Email: Follow-up to "Jewelry Question"
A person NOT satisfied with SNS' handling of the "jewelry issue" speaks up.
"...after reading that email on your website, I felt compelled to relate another side to the jewelry experience from someone who does not share "satisfied customers" experience."
- Email author
Background
On August 15 2007, an article appeared on this site in response to two earlier articles regarding some Society of Novus Spiritus jewelry of questionable "quality."
The article (Email: Jewelry Question) contained an email describing one person's satisfaction with the way that Novus handled the replacement of the jewelry.
The next day I received an email with an account of another person's less-satisfactory experience.
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The Email
Here, with the author's permission, is that email:
Subject: Jewelry Question
From:
Date: Thu, Aug 16, 2007 10:43 am
To:
Mr. Lancaster,
I have read the email posted on your website from "satisfied customer" regarding his/her experience with how Novus Spiritus handled the replacement of his/her jewelry.
In your conclusion you state: Is their experience with the SNS jewelry and return policy a typical one? I hope it is, but do not know. Theirs is the only email I have received, positive or negative, from someone who had undergone the return procedure."
I would like to present my experience.
I purchased two of the pieces in question - specifically the ring and the earrings - both items were purchased prior to October 2005.
I NEVER received a letter from Novus Spiritus advising me that I had purchased fake jewelry. I also have a friend who bought some of the pieces (also prior to October 2005) and she advised me that she has never received a letter notifying her that the jewelry, as now stated on Sylvia Browne’s website, "did not meet manufacturer's quality standards". Interesting choice of wording rather than admitting that the diamonds were not real diamonds but rather cubic zirconia.
The email from the "satisfied customer" stated, "They looked up the records from everyone who had ever bought their jewelry during the questionable period, sent out personal letters and ate up all costs associated with the experience." How would "satisfied customer" know this piece of information? Simply because it was what he/she was told by someone in the offices of Novus Spiritus? Unless "satisfied customer" worked in the NS office and personally "looked up the records from everyone who had ever bought their jewelry during the questionable period, and sent out those personal letters him/herself, that statement means nothing. And if it they, in fact, “looked up the records from everyone who had ever bought their jewelry during the questionable period, sent out personal letters and ate up all costs associated with the experience”, I would have received a letter - I didn't. My friend would have received a letter - she didn't. I wouldn’t have had to pay postage and insurance to return my pieces – I did.
“Satisfied customer also states, “the price I paid was also much less since the mark up began about 6 months-1 year after they began being sold”. I’m sure it was “much less” as the stones in her jewelry weren’t diamonds. Once this issue was identified, they would have had to increase the price – to cover the cost of using actual diamonds instead of cubic zirconias. I’m not sure I even understand the point she’s attempting to make with this statement.
So how did I become aware that my jewelry was fake? I was told by someone who knows me who worked the Hay House tables at many of Sylvia Browne's lectures who knew I had purchased the ring and earrings. I then contacted the office and spoke to Michael McClellan who advised me to send the jewelry to him and it would be replaced. As for the costs associated with returning the jewelry, my experience was not that of "satisfied customer". I paid the postage and insurance to return the jewelry.
I certainly cannot state that the experience of "satisfied customer" is not valid as I have no way of knowing if that was her/his experience. However, after reading that email on your website, I felt compelled to relate another side to the jewelry experience from someone who does not share "satisfied customers" experience. In this way your readers will see that "satisfied customer's" experience may be an isolated one - and not what other customers experienced - certainly at least not THIS customer.
Did "satisfied customer" provide you a copy of the letter he/she received from Novus Spiritus as well as the envelope showing the postmark? If I sound skeptic, it is because I am - based on my personal experience with the jewelry in question.
If I did not receive a letter from NS and my friend did not receive a letter from NS, how many others who purchased the jewelry prior to October 2005 also did not receive a letter? And unless those others know someone who is connected to their office, or connected to someone who worked the tables at the lectures, how would they be made aware that their jewelry is fake?
Through your website, many people have or are discovering the truth about Sylvia Browne and Novus Spiritus. If any of those people purchased any of the pieces in question, until you posted your article regarding the jewelry, they may have never known they had spent a lot of money for fake diamonds.
I understand that eventually this information was posted in the "boutique" section of www.sylvia.org however for those who may have disconnected with Sylvia Browne and Novus Spiritus, they would have no reason to log onto her website - the only place, to my knowledge, where this information is available. If there are others who purchased this jewelry and haven’t read about it at SB’s website or here at this website, or did not receive “the personal letter that was supposedly sent to everyone who had ever purchased the jewelry”, there could still be hundreds, possibly thousands, of customers, satisfied or otherwise, who may still have no knowledge that they've purchased fake diamonds.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding my personal experience. You also have my permission to publish this email on your website.
Sincerely,
former NS Study Group Coordinator
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Analysis
I leave it to the reader to analyze and evaluate these two very different accounts, and to decide which, if either, is the more believable.
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Conclusion
My thanks to the person who sent the email, both for sending it, and for allowing me to publish it here.
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