Natural Sapphire Co CEO charged w/forging ct orders re PS & others

[MollyMalone]

Michael Arnstein, the president of the Natural Sapphire Company in NYC, was arrested by the Feds last week for having created phony court orders, complete with forged judicial signatures. In an effort to improve NSC's online reputation, he is alleged to have served the forged orders upon Google with the expectation it would remove the unfavorable reviews and comments from its search results -- and to have bragged about his PhotoShop and "creative editing" skills.

Details here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ourt-orders-to-send-to-google-for-deindexing/
These threads in PriceScope's Colored Stones forum were specifically targeted by the bogus court orders that are numbered 1, 2, and 11 & linked on the page above:
https://www.pricescope.com/communit...ce-with-natural-sapphire-company-long.110611/
https://www.pricescope.com/communit...buy-from-the-natural-sapphire-company.168589/
https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/question-for-the-natural-sapphire-company.159500/
https://www.pricescope.com/communit...mpany-www-thenaturalspphirecompany-co.159281/

 

[monarch64]

Holy what the ****.

 

[PintoBean]

Holy smokes! Smh...

 

[mochiko42]

Thanks for sharing this. I'm surprised he didn't expect to be found out...?? The level of incompetence and dishonesty is shocking.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Wow! That is horrible!

 

[marcy]

Wow. That is awful!

 

[madelise]

LOLLLLL!! Holy shit

 

[distracts]

Well, I guess all the posts warning people to stay away from NSC are looking pretty good now. I wouldn't trust someone who would forge court orders to sell me jewelry.

 

[MollyMalone]

A couple of clarifications:

• The criminal Complaint, linked in the Volokh Conspiracy-Washington Post article above, alleges in part that Michael Arnstein directed an employee of NSC to create the first 2 of the phony orders, but that all of the fake orders were emailed to Google from email accounts registered in the name of Michael Arnstein, were accessed from the same IP address as that connected to Arnstein, Inc/ NSC, and the sender identified himself as Michael Arnstein in emails sent from both accounts.
• Upon re-reading through the Complaint, I'd now say it seems that Arnstein wasn't so much bragging about his PhotoShop and "creative editing" skills as griping that he'd wasted time and litigation expenses* to get a court order -- that Photoshop & tinkering with the text can produce, multiple times, for next to nothing.

* As noted in the Comments section accompanying the Volokh Conspiracy/Washington Post article, Arnstein initially claimed he'd spent $30,0000 in legal expenses (Complaint, p. 5); not long afterwards, he said he'd paid his lawyers $100,000 (Complaint, p. . Either figure seems quite inflated in the opinions of the several attorneys who weighed in on that. But as one of them said, with tongue in cheek, "If you can't trust people who forge court orders, who can you trust?"

 

[OreoRosies86]

WOW.

 

[chatoyancy]

Wow!

 

[VapidLapid]

I am not surprised. This is the man who thought he could get away with advertising pairs by rotating or flipping the image of one stone to create the appearance of a perfectly matched pair. Photoshop is a great tool when used for good instead of evil.

 

[MissouriRiverSapphireCo]

Yet they are still on PS's list of recommended vendors...

 

[PintoBean]

Yet they are still on PS's list of recommended vendors...

REAL GOOD POINT!

I'm going to see if we can flag mod to edit those lists!

 

[kenny]

Wow, that's over-the-top bad.

... just when I thought NSC's reputation could sink no lower.

 

[MissouriRiverSapphireCo]

Natural Sapphire Company is still on the recommended vendors list on the CS forum...

 

[Arcadian]

Oh SHIT!!!

So I will own it; whenever people have asked I told them to look through the back history of this co with PS. They were expensive and because of that I would encourage people to see the stones in person/get stones with lab reports/look around elsewhere because of the expense, but did not think they would go do alla this!

And yes after this, should be taken off trusted vendors.

 

[minousbijoux]

They've now been taken off the list with a disclaimer/explanation.

https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/list-of-vendors-for-reference.208782/

 

[Arkteia]

I never bought from them because, it seems to me, they were expensive. Although they had some nicely-looking stones...
On a totally side note, sapphire prices not only drastically grew, but are all over the board.

 

[lovedogs]

HOLY SH--!!!! This is unreal!

 

[lovedogs]

Ugh, this is shameful. I never wanted to buy from them because I didn't like how the stones were cut and thought there were overpriced. But this is just beyond horrible.

 

[Sungura]

Imagine if he put that much time and energy into improving his business model, gems and service. So long NSC

 

[MollyMalone]

I just checked the federal court's e-files. Arnstein's preliminary hearing on the criminal charges is scheduled for May 17. Seems unlikely that anything momentous will happen, but will check the e-file again the day after.

 

[chrono]

Regardless, this further tarnishes their name. Since the company has not been proven guilty, we should wait until the dust settles before deciding whether NSC remains on the list or should be removed. I will, however, add a notation as caution.

ETA
I see that Minou has removed them completely. Is that fair since the case hasn't even commenced?

 

[arkieb1]

This vendor has been photoshopping images and I've lost count of the times new people purchase stones from them and get something that doesn't even remotely resemble the advertised stone (and yes I understand how difficult coloured stones are to photograph). They should probably be removed from the recommended list until they generally adopt better practices, or at least have some sort notation mentioned for anyone new here.

 

[OreoRosies86]

Regardless, this further tarnishes their name. Since the company has not been proven guilty, we should wait until the dust settles before deciding whether NSC remains on the list or should be removed. I will, however, add a notation as caution.

ETA
I see that Minou has removed them completely. Is that fair since the case hasn't even commenced?

They should have been off outright the first time they were caught Photoshopping IMO.

 

[chrono]

I understand but the discussion that ensued is why they were still on the list. Personally, I'd be happy to have them removed but in all fairness, best to wait until the case is settled.

 

[minousbijoux]

They should have been off outright the first time they were caught Photoshopping IMO.

It seems the majority of PSers agree with this - they've been caught undertaking unethical business practices in the past. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice (or three, four, five times! )...

I suppose they can always go back on if it is found that they are innocent (notice I did not say when the case is settled, as innocence and settling are two different things).

 

[tyty333]

Wow, just wow!

Once a scammer, always a scammer!

 

[Prashant Telang]

Michael Arnstein, the president of the Natural Sapphire Company in NYC, was arrested by the Feds last week for having created phony court orders, complete with forged judicial signatures. In an effort to improve NSC's online reputation, he is alleged to have served the forged orders upon Google with the expectation it would remove the unfavorable reviews and comments from its search results -- and to have bragged about his PhotoShop and "creative editing" skills.

TransPacific Software is unnecessary dragged into this by Press
The case has nothing to do with TransPacific Software Pvt. Ltd.
Our case with Arnstein was fully settled way back in 2012 after Arnstein agreed to pay us full compensation for the damage.

The only connection we have here is the signature of the judge Arnstein obtained in 2012 case with us; which it seems Arnstein kept forging from 2014 till date to delist other negative reviews. from Google listing
Since the incident in 2011 TransPacific Software has grown 10X and now one of the biggest firms worldwide specialising in Gems and Jewellery e-commerce solutions. Currently, it is severing 200 clients in 18 countries.

Still here is our full representation.
https://goo.gl/LTASME