ATLANTA — Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is urging Georgia servicemembers who bought items from the retailer Harris Jewelry to visit the company's website and claims portal and request refunds up through a deadline of Dec. 21 later this month.
The Harris Jewelry website shows a notice about the refunds here, and their claims portal can be found here.
A federal court order in mid-November forced Harris Jewelry to relaunch its website, finding the company violated a settlement by shutting down the claims portal too early.
The retailer was originally found in 2022 to be "cheating military families with illegal financing and sales practices." That included false claims that financing jewelry purchases through the company would result in higher credit scores as well as misrepresenting a Lifetime Jewelry and Watch Protection Plan offered by the company was a necessary condition of financing purchases.
AG Carr in a a release said almost 4,000 servicemembers and veterans in Georgia (3,780) "were misled and defrauded" by Harris Jewelry. They were concentrated around Fort Moore in Columbus, Carr's release said.
“Thousands of Georgia’s servicemembers and veterans fell victim to Harris Jewelry’s deceptive acts, and we want to ensure they receive the financial relief they’re rightfully owed,” the Georgia attorney general said in a statement. “We won’t allow anyone to take advantage of our military families, and we encourage all Georgians who are eligible to submit their refund requests as soon as possible.”
The original settlement in 2022 amounted to more than $34 million, with Harris Jewelry agreeing to stop collecting more than $21 million in outstanding debt held by more than 13,000 servicemembers nationwide, as well as nearly $13 million in refunds for more than 46,000 servicemembers who paid for a Lifetime Jewelry and Watch Protection Plan.
The Harris website, which says the company will be closing down soon, notes that anyone with outstanding debt does not have to make any more payments and their account balance is $0. It also says that anyone who had the protection plan can no longer request services such as jewelry repair or battery replacement as the company shuts down.
Harris can be contacted Monday-Friday from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. ET at 1-800-898-7732 or via email at info@harrisjewelry.com.
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