Issues with Brian Gavin Diamonds!!!!

[erlcb99]

I finally signed up to PS after months of stalking It is my first post. So be nice to me!

I just wanted to add my 2c.

After reading such fantastic feedback on BGD, in early February, I decided to begin contact with BGD. Everyone said the same thing - unbeatable customer service, and had the most beautiful rings to show. I wanted that too.

I had issues with reply via the contact button. My first attempt went unanswered for 4 days, so I then followed it up, and in reply I was given a client log-in, and had very prompt replies to my questions. But then it went quiet again for a nearly 3 weeks, until I closed the ticket. I got nervous about using an online vendor, so I went with a local vendor. I had read such amazing things I was somewhat disappointed and felt that I wasn''t a valued customer. Especially because at the same time I was having these no-reply issues, other people on PS were continuing to post their great stories about their BGD purchases. So I thought it was just me.

Now that I know their site was only launched in January and they had one person doing all the customer service I completely understand how this has happened!

I am glad this thread was started, because after reading everyone''s replies, I am reassured again, and am going to buy a ring or two soon I hope, from BGD.

 

[Green with Envy]

It can happen with ANY vender... but I think it is important to let people know the good and the bad. Lots of people have had great experiences with BGD, but it is almost like your head gets cut off if you dare to say something was not perfect.

This past summer we were looking for a 3+ ct diamond and after both phone calls and emails about specifics... they said they found us a stone and would call us within a few days when it arrived to their office... but we never heard from them again. So we bought a diamond elsewhere.

We didn't take it personally that we did not get the same level of service that others rave about... but that is just how the cookie crumbles and we were super excited when another vender called to say they found us a stone.

just my two cents...

 

[Firestone]

Some people have mentioned that BGD just set up their internet site in Jan and that the company is rather new. That particular business name may be rather new but BG has been in the business for years if not his whole life and claims his family has been in the business for five generations. BG has years of business experience. He is very business savvy. BG was the cofounder of whiteflash and was very instrumental in setting up their internet business.

 

[chocolatedelight]

I contacted BGD about 5 weeks ago, a few days after I sent my inital email, I chased up as I had not received a reply, second time round I did receive a reply pretty much straight away from Lesley, I explained what I wanted and was told it could be done and would get back to me with a price, 3 weeks have passed now and not had a reply, so took myself somewhere else. I was a little disapointed as I had heard such good things, but I just boiled it down to "they were not the ones meant to do it" I have now found someone who can do it for me and so far so good everything is going well.

 

[Stephan]

I hope they will keep the prices competitive, now that Denise and Jamie have joined.
The quality (L-VS1) I bought was about $1.500 cheaper with BGD than with other sellers.

 

[Imdanny]

Date: 3/19/2010 6:20:10 PM
Author: Firestone

Date: 3/19/2010 5:49:48 PM

Author: lightningbug

Date: 3/19/2010 3:24:12 PM


Author: Firestone


Busy has nothing to do with it. Blue Nile is extremely busy and they get back to customers quickly.



If you want to talk about busy, check out B and H Photo. They have a world wide excellent reputation for customer service and they are busy.

Blue Nile is a publicly traded company with about 200 employees. B&H Photo (???) has over 1500 employees. Those are hardly fair comparisons.

They are valid comparisons. When you set yourself up on the internet, you put yourself open for business 24/7 around the world. A business should have enough business sense to be properly staffed. If customer inquiries are going unanswered, the company should have hired more people. You don't have to have a MBA from Harvard to figure that out. BN and B&H didn't get that big and successful by ignoring customer inquiries.

I like your attitude. I second your sentiment that when we talk about business we should talk about business and that it's really not our place to second guess posters nor to judge them.

 

[Maisie]

Date: 3/20/2010 2:56:30 AM
Author: Firestone
Some people have mentioned that BGD just set up their internet site in Jan and that the company is rather new. That particular business name may be rather new but BG has been in the business for years if not his whole life and claims his family has been in the business for five generations. BG has years of business experience. He is very business savvy. BG was the cofounder of whiteflash and was very instrumental in setting up their internet business.

