Please give me your thoughts...

[diamondseeker2006]

TGal....touche

 

[Christina...]

I had one interaction with David. I remember that I made an impulse ebay buy and asked him to cancel the transaction and he did it in such gracious manner that it made me to remember his name. It was few years ago, and I was not on PS yet.

I am very suprised that a customers can order custom setting and if they don't like it they are entitle to a full refund - no questions asked. I might be new at it, but can anyone point me to another vendor who has the same policy? I was under impression that if you go custom, you need to accept the risks that even if it's not 100% matches your expectations, you are still stuck with it. AS IS. No vendor want to go through process of creating custom piece and to take it back and issue a full refund if it doesn't fully satisfies customer expectations. How is he going to pay his bench for the work done? It also gives customer an option of ordering another custom piece, and returning it, then another and so on...

I personally don't like this setting, but I would never put any stone in the bezel. Especially double bezel.

Greenlake in Washington is the only one that I can think of, they will re-do the setting if you don't like the end result for any reason the first time around but I'm not sure that they do an out and out refund. Someone else may know. So in that regard DBL's policy seems very consumer friendly. However, in a situation where the end result was not what was contracted, as I feel was the case here, I believe that any PS vendor would remove the stone and refund payment without requiring the client to take possession of the ring.

Christina, these two aspects of the sale are directly related. The presence of a money back guarantee makes a HUGE difference to the entire deal.
If he vendor knows he's keeping the money from the sale, he'll be thrilled to remove the stone.
Having a client, under these circumstances tell me to destroy a ring they'd never even seen first hand , and also allowing no possibility of us fixing whatever they didn't like...yes it's wrong in my opinion.
But we offered a money back guarantee, and we have NEVER shirked our responsibility in that regard. I got roasted here for enforcing one aspect of the guarantee.
There's minimal risk in us removing the diamond- but not zero risk.
After what could reasonably be seen as a client who backed out of a deal- costing us thousands of dollars already, can you blame me for not wanting to take even a minuscule risk for this person?
Of course, looking at this thread, that lapse was a screw up. I hope reasonable people reading this will better understand why.


I feel worst for the person who was hurt the worst in this.
I'm pretty much an open book- finding a way to get me to loose my cool, in this area, was easy for the group privately advising our client. That it completely spoiled any shot of allowing us to make her a great ring- and we certainly can make a ring as good as ANY of the favored vendors here- is irrelevant to these "advisers"

I agree that your money back guarantee is above and beyond what other PS vendors offer on custom work, and I stated that it is a very consumer friendly policy. I believe that this fell apart on a communication level. If a vendor agreed to offer me a refund for the setting but that refund was contingent on me having the stone removed myself....something I had never heard of before today, I too would have questioned it as most posters here did. It obviously instilled fear in cygnet, fear on top of disappointment in a design that she hoped to love, so I do understand why she would then ask another member for clarity. I think that it's probably easy for vendors known for custom work to forget that for many of their clients this is their first custom piece, and that there is a lot of stress and emotion attached to it.

It appears that there was emotion involved on your end as well. I can understand that you are proud of your benches workmanship and I have seen beautiful pieces created by them....pieces that some of the much loved vendors couldn't quite achieve..Yssies ring comes to mind, so I don't doubt that your bench is capable, I just feel that in this case it missed the mark. That doesn't have to mean that it always does....or that it never does. I think I've seen an example from ALL the PS vendors that have missed the mark at some point. That isn't what disappointed me about the situation. I was disappointed (and I waited until the very end to comment on purpose) because I truly would have liked to have seen you decide to remove the stone and issue a refund (no risk, minimal risk or otherwise) before the thread even hit the boards. I believe it's a price we pay as business owners to continue doing business. I think you missed a golden opportunity to create some needed goodwill and PR. But I think you see that now as well. We all have sh*t days though and I don't hold that against anyone.

