Tiffany Sues Costco, Alleging Sale of Counterfeit Rings - East Idaho News
News

Tiffany Sues Costco, Alleging Sale of Counterfeit Rings

  Published at  | Updated at

GETTY B 012512 TiffanyandCo?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1360937330411Chris Weeks/WireImage(NEW YORK) — Luxury jewelry company Tiffany & Co. filed a lawsuit against Costco on Thursday, claiming that the wholesaler has been selling fake Tiffany diamond rings.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Tiffany was alerted to the fraudulent rings by a Costco shopper in Huntington Beach, Calif., who noticed a pair of diamond rings identified as “Platinum Tiffany.” A one-carat ring was reportedly being sold for $6,400, but a Tiffany spokeswoman told the Journal that their cheapest one-carat diamond engagement ring sells for $11,000.

In the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, N.Y., Tiffany alleges that “Costco had apparently been selling different styles of rings for many years that it has falsely identified on in-store signage as ‘Tiffany,’” according to Bloomberg News.

“We now know that there are hundreds if not thousands of Costco members who think they bought a Tiffany engagement ring at Costco, which they didn’t,” said Jeffrey Mitchell, Tiffany’s lawyer, in a statement reported by Bloomberg. “Costco knew what it was doing when it used the Tiffany trademark to sell rings that had nothing to do with Tiffany.”

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

SUBMIT A CORRECTION