Mimi's Gems is your online source for beads and jewelry making supplies ~ a bead shop at your fingertips! At Mimi's Gems you can almost always purchase "by the bead" or "by the piece" - just like a bead shop! (Please note, this policy is there to enable customers to buy what they need, it is not to enable them to assemble sample sets of colors. Orders for sample sets will not be accepted. We reserve the right to determine what constitutes a "sample set".) Great Customer Service and Fast Shipping are our specialty! Our site is certified as completely secure so you can shop with confidence!

For your convenience, here is some general information about our company:

• Location ~ We are located in Huntington Beach, California - Surf City USA!
• Personnel ~ There are two principal members of our company - Melanie (also known as Mimi) and Suzanne. Suzanne is the artist and the designer as well as the product manager extraordinaire, Melanie is the accountant and computer geek who has never seen a bead she didn't like!
• Company Goal ~ Our goal is to be the best online bead shop in the world! As we grow we will be constantly adding new products as well as design ideas, bead information, a gallery of our customers' creations and much more! Future plans include monthly promotions and lots of fun! Please bookmark our site and check back often and see what's new!

Shopping

• Shopping Cart ~ Our website has a certified secure on-line shopping cart for your shopping convenience. Click on the category you want from the menu on the left side of the screen. Many categories have sub-categories and multiple pages. When you find the item you wish to buy, enter the quantity desired and click on the "add to cart" button. Many items offer additional savings if the item is purchased in quantity. The shopping cart will automatically empty after 8 hours of inactivity. If you wish to save the items in your cart and come back to finish your shopping later, please be sure to use the "save cart" function.
• Phone orders ~ We are available to take orders over the phone for our customers convenience, but may not always be available at all times to take the call. If you wish to place a telephone order, please call (714) 377-8666. If we are unable to answer at that time, there is voicemail for you to leave your call-back number and the best time to call. Please be sure to tell us your time zone so we don't call at an inappropriate time. We can only call customers in the US and Canada. Our business hours are Monday through Saturday 10 am to 6 pm Pacific Time.
• FAX - We are unable to accept Fax orders at this time.

Terms of Sale

1. We accept a variety of payment methods including VISA, MasterCard, Discover and PayPal. Buyers wishing to pay via American Express may consider using PayPal (www.PayPal.com). All payments should be in US funds.

PayPal

• Accepted from PayPal accounts with shipment only to the address shown on the PayPal payment.

VISA MasterCard and Discover

• Accepted for credit card payments
• "Call Me" for the credit card number has been discontinued.  Persons wishing to pay by giving their credit card number by telephone should call us to place the order.
• Our secure servers are totally secure and provide the highest degree of privacy and security for our customers.  They are tested regularly and are PCI compliant.

4. Returns ~ We generally have a "no return" policy. Exceptions to this policy include any time we ship the incorrect item and any time an item is defective. In any case in which we accept a return, we will advise the customer of the process. Any merchandise returned must be in exactly the same condition as when we sent it to qualify for any adjustment. Any refund for a return will be exclusive of shipping charges.  Any unauthorized return is subject to a 20% re-stocking fee.

We want our customers to be happy with their purchase, and we ask customers to ask questions and request samples for color matching or other purposes whenever needed. We are happy to answer your questions and will provide samples at a nominal cost for the sample itself and shipping. This way, it is our hope that you will receive the right product the first time!

5. Privacy ~ We will NEVER provide any customer information to any other party for any reason. There are NO EXCEPTIONS to this policy. Your privacy is respected at Mimi's Gems! We will not sell our customer list to other merchants, publications, list brokers or other marketing information.

Documentation of sales which contain private information of our customers will be retained for the time required by law by the various taxing authorities with which we are required to comply. At the conclusion of that period, all such records will be destroyed.

6. SPAM ~ No one likes SPAM email. We gets lots of SPAM messages every day. We DO NOT send SPAM.

We will send occasional newsletters and we occasionally need to be able to contact our customers via email regarding an order. If your email is being filtered for SPAM, and you order from us or contact us via email, PLEASE put us on your contact list. Some SPAM filters appear to filter out any business correspondence and do not give the option to the recipient to review what is being filtered out. In such cases, the recipient will never even know the email was sent to them.

So PLEASE notify your SPAM filter to accept messages coming from mimi@mimisgems.com We will only contact you if you have asked to be on our mailing list or have placed an order or contacted us for some reason. We have NEVER sent SPAM and we never will.

If you order from us or request our newsletter, please, out of courtesy to us, do not mark our emails to you as SPAM. We send a receipt/order confirmation for every order and we send a notice at shipment. These emails are for your information. Please do not mark them as SPAM as this causes unnecessary problems for us and our service. If you sign up for our newsletter, and then later decide you do not want to receive it, please notify us and we will take you off our list and we will do so immediately, please do not mark it as SPAM. 

Our email address is Mimi@MimisGems.com. If you receive an email from any other similar email address (such as "fred@mimisgems.com") we did not send it and we take no responsibility for any other similar email address using our domain sent to anyone. If you receive an email from another email address using MimisGems.com as the domain, it did not come from us and we recommend that you delete it. This notice absolves Mimi's Gems of any and all claims relating to any variant use of our domain by any person engaging in this sort of phishing not affiliated with our company.
 

7. Backorders ~ We make every attempt to keep our products in stock, but there are occasional inventory and sourcing shortages. If we are unable to ship your entire order we will contact you to let you know the situation. You can then choose to either have us ship a partial order and ship the rest when available, cancel the order, or make other arrangements as determined at that time. All items are subject to prior sale.

8. Product Descriptions/Identifications ~ We attempt to describe and picture our products as well as possible and are happy to answer questions. Customers should be aware that different computer monitors may show colors slightly differently. Also different batches of the same "color" product may produce color variations. Please contact us if a precise color match is needed and we will be happy to help. We cannot make adjustments for product color matching AFTER shipment.

We can positively guarantee that any product identified as a particular brand is absolutely that brand, and not a "knock off" or a fake. We purchase our products only from reputable distributors and manufacturers. As an example, Swarovski® converted their packaging to a sealed package in an effort to combat the serious problems with "fake" Swarovski products being sold as genuine ones. These sealed packages are now the only Swarovski® products we will purchase in order to ensure that our customers receive genuine Swarovski® products. BEWARE OF LOW PRICED KNOCK OFFS!! At Mimi's Gems you only get "the real thing"!!

Likewise, our other products are similarly identified as accurately as possible and we are happy to answer questions about the source, content or manufacturing process of any product to the best of our ability.

10. Catalog ~ Our website is our only catalog. We do not have a printed catalog.

11. California Residents ~ California Law requires that we provide this notice to all residents of California who purchase crystal products, even though they are completely safe for you and your family. If you are a resident of California, please read this information, as required by Proposition 65: Proposition 65 Information