Jewelry

Woman Says Jewelry Giant Tried to Pull Fast One – Twice - NBC 6 South Florida

A total of $12,000 worth of missing jewelry went missing after a woman dropped off two rings at a popular jewelry retailer.

Requitta East’s wedding looked like a storybook wedding. There was a horse-drawn carriage and a 5-carat princess cut diamond.

“I got married in a beautiful ceremony, with over 300 guests outside. It was a fairy tale wedding," East told us.

Five years and two kids later, East says she and her family are living a ‘happily ever after” kind of life. But, not her wedding ring.

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"Disappeared into thin air," East said.

A mystery that started in July when East dropped off both her ring and her mother’s ring for service at a well know jewelry store.

She started to worry when she started to call a Kay Jewelers in Illinois.

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"They call me back in about two weeks and tell me that my ring is back in the shop. I get there, it’s a completely different ring," said East. "Anybody can see that that’s not my ring. And that’s really what kinda made me feel like maybe somebody’s trying to pull the wool over my eyes."

She left the store that day without her ring or her mother’s. A total of $12,000 of missing jewelry.

"I called the store every other day, and nobody’s really contacting me. I’m doing most of the reaching out," said East.

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Three months of no answers, followed by the call she was waiting for. Then East said she got a call saying the ring was ready.

“I go in the shop and again it's not my ring,” said East.

The same wrong ring, but this time it’s engraved with her initials.

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“Oh, I was extremely insulted,” said East.

She then took to social media.

“I didn’t feel like I was getting the attention that I deserved,” said East.

Her post struck a nerve: shared more than 1,000 times. Her friends sharing similar stories on her Facebook page.

NBC Responds found no shortage of other unhappy Kay Customers venting in online forums and articles.

The Jeweler also made national headlines two years ago after multiple women came forward accusing Kay of swapping out real diamonds with fakes when they brought them in for repairs. Allegations Kay says are completely false.

“I’ll never get that back. I will never get that back, unless some miracle happens and the ring appears out of thin air,” East said.

And that is exactly what East says happened. Just as mysteriously as they disappeared, both rings reappeared, days after this interview.

East updating the saga with this post on social media, stating that company higher ups “flew to Chicago” and “met in my home.” She stated they told her there was a “breakdown in their repair system” but “they are working to revamp the customer service department.”

Requitta said the approach has restored a bit of the faith she had lost and recommended to others to give Kay a chance.

In response to our questions, Kay Jewelers’ parent company Signet Jewelers sent us this statement,

“We take every customer experience issue very seriously, and we have either resolved or are in the process of resolving every issue pointed out by others in her Facebook post.

Our company has a very detailed process to successfully manage the chain of custody on the millions of repairs and custom design services we perform for customers every year. In Mrs. East’s case, we took photos of her ring as soon as it arrived at our repair center and we have demonstrated through our process that we have returned the original ring to her. Despite our very detailed process, we are also human. Sometimes we make a mistake, and when we do, we own it, and make it right for our customers as quickly as we can. What was intended to be a value added repair experience unfortunately included a mis‐step where we did not properly communicate the updates to Mrs. East. In Ms. East’s case, we had a human error that caused us to send the wrong ring to the store to be presented to her. This happened several weeks before we returned her actual ring to her on October 6. This was very unfortunate and shouldn’t happen. We have owned our mistake, and we are gratified we were able to resolve this issue to Ms. East’s satisfaction.”