Kay Jewelers customer’s engagement ring, wedding bands lost in mail
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – After five years of dating, Mike Branham wanted to take the next step with his girlfriend, Amber. He ordered an engagement ring from Kay Jewelers in December 2020 for more than $6,000, and was told it would be delivered to his home two weeks later, just in time for a Christmas Eve proposal.
“The ring never showed up,” Mike said.
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And without the ring, Mike told Amber his plans. She then took the matter into her own hands.
“I had spent, like it was my daily job, eight hours a day, with Kay’s, with UPS,” Amber said. “They could not tell us, like, anything. Finally, [Kay’s] told us that they were going to go ahead and open up an investigation to locate it. That it had been lost.”
The couple waited weeks for the company to call with an update. Then one day, without warning, the ring arrived.
“But, that was it,” said Amber. “We never heard anything from Kay’s. No one ever followed up with us.”
But the Branhams followed up with Kay. Mike purchased a matching wedding band for Amber, and to keep the warranty, had to have the rings inspected by Kay Jewelers every six months.
“They look for loose diamonds, chips, loose prongs, stuff like that,” Amber said.
Right on schedule, the couple dropped off the rings for an inspection at the store on East Broad Street in April of this year.
“Normally, it’s about a two week turnaround,” Mike said. “Well, this past time that we shipped it off, the ring got lost again.”
The Branhams said the inspection took place in Michigan, and the rings were apparently lost in the mail. After a month-long investigation, the couple said the company re-made the rings. When the Branhams picked them up, they said they were told they’d be offered monetary compensation for their troubles if they signed a form.
“She read through it, handed it to me, I started looking through it, and I was like, ‘Well, what happens if I don’t sign this?'” said Mike. “He said, ‘Well, we can’t release your merchandise.’ I’m not signing a paper that gives up our rights and all that, so if anything happens in the future with this, there’s nothing we can do, our hands are tied behind our back. I said, ‘So, do what you have to do, but we are leaving here with our merchandise. It’s our rings.'”
The Branhams left, with the rings, without signing the form, and called Better Call 4.
“Something is owed to us because of what you’ve put us through,” Amber said.
I reached out to Kay Jewelers. Nearly a week later, I got this message from the company:
“At Kay, we have a saying that if we make a mistake, we own it. In that spirit, as soon as we learned about the loss of our customer’s jewelry, we immediately reached out to them, and found a solution which left both customers satisfied with the resolution.”
I then checked back with the Branhams. Amber told me a member of Kay’s Escalations Team called her the day after they heard from Better Call 4, and after some back and forth, ultimately offered the couple financial compensation in the form of $1,500.
The Branhams said they were pleased with the end result, but believe they never should have been in that position in the first place.
Their warning for others — don’t allow companies to strong-arm you into a solution.
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