm, 3-gm” and even “4-gm gold” both orally and in their advertising, but never on their sales bills.

My friends, as you can see, it is ‘we’ industry players who unknowingly sowed the seeds by coining the term ‘1-gm gold’ whose reference to weight can be misused to no limits. Therefore, the responsibility lies with ‘us’ to end such misuse.

I feel absolutely assured about the urgent need for such a boycott, even taking into account international trade practices and regulations. As you’d be well aware, many countries only allow certain karatages of gold jewellery to be sold as gold. For example, in the United Kingdom, by law, one can make and sell only 9, 14, 18, and 22 karat jewellery as gold jewellery. And in fact, in some countries, jewellery lower than 12 karat (50% purity) cannot even be described as gold jewellery.

Even closer home, as per the relevant clause in the VAT Schedule of India, precious metal jewellery must have not less than 50% fineness (purity). Furthermore, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) also does not recognize or hallmark gold jewellery below 37.5% fineness (purity).

Knowing all this and exercising moral responsibility as industry players, let us not allow fraudulent traders to pass off imitation jewellery as “light-weight gold jewellery”. The best way to do this is not by legal prosecution but by a simple practice of becoming more diligent in our choice of vocabulary coupled with education of our customers.

I hope I have succeeded in conveying my thoughts and putting the facts before everyone, which will help us safeguard our customers and keep our businesses ethical.

I welcome your comments, thoughts and suggestions to further this objective.

Warm regards,

Amrish Jain

MD, Aarel Jewellers Pvt. Ltd.

All That Glitters Is Not Gold

Guarding customers from the rampant misuse of the trade term '1-gm gold' jewellery