This was going to be mentioned - thank you for saving us the time! :)
Your point re: Moissanite Co. should have "known better" is well taken.
For what it's worth, Mike C. has said that items are inspected by "several people" before being sent out:
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Interesting comment...
This was going to be mentioned - thank you for saving us the time! :)
Your point re: Moissanite Co. should have "known better" is well taken.
For what it's worth, Mike C. has said that items are inspected by "several people" before being sent out:
A Bad Apple
There once was a website called "ihatemoissaniteco.com" which was made by a disgruntled customer who felt he had been treated unfairly by Moissanite Co., and decided to warn the public. It's "gone" now, but we all know that nothing ever truly disappears from the internet. You can still view most of the site on the internet archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20110321153958/http://ihatemoissaniteco.com/
Here's the ring he was sent:
The customer was obviously very unhappy with his experience and posted about it on several consumer sites:
http://www.pissedconsumer.com/reviews-by-company/moissaniteco/misrepresented-product-poor-communication-difficult-returns-restocking-fees-what-a-rip-off-20091215164525/2.html
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/moissanitecocom-c289294.html#c531891
http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/MoissaniteCocom/Las-Vegas-Nevada-89146/MoissaniteCocom-Misrepresented-product-poor-communication-difficult-returns-restockin-539053
This led me down a real rabbit hole - I'm going to present some of what I've found and let you come to your own conclusions.
Are unhappy customers merely seen as "bad apples" in the eyes of this company? Why did MoissaniteCo. feel it was appropriate to use this customer's last name repeatedly without his permission on public forums, when the MoissaniteCo. rep didn't even bother signing their own?
I thought this ^^ to be a pretty rude response!
This review ^^ was posted on one of "Mr. Burgess'" complaint threads. It seemed out of place so I did a Google search on the text which led me right to MoissaniteCo.com. The top review is from "Pissed Consumer" and the bottom is from MoissaniteCo.com:
http://www.moissaniteco.com/testimonials_manager_all_testimonials.html?page=25
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/moissanitecocom-c289294.html#c531891
Compare that to THIS review:
....which curiously, couldn't be found anywhere else on the internet, let alone MoissaniteCo.com.
THIS gem, however, WAS found on MoissaniteCo.com's "testimonials" page:
More to come, and feel free to leave comments.
Here's the ring he was sent:
The customer was obviously very unhappy with his experience and posted about it on several consumer sites:
http://www.pissedconsumer.com/reviews-by-company/moissaniteco/misrepresented-product-poor-communication-difficult-returns-restocking-fees-what-a-rip-off-20091215164525/2.html
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/moissanitecocom-c289294.html#c531891
http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/MoissaniteCocom/Las-Vegas-Nevada-89146/MoissaniteCocom-Misrepresented-product-poor-communication-difficult-returns-restockin-539053
This led me down a real rabbit hole - I'm going to present some of what I've found and let you come to your own conclusions.
Are unhappy customers merely seen as "bad apples" in the eyes of this company? Why did MoissaniteCo. feel it was appropriate to use this customer's last name repeatedly without his permission on public forums, when the MoissaniteCo. rep didn't even bother signing their own?
I thought this ^^ to be a pretty rude response!
http://www.moissaniteco.com/testimonials_manager_all_testimonials.html?page=25
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/moissanitecocom-c289294.html#c531891
Compare that to THIS review:
THIS gem, however, WAS found on MoissaniteCo.com's "testimonials" page:
| "Impressed | Friday 05 March, 2010 |
 | |
| I recently ordered a 2 carat engagement ring for my fiance. No stores in my area are selling Moissanite. My fiance wanted a large engagement ring but we could not justify spending that much money on a 2 CT diamond. I have never made this big of a purchase sight unseen for any product. I am meticulous about my research into a company before I purchase from them. Moissaniteco seemed to have a very good reputation for quality products and good customer service. I received prompt emails after my purchase and any questions I had were answered within 24 hours via email. A man out there named Mr. Burgess is on a lot of forums and websites absolutely bashing mosissaniteco. Obviously an under educated and illiterate man. This is defamation in its purest form and I urge you not to take any negative feedback seriously. My fiance was astonished when we received her ring. The brilliance and fire is unmatched. People can't stop commenting on it and we are very happy to have an option that is just as beautiful as diamonds, makes her equally as happy, and at 1/6 the price. Thank you so much!!" Would the average consumer REALLY take time out to mention a disgruntled customer BY NAME and go on to insult them personally by calling them "under educated" and "illiterate", then go on to urge other customers to "not take any negative feedback seriously". Uh, I dunno....maybe? | |
I'll end the "ihatemoissaniteco" story on this note. Did Moissanite Co. really attempt to bribe this man to take this website down? Unfortunately, I could not find an archive of the "read about it here" link, but it's interesting nonetheless...
More to come, and feel free to leave comments.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
From Canada to Pakistan: The Mysterious Saga Of "prosperity"
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....
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