I've only worked with one PS vendor, I have no personal experience with any of the others, other than what I've read on these boards. I agree that some members feel particularly loyal to their preferred vendors...sometimes maybe to a fault. That said though, it appears that the most popular vendors have worked very hard to keep their clients happy, even when they've had to take a hit. I believe that it's their willingness to communicate and achieve a satisfactory resolution for their client that keeps them at the top. In the end you did that, and I think it was the right thing to do.

 

[ame]

I think all that needs to be said has been said. I don't think we really need to confirm and rehash the behind the scenes conspiracies and drama.

Can I make a motion that this thread be frozen til we hear from Cygnet that her stone is safe and sound with her, she's gotten the refund and in the meantime can we have some goddamned pie please? Who's gonna second it?

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Me...second. All I want to hear is Cygnet's decisions.

 

[cygnet]

Sorry guys. I have been out all day. I just got home, my puppy is jumping on me, I have some emails to write, and I need to relax and read through all that's happened.

I would like to say personally (straight from the horse's mouth is what they say, though for the record, I am not actually a horse) that this is not a "lynch David" thread and I feel bad about the hurt feelings all around. When I first posted on page 4 or so, I included the vendor's name. Then, not 10 seconds after I posted, I decided I should remove the vendor's name so it wouldn't turn into a David bashing thread. I don't actually care how people feel about him, positive or negative, the point of the thread was just for me to gather more opinions and see what PS had to say about this whole mess-- and see if the vendor would realize his mistake, fix it, and move on. After a week of trying to resolve it through emails and feeling like my diamond and money were being held hostage in a bad situation, I just didn't know what else to do. After I deleted his name from my post, I realized it wouldn't matter anyway, because anyone could look at my post history and guess who this was all about.

ANYWAY-- I just wanted to make it clear that I am not vindictive and regardless of what my feelings are on the matter, I am not about to go trashing David now or in the future. Yes, he's earned my frustration multiple times, but I'm not "out to get him" or anything like that. As a consumer advocacy forum, though, I do think it is appropriate that this thread stands. Some people may read it and choose not to work with David, others may read and observe that the situation was resolved and choose to work with him in the future. That is the nice thing about PS-- it helps people make informed decisions and choose for themselves.

More later. Time for me to play with my puppy and relax a little bit.

 

[ame]

Sorry guys. I have been out all day. I just got home, my puppy is jumping on me, I have some emails to write, and I need to relax and read through all that's happened.

I would like to say personally (straight from the horse's mouth is what they say, though for the record, I am not actually a horse) that this is not a "lynch David" thread and I feel bad about the hurt feelings all around. When I first posted on page 4 or so, I included the vendor's name. Then, not 10 seconds after I posted, I decided I should remove the vendor's name so it wouldn't turn into a David bashing thread. I don't actually care how people feel about him, positive or negative, the point of the thread was just for me to gather more opinions and see what PS had to say about this whole mess-- and see if the vendor would realize his mistake, fix it, and move on. After a week of trying to resolve it through emails and feeling like my diamond and money were being held hostage in a bad situation, I just didn't know what else to do. After I deleted his name from my post, I realized it wouldn't matter anyway, because anyone could look at my post history and guess who this was all about.

ANYWAY-- I just wanted to make it clear that I am not vindictive and regardless of what my feelings are on the matter, I am not about to go trashing David now or in the future. Yes, he's earned my frustration multiple times, but I'm not "out to get him" or anything like that. As a consumer advocacy forum, though, I do think it is appropriate that this thread stands. Some people may read it and choose not to work with David, others may read and observe that the situation was resolved and choose to work with him in the future. That is the nice thing about PS-- it helps people make informed decisions and choose for themselves.

More later. Time for me to play with my puppy and relax a little bit.

Hope your interview went super awesomely!

 

[cygnet]

Thank you ame! <3

 

[tina sparkle]

I do not have a dog in this hunt, but offer this advice to Rockdiamond: Stop talking, you are harming your reputation even more. Just stop reading the thread and responding, then it will eventually fade out.

 

[lovebug1031]

I think all that needs to be said has been said. I don't think we really need to confirm and rehash the behind the scenes conspiracies and drama.

Can I make a motion that this thread be frozen til we hear from Cygnet that her stone is safe and sound with her, she's gotten the refund and in the meantime can we have some goddamned pie please? Who's gonna second it?