Are you saying that all new businesses should run perfectly from day one just because someone has been in business before?

There were a whole team of staff at Whiteflash when Brian was there. Up till recently there was just Lesley at BGD.

 

[lightningbug]

Date: 3/20/2010 6:57:33 AM
Author: Imdanny

I like your attitude. I second your sentiment that when we talk about business we should talk about business and that it''s really not our place to second guess posters nor to judge them.

I agree that it''s definitely important to satisfy customers when running a business. As a newcomer, I''ve found PS to be a very friendly and supportive community, and if I had a concern about a vendor I''d definitely ask for advice, too.

My only concern about PS with respect to vendors --and maybe this is because I''m a new user--is that it''s relatively easy to post about a concern, and for that post to make a BIG splash!

We just see the ripples, not the stone that created them. Maybe the vendor is understaffed or the''contact'' button on the website is glitchy, which is good for everybody to know! Or maybe there''s another totally benign explanation. Each situation may be different.

We should definitely give each other the benefit of the doubt. I think what happens is that people who have had good experiences want to reach out the the OP, but they also want to balance public perceptions of that vendor so that nobody gets hurt unfairly, so they post about their own good experiences. That''s totally normal, and I think it speaks to PS being a really nice, close-knit community.

But that also points to a big difference between PS and a site like Yelp or Amazon, where each vendor or product has its own running thread that everyone contributes to. In that situation, you get to see patterns for yourself. With PS, every thread is brand new, and so each one has more potential to do good or to cause harm ~ so people chime in to balance it out themselves. I don''t think anybody means any harm.

 

[risingsun]

I think that consumers--especially customers--have the right to post their experiences with vendors. Hopefully, they have attempted to resolve their differences with the vendor directly before posting on PS. Despite this being the age of the internet, I believe that a phone call is in order, when email communication has not been successful. I can''t imagine a business person walking away from a vendor without picking up the phone first. What I fail to understand is what a poster, such as Firestone, hopes to accomplish with a dozen posts, all of which criticize BGD''s customer service with another person. Once you have made your point, why not move on. You are free to use any vendor you like. You seem to have a personal issue with BGD. Maybe you should take it up with them directly. IMO, this has gone too far.

 

[Lula]

Date: 3/20/2010 11:53:03 AM
Author: risingsun
I think that consumers--especially customers--have the right to post their experiences with vendors. Hopefully, they have attempted to resolve their differences with the vendor directly before posting on PS. Despite this being the age of the internet, I believe that a phone call is in order, when email communication has not been successful. I can't imagine a business person walking away from a vendor without picking up the phone first. What I fail to understand is what a poster, such as Firestone, hopes to accomplish with a dozen posts, all of which criticize BGD's customer service with another person. Once you have made your point, why not move on. You are free to use any vendor you like. You seem to have a personal issue with BGD. Maybe you should take it up with them directly. IMO, this has gone too far.

Agreed. It seems people have lost all civility, with this "me first" attitude.

 

[jewelz617]

Date: 3/20/2010 5:44:56 AM
Author: chocolatedelight
I contacted BGD about 5 weeks ago, a few days after I sent my inital email, I chased up as I had not received a reply, second time round I did receive a reply pretty much straight away from Lesley, I explained what I wanted and was told it could be done and would get back to me with a price, 3 weeks have passed now and not had a reply, so took myself somewhere else. I was a little disapointed as I had heard such good things, but I just boiled it down to ''they were not the ones meant to do it'' I have now found someone who can do it for me and so far so good everything is going well.

Did you call?

 

[snuggles1]

Date: 3/19/2010 7:39:53 PM
Author: Maisie

Date: 3/19/2010 6:59:45 PM

Author: snuggles1

Date: 3/19/2010 3:08:18 PM

Author: Maisie


I have been known to take longer to reply to emails from my friends. I suppose that makes me a bad friend and they should move on.

