On October 8, 2013, a new member named "prosperity" created an account on WeddingBee and proceeded to create a thread entitled "Moissanite Review ...Moissanitco.com...forever brilliant..." for the purpose of reviewing and "showing off" a wedding ring set from MoissaniteCo.com.
Not unusual, at first glance. After all, many real life brides post pictures and reviews of their MoissaniteCo. rings to WeddingBee - it's a pretty common occurrence. That's why the tone of this particular thread caught the attention of several "bees". Something about it just didn't seem right or ring true, and instead of the usual "OMG it's gorgeous, congratulations!" responses, many regulars began to wonder out loud if "prosperity" was indeed a rep for MoissaniteCo.com. The heavily-tagged post read like a veritable infomercial for MoissaniteCo. and immediately after registering, "prosperity" had already spammed four old threads with the same verbatim review from her original thread, and only seemed to be there to promote her purported experience with MoissaniteCo. What further fueled suspicion in the minds of some was the fact that this was all coming hot on the heels of some negative reviews, comments, and general "bad publicity" regarding MoissaniteCo. which had been floating around the ring board on the Bee as of late.
One post really laid it all out:
"You know, I've been posting at these boards for a long time, and I'm going to be quite honest when I say I have seen a lot of things happen with MoissaniteCo that have left a very bad taste in my mouth. This thread, though, prompted me to do a very simple Google search which led me to some negative reviews about MoissaniteCo. Underneath the negative reviews, there were several "positive" reviews posted below which sounded obviously fake. Well, it's not very hard to highlight a block of text and click "Search Google for...". I did just that and lo and behold, the same fake-sounding reviews had been posted VERBATIM on MoissaniteCo's "testimonials" page.
Just take a look for yourself:
"Kathy"
"Ava Fox"
"Molly"
"Patty"
"Greg"
"Beth"
"Joe"
It goes ON AND ON AND ON...after about 15 minutes I stopped because duh, it's obvious.
Apparently, this thread would not be the MoissaniteCo's first time at the "posting fake reviews" rodeo. IMO, these reviews were copy/pasted by MoissaniteCo employees in a bid to "drown out" and fight the negative reviews. They are either real reviews which were taken out of context and copy/pasted onto this other site, or they were fake from the get-go - you decide.
Perhaps this person was compensated to post the same exact review over and over again on WB. It wouldn't surprise me, since MoissaniteCo have pressured customers who have had bad experiences to stop posting their negative reviews, which is just as shady as paying someone to promote their company under the guise of being a "satisfied customer" would be.
Yeah. Sorry, I know there are actually a crapload of real people who have truly been satisfied with their experience at MoissaniteCo, but there are also a lot of genuine bad reviews out there. After this I have to REALLY implore anyone who is considering a purchase from this company to do their research. If you feel comfortable with this kind of thing and confident about making a purchase from them, more power to you. I just hate that people could be swayed by something that is seemingly very fake.
To be perfectly honest I know I'm probably going to get a lot of shit for this but if it helps one person, it's worth it to me.
Read more: http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/moissanite-review-moissanitcocom-forever-brilliant#post-6596075#ixzz2hFagUve1"
After some speculative posts, "prosperity" posted to defend herself - and at the exact same time, right after her post, Mike from MoissaniteCo. happened to come on the scene (was this just an odd synchronicity???), "appalled" at the evidence presented and denying that MoissaniteCo. has ever posted fake reviews, then going on to lament that maybe he should delete his account because WeddingBee was not the place he thought it was instead of addressing these concerns in a constructive and professional manner. "prosperity" also took the occasion to post on one thread which was unrelated to moissanite after being called out for posting nothing but ads for MoissaniteCo. and accuse some regular WeddingBee posters of working for the diamond industry.
More replies from curious bees came, most with the insinuation that there was indeed something "shady" going on. The thread was deleted by prosperity soon after. "prosperity" then deleted her avatar and changed her wedding date and location.
"prosperity" went on to demand her entire account be deleted, claiming to be looking into "legal issues":
The story seemingly ends with a bizarre, though humorous, profile change:
Why would someone create an account, write a glowing and highly tagged/detailed "infomercial" review of MoissaniteCo., copy and paste said review and post it to four old threads in rapid succession, delete the original thread (which contained lots of details about MoissaniteCo.'s seemingly unscrupulous PR and business practices) and then demand their account be deleted while ranting about "checking into legal issues"? Why would a regular person be checking into "legal issues" and freaking out over "privacy" when the only thing they posted was the same MoissaniteCo. review multiple times and one or two sentences about alcohol at a reception?
Was "prosperity" an actual customer with a propensity for spam, a paid shill, or an employee of MoissaniteCo.? Sadly, just like the ages-old question regarding the mathematical formula for the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop, the world may never know.
Was "prosperity" an actual customer with a propensity for spam, a paid shill, or an employee of MoissaniteCo.? Sadly, just like the ages-old question regarding the mathematical formula for the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop, the world may never know.
We do know that MoissaniteCo. has allegedly bribed a disgruntled customer into taking down his website, ihatemoissaniteco.com - so consider that along with MoissaniteCo. trying to intimidate customers into not making their bad experiences with the company public and the alleged spam reviews on the web and it allegedly wouldn't be too much of a stretch to come to that conclusion:
Details on that and much, much more to come....
I used to post on WB, but occasionally still lurk, and found this through a post. What I haven't seen mentioned yet is that this company seems to be related to MJ Christensen Diamonds in Las Vegas. There's enough information using simple search words on Google...to be a very good guess. It took no sleuthing to surmise Mike C is part of this family. On Jeravae's Etsy page (also a simple search) she describes the family as "the main jewelry nobility of Las Vegas for over 80 years". FYI, I was curious to search this company after receiving a product that should have passed any form of quality control. It just seemed interesting, and formed a solid opinion that MoCo should have "known better" (being from a family business of jewelers).
ReplyDeleteGreat research! I had a bad experience with MoCo so I'm really happy that I came across this site. The way MoCo screws you over really makes you want to fight back. I am determined to let everybody know what kind of scums they are.
ReplyDeleteI recently made some purchases from BTD n although their stones and jewelery are beautiful if you message them they are not quick up respond at all and many times come off as rude or mad you messaged them. They should be happy they have business. But overall their work and stones are amazing. Just noticed some reviews say they're very helpful and quick to respond and... They're not.
ReplyDeleteThank you for putting the effort in to put this information together. I too was ripped off by Mike Christensen and his partner in crime Less Wright and their Better Than Diamond - MoissaniteCo scam. Thier history of making bogus claims, and delivering junk jewelry with no service (no posted phone number, etc, forcing people to send multiple emails and taking days or weeks to respond) and than refusing to honor their refund policy, is long and well documented. Hopefully this site helps to expose them and shut them down. Thanks again.This is the only real MoissaniteCO review! So many other places are stuffed with fake reviews that they post to try to prop up there scam business.
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