Eating pie as we speak! it is Pi day afterall....mmmm mystery pecan pie....!

 

[cygnet]

Eating pie as we speak! it is Pi day afterall....mmmm mystery pecan pie....!

What's so mysterious about these pecans?

 

[lovebug1031]

haha - not that exciting actually! it has a cream cheese layer - before baking you layer the cream cheese, pecans, then the gooey layer - while baking the gooey layer "mysteriously" inverts to the bottom!

 

[ame]

Damn, that sounds good. I just had half a sleeve of Thin Mints, and I must say, they've gotten stingy with how many cookies you get in a box now. Far less actual girl scouts must be used in every box now.

 

[blackprophet]

This reminds me of a situation that happened to my mom...

She wanted her couches cleaned. She found a company and the guy came out to clean her couch. When he was ready to start my mom said to him "Make sure you did a good job". He immediately packed up his stuff and left. He was protecting himself and his company from my mom coming back to complain later that a good enough job was not done.

Reading what cygnet has said, and what David has said, seems like at some point David felt attacked and threatened wanted to protect himself from unseating the rock and sending it back to her only to have her accuse him of damaging it and him having to make an insurance claim on it. Similarly he refused to unseat it unless SHE insured it. He used his return policy as a shield.

When cygnet was told he wouldn't unseat it, she became worried that his had been damaged, or there was some other foul play going on. Many in this thread echoed this concern (whether a part of the conspiracy or not).

These two opposing viewpoints created the animosity. Both people were just trying to protect themselves and their investment.

Its unfortunate but this happens in many different retail and consumer situations. I'm sure it will happen again.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Blackprophet, I can definitely see that scenario, but in this case, I am going to give David credit for not thinking that of Cygnet. I prefer to think he just got mad and washed his hands of it and wanted to make her deal with it since she wasn't willing to receive the ring to at least look at it. I do not think he was worried she would falsely accuse him of damaging the stone, because it would be impossible to make that claim unless confirmed by an appraiser. It was a major breakdown in communication to be sure.

Cygnet, what did you decide to do?

 

[heididdl]

Reading from afar what is the status of the beautiful stone........is it safe at home and looking for a new setting do tell

 

[yennyfire]

I had one interaction with David. I remember that I made an impulse ebay buy and asked him to cancel the transaction and he did it in such gracious manner that it made me to remember his name. It was few years ago, and I was not on PS yet.

I am very suprised that a customers can order custom setting and if they don't like it they are entitle to a full refund - no questions asked. I might be new at it, but can anyone point me to another vendor who has the same policy? I was under impression that if you go custom, you need to accept the risks that even if it's not 100% matches your expectations, you are still stuck with it. AS IS. No vendor want to go through process of creating custom piece and to take it back and issue a full refund if it doesn't fully satisfies customer expectations. How is he going to pay his bench for the work done? It also gives customer an option of ordering another custom piece, and returning it, then another and so on...

I personally don't like this setting, but I would never put any stone in the bezel. Especially double bezel.

Greenlake in Washington is the only one that I can think of, they will re-do the setting if you don't like the end result for any reason the first time around but I'm not sure that they do an out and out refund. Someone else may know. So in that regard DBL's policy seems very consumer friendly. However, in a situation where the end result was not what was contracted, as I feel was the case here, I believe that any PS vendor would remove the stone and refund payment without requiring the client to take possession of the ring.

Singlestone re-did my setting when I wasn't happy with it. They made me a completely new ring and charged me no additional money to do it. They stood by their work and made me happy (more than happy really), so much so that I am a repeat customer. The difference is that I let Ari send me the ring to look at even though I really disliked the photos, with Ari's promise that if I still didn't like it, he'd make me a new ring, no questions asked. And that's what happened, without one cross word (to me...my photo may have privately been used as a dart board for all I know, lol). That's my definition of exemplary customer service.

Cygnet, I am sorry that this has been your experience and hope that you can find some way to salvage what should be a happy time! Please come back and show us your ering when you get it reset.