I brought in a pair of earrings to sell, and was not offered much for them, but realized it is a…read morebad economy and that I likely would have difficulty selling them on FB Marketplace or the like, so I took what was offered and bought other earrings. Now, after my experience, I question if the earrings actually had more worth, and if John, the owner, saw me coming and manipulated the situation to his advantage. I have metal allergies, and can only tolerate yellow gold, so needed backup posts to wear that I can tolerate. I arrived there casually dressed, and had a tote bag with me, as I had walked. In this community of the extreme haves and the extreme have-nots, not having a car causes people to perceive you as homeless, which I am not. They probably thought i stole the jewerlry I was selling, or didn't have any money to spend. The attitude shifted when I got out my credit card. When I left the store, one of my boxes was jostled a bit when I tried to put the store bag into my tote bag, and I opened it when I was trying to make sure the lid was secured. When I opened the box, I did not see any earrings. I lifted the cotton box liner, and saw no earrings. So, I went back in the store, thinking maybe the salesperson got distracted and accidentally switched my box with an empty one. She told me that the earrings had been inserted in the middle of the cotton liner, and "Oh, now one of them is missing." She went with me outside to look on the sidewalk, but neither of us found the earring. At this point, I was upset about the earring, but I was also thinking they likely thought I was lying. My anxiety was overwhelming from the attitude I sensed (I could tell I was being looked at a certain way from the minute I walked in, but there are limited jewelry stores in Aken that purchase items), and from having lost something of value when I had only owned it for three minutes, and I started to cry. I said I was nauseated and the salesperson got all panicky that I might puke and make a mess. I was a problem to her, not a person. Then she went away and came back with 4 mm earrings, not the 5 mm ones I had purchased, and said to me, we are just going to replace them with these, and when I sadly said, "I wanted the 5 mm ones," she got irritated and said, "Well, we are out of those and this is all I have." She ushered me to the door, and I then looked outside again, as a last attempt, and still found nothing. By doing so, I had a moment to breathe, and knew they were probably watching me look, so I went back into the store and said, "I tried to look again, and found nothing. I'm sorry for what happened, but this was humilating for me." The owner, John then came out from the back and "customer serviced me" (Judging from his level of phoniness, if I had dropped dead outside of their door, he probably would have nonchalantly stepped over me and the only upset would be that I was blocking the entrance and maybe dissuading customers from entering). Then, he started in in with the sanctimonious talk, about how if I am upset I obviously am not saved and how I need to pray to Jesus. I said, "Oh really, so I guess I lost the earring because I didn't pray to Jesus enough," and I walked away. I was so distraught and felt so taken advantage of that I sobbed the entire walk home, which was over a mile. I had to take my blood pressure medication and an Excedrin and lay down, and am having a flare of my chronic health condition as a result of the stress from this experience. I have been in customer service roles for over 25 years, and this is the WORST customer experience I have had, and I will never forget it, or forgive it. First of all, the careless way you box your products, which are tiny, expensive items, because you are too cheap to actually supply your customers with cards for the earrings or jewelry boxes, meant the incident that occured was actually your fault, not mine. (Oh, and John was patronizing when I expressed concern over this with a "this is just the way it is" attitude.) Secondly, my faith, or even lack thereof is none of your business. You have no idea of what is going on in a person's life, their history, or even their religious affiliation. What if I were Jewish, or Buddhist? I am sure if something had not gone wrong, regardless of my character or religious affiliation, you would have sold me whatever I wanted, as long as I had enough money, and would have kept your mouth shut. You probably sell jewelry and guns to drug dealers daily, as long as they have no record of conviction, and aren't prosyletiziing to them, because you would rather keep your mouth shut, as long as you are lining your pockets. All you did was try to play head games to get me to leave because you knew you had fouled up, and all I was to you was a problem to be eliminated. I hope you go out of business.
