I got an update on my story.
I took my pieces to a nearby jewelry store that the proprietor, Steven, has had in business since 1974. A few months ago, he referred me to another nearby jeweller, Jim, who is high enough in the profession that he has inspected crown jewels before. I explained the situation to this second skilled jeweller on the phone, and he told me that LVZ is wasting my time; he has seen these scams since 1980. I said that the inspecting laboratory had an inspector that was uncertified. He said there is no such thing as a certified inspector for gems. The boxes are sealed so that the gems can only be inspected by opening them, which gives the scammer the ability to say "Well, the box is opened; there's no proof that that worthless piece is what I sent you." He said it would cost about US$15,000 to sue them since the are in another country, and by the end of that, I would not have any money left from the original investment anyway.
Steven said he's even heard of people taking out second mortgages to buy these sort of things. I showed him the certifications that I got, and he had never heard of the laboratory, nor had one of his colleagues who works just around the block from them in New York City.
Not having any other real choice, I went back to Steven, and he and I unboxed the gems and carvings that I got (3 stones and 3 carvings). They are indeed all emeralds.
He appraised them for me, and he might be able to sell them for 10% of what I paid for them. In addition, two of the carvings that I had were packaged to disguise the damage they had (the bull has a broken horn and covered with a sticky wax-like film, and the elephant has one foot broken off). I am not impressed with these pieces, to say the least.
Steven referred me to Jewellers Vigilance Canada (1-800-636-9536,
http://www.jewellersvigilance.ca, Suite 600, 27 Queen Street East, Toronto, Quebec, M5C 2M6, Canada). The lady there, Carla Adams, asked me to photocopy my records and mail them to her. I'm going to do that. She said the next step in Lucas-Van Zenten's
modus operandi is likely to be to open shop under another name, and call me (acting as this second company) to say that they understand I have been scammed, and that they have found a buyer for the pieces, but the buyer will only take them if two other pieces are included, and so they'll try to get me to buy even two more pieces! She said there's almost certainty that I'll never get my money back. There is no such thing as a market for investing in gems; if there were, then all jewellers would be doing that instead of selling jewelry and gems. She also suggested I call the Montreal police and the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), who might be able to help.
Unfortunately, this whole fiasco doesn't explain why the Quebec BBB entry for this company (
http://www.bbb-bec.com/main.cfm?p=421&l ... orieID=212) is favorable. If the Quebec BBB page hadn't been favorable, then I would not have invested in these in the first place, and I'd still have the down payment for a house.
I will notify the BBB of Quebec, and get in touch with the other authorities listed in the previous posts.