Sidetrack: Oh, I just got a NASTY email from a friend who I didn't respond to within 72 hours. Well, she sent me an email during my personal email moratorium since I was so busy at work...eeek.

I guess that is one big problem with email.

Oh no! I hope you can sort it out with your friend!

Haha. Thanks Maisie! My friend never emailed me back, so I emailed her again yesterday and she said she got the email but didn't respond to it. Ohhkayyy...

Good news folks: I've made another purchase on BGD's site and decided to give them a try again! This time I just put everything in the cart and placed the order since I know exactly what I want. The only thing that worries me is that the stones are still listed on the site, even after the purchase went through. *scared face*

 

[Dreamer_D]

Date: 3/20/2010 5:00:26 PM
Author: snuggles1

Date: 3/19/2010 7:39:53 PM
Author: Maisie

Date: 3/19/2010 6:59:45 PM

Author: snuggles1

Date: 3/19/2010 3:08:18 PM

Author: Maisie


I have been known to take longer to reply to emails from my friends. I suppose that makes me a bad friend and they should move on.

Sidetrack: Oh, I just got a NASTY email from a friend who I didn''t respond to within 72 hours. Well, she sent me an email during my personal email moratorium since I was so busy at work...eeek.

I guess that is one big problem with email.

Oh no! I hope you can sort it out with your friend!

Haha. Thanks Maisie! My friend never emailed me back, so I emailed her again yesterday and she said she got the email but didn''t respond to it. Ohhkayyy...

Good news folks: I''ve made another purchase on BGD''s site and decided to give them a try again! This time I just put everything in the cart and placed the order since I know exactly what I want. The only thing that worries me is that the stones are still listed on the site, even after the purchase went through. *scared face*

LOL! They usually work on sunday mornings until 2pm (or have in the past) so you can probably call tomorrow to double check!

 

[Imdanny]

Date: 3/20/2010 11:53:03 AM
Author: risingsun
I think that consumers--especially customers--have the right to post their experiences with vendors. Hopefully, they have attempted to resolve their differences with the vendor directly before posting on PS. Despite this being the age of the internet, I believe that a phone call is in order, when email communication has not been successful. I can't imagine a business person walking away from a vendor without picking up the phone first. What I fail to understand is what a poster, such as Firestone, hopes to accomplish with a dozen posts, all of which criticize BGD's customer service with another person. Once you have made your point, why not move on. You are free to use any vendor you like. You seem to have a personal issue with BGD. Maybe you should take it up with them directly. IMO, this has gone too far.

On second thought, Firestone, your first post had a very snarky tone to it. I liked some of the other things you said, but if you have a personal problem with a vendor, you should probably just state what that is if you feel we should know about it.

 

[Gypsy]

Dead. Horse. Abuse.

 

[Imdanny]

Date: 3/21/2010 2:44:55 AM
Author: Gypsy
Dead. Horse. Abuse.

I was following up on my previous comment. If you have a problem with me expressing myself in this instance you should probably report my post to the moderators.

It's actually trying to control people with passive aggressive comments such as yours that I find unhelpful and that detract from my enjoyment when reading these threads.

You don't have any business telling me I shouldn't post in this thread or that this thread should be 'closed'.

 

[Imdanny]

Date: 3/19/2010 11:35:02 PM
Author: Green with Envy
It can happen with ANY vender... but I think it is important to let people know the good and the bad. Lots of people have had great experiences with BGD, but it is almost like your head gets cut off if you dare to say something was not perfect.


This past summer we were looking for a 3+ ct diamond and after both phone calls and emails about specifics... they said they found us a stone and would call us within a few days when it arrived to their office... but we never heard from them again. So we bought a diamond elsewhere.


We didn''t take it personally that we did not get the same level of service that others rave about... but that is just how the cookie crumbles and we were super excited when another vender called to say they found us a stone.


just my two cents...

I hear you.

