They must have taken a serious dive in how they treat customers! YIKES is the best descriptor I can come up with right now. This is just really sad - mainly because they never even reached out to me or tried to offer me some help to fix this situation, and I have spent thousands of dollars online purchases with American Pearl in the past 6-7 years (pearl necklace (freshwater) strands and a few pairs of earrings Freshadama and Tahitian Pearl) Anyway, below is a copy of an email I sent them about an expensive recent Hanadama Pearl necklace purchase which I was so excited about, I looked at 5 different sites and compared black friday and Cyber Monday prices before choosing American Pearl for this luxurious necklace that I have wanted for years but didn't have the money at the time. And also below I've pasted their minimal response, not even signed by "whomever"wrote this back to me this morning. No outreach phone call to me to attempt to make it right or clear up the issue or personally explain or offer to rush ship me my order, or offer any other alternative such as further discount for my problem or tell me they value me as a loyal customer or anything at all. Very cold, and unthoughtful, and it actually really hurt my feelings after being a customer for years with them and placing my trust and hard earned money with them. I think this email will speak for itself. BUYER BEWARE is my advice. There are other great online Pearl Stores, such as PearlParadise.com and PearlOutlet.com among others so I will take my business there. American Pearl, I hope you realize someday, that customer service should be taken seriously and I hope you read this review and if your competitors stay in business and you don't, I won't feel sorry for you.
(Here is the one line email I got this morning, and this is all they said, as you can see, not even signed, and no customer service number, no sales person signature to contact, NADA, how unprofessional is this after my email I sent explaining the mishap)
On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 4:01 AM AmericanPearl.com wrote:
We cannot apologize enough. We have credited your account.
On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 10:01 PM, xxxxxx@comcast.net wrote:
Hello American Pearl,
I ordered a HANADAMA 18" pearl necklace on 12/1/2014. I received a receipt
on December 1st thanking me for my order and I had payed in full via PayPal.
I was never told at the time I placed the order (about 2 weeks ago!) that
this was out of stock, this is very upsetting. The pearls never arrived
and I just found in my Spam mail an email from DEC 8th telling me that you
are out of stock on this and "Would you like a free upgrade to AA quality?"
Uh, NO I do not want an "Upgrade" to AA quality! Are you kidding me?? Hanadama Pearls are supposed to be the finest quality AAA!!!
First of all, HANADAMA quality pearls are expected to be of the finest
grade of Akoya pearl quality in the entire world. I was shocked that I am
now being told that your Hanadama pearls were only "A" quality
which means visible flaws and of the poorest grade. I cannot imagine that
your company would expect customers to be uneducated about pearls or pay for
expensive pearl jewelry that is of shoddy "A" quality, which you can get on
QVC or HSN for around $100 or $200 dollars!!! But when customers are
expected to pay in the neighborhood of $2000 (I used the 15% cyber discount
at the time I placed my order) and then later told they can "upgrade" to AA
quality, this makes no sense whatsoever. Your website tells customers that
the Pearls are Hanadama Quality.
Here is a copy and paste of the email that you sent me, telling me that the
Pearls I ordered and payed for are out of stock, and about the "free upgrade
to AA quality" What in the world is going on here? I believe I have lost
trust in you and would never purchase Hanadama pearls from a company unless
I firmly believed these are of the finest quality for mm size and
represented as beautiful as your pictures portray on the site (and your
photos certainly do not show poor quality pearls) I question the legitimacy
of your company at this point... If you cannot or will not deliver what I
expect in the quality of the pearls please refund my money at once and I
will take my business elsewhere, and yes I have bought pearls from your
company before in the past!
Email you sent me on December 8th: I mean, are you kidding me? Talk about
poor customer care!!!
Please fix this issue or you've lost my business for good, and I will be
happy to inform other potential customers to beware of your company and
claims.
Sincerely,
xxxxxx
Hello. We are out of the handmade 8 x 8.5mm. Would you like to cancel
or get a Free upgrade to the AA quality?
American Pearl
576 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10036
800-847-3275
Since 1950 - The World's Finest Pearls at Wholesale Prices read more