 

[Gypsy]

Date: 3/21/2010 2:52:02 AM
Author: Imdanny

Date: 3/21/2010 2:44:55 AM
Author: Gypsy
Dead. Horse. Abuse.

I was following up on my previous comment. If you have a problem with me expressing myself in this instance you should probably report my post to the moderators.

It's actually trying to control people with passive aggressive comments such as yours that I find unhelpful and that detract from my enjoyment when reading these threads.

You don't have any business telling me I shouldn't post in this thread or that this thread should be 'closed'.

Danny, it wasn't a comment at directed at you. If it had been I would have qouted you. I can express my opinion as well and you have no more right to 'control me' than I have to control you.

Thanks for your opinion though, Mr. Pot.
Sincerely, Mrs. Kettle.

 

[Imdanny]

Date: 3/21/2010 2:59:35 AM
Author: Gypsy

Date: 3/21/2010 2:52:02 AM

Author: Imdanny

Date: 3/21/2010 2:44:55 AM

Author: Gypsy

Dead. Horse. Abuse.

I was following up on my previous comment. If you have a problem with me expressing myself in this instance you should probably report my post to the moderators.


It's actually trying to control people with passive aggressive comments such as yours that I find unhelpful and that detract from my enjoyment when reading these threads.


You don't have any business telling me I shouldn't post in this thread or that this thread should be 'closed'.

Danny, it wasn't a comment at directed at you. If it had been I would have qouted you. I can express my opinion as well and you have no more right to 'control me' than I have to control you.


Thanks for your opinion though, Mr. Pot.

Sincerely, Mrs. Kettle.

You're welcome.

 

[chocolatedelight]

Date: 3/20/2010 12:27:47 PM
Author: PinkAsscher678

Date: 3/20/2010 5:44:56 AM

Author: chocolatedelight

I contacted BGD about 5 weeks ago, a few days after I sent my inital email, I chased up as I had not received a reply, second time round I did receive a reply pretty much straight away from Lesley, I explained what I wanted and was told it could be done and would get back to me with a price, 3 weeks have passed now and not had a reply, so took myself somewhere else. I was a little disapointed as I had heard such good things, but I just boiled it down to ''they were not the ones meant to do it'' I have now found someone who can do it for me and so far so good everything is going well.

Did you call?

No, I am in the UK so unless I am 100% sure that I will be purchasing for a certain vendor ( I won''t mind the high phone bill ) then I start off with email, if I called all the vendors I had been in contact with I think I would be able to buy another ring with what it would cost

 

[Stephan]

They have a toll free number you can call with Skype.

 

[Maisie]

BGD have a UK number you can call. Its 0207 0234966

I don't know how skype works but I just called them on my normal landline phone.

 

[snuggles1]

Date: 3/20/2010 10:07:23 PM
Author: dreamer_d

Date: 3/20/2010 5:00:26 PM

Author: snuggles1

Date: 3/19/2010 7:39:53 PM

Author: Maisie

Date: 3/19/2010 6:59:45 PM


Author: snuggles1

Date: 3/19/2010 3:08:18 PM


Author: Maisie



I have been known to take longer to reply to emails from my friends. I suppose that makes me a bad friend and they should move on.

Sidetrack: Oh, I just got a NASTY email from a friend who I didn''t respond to within 72 hours. Well, she sent me an email during my personal email moratorium since I was so busy at work...eeek.

I guess that is one big problem with email.

Oh no! I hope you can sort it out with your friend!

Haha. Thanks Maisie! My friend never emailed me back, so I emailed her again yesterday and she said she got the email but didn''t respond to it. Ohhkayyy...


Good news folks: I''ve made another purchase on BGD''s site and decided to give them a try again! This time I just put everything in the cart and placed the order since I know exactly what I want. The only thing that worries me is that the stones are still listed on the site, even after the purchase went through. *scared face*

LOL! They usually work on sunday mornings until 2pm (or have in the past) so you can probably call tomorrow to double check!

Everything is a go! Now I can put my *relieved face* on.