Mociun Fine Jewelry & Home — Attraction in New York

PART 2 OF 2 (continued full story from previous review)

Since we were already in NYC we went to several other jewelry stores in the city during our visit, and I ended up finding a unique antique ring at the very top end of our budget for $45k. Believing that we would never end up getting a ring from Mociun before our wedding date based on the last 6+ months of experiences, and since our $6,800 store credit could not be used toward the engagement ring anyway, we bought the existing ring from another jeweler and decided to use the credit for my wedding bands and wedding day earrings.

Every jeweler we visited asked us where we had already been, and when we said "Mociun" they all had very obvious reactions in their faces, and many of them even said they hear a lot of bad things about customer experience there. Notably, nothing negative was mentioned about any other jewelry designer we mentioned.

After placing the order for the pair of bands and earrings, my fiancé reached out multiple times to ask that his $1,000 deposit be given to him as at least a store credit, considering he was never shown a stone within the parameters requested in 6 months of working with Mociun. He even informed them that writing a review of our negative experience would be the likely outcome of not allowing us to use that money as a store credit, and this went on for weeks without any prompt responses--as seems to be standard with Mociun.

Eventually the result was they canceled my wedding band and wedding earring order, refunded the $6,800 for the stand-in ring, and stated they would not be refunding or crediting the $1,000 deposit--and barely over 3 months before our wedding date--leaving us in a complete lurch for my wedding bands last-minute, and just before the start of the holiday season. Fortunately there is a wonderful female-owned custom jewelry shop in DC and they were able to design a custom band for me, nailing the design and stone selection in less than a week and on their first try. From the day I filled out the online inquiry, to the day my ring went into fabrication, was 2.5 weeks--and that was over Thanksgiving.

Additionally, I told a friend of mine about this and she guessed it was Mociun. Her sister and her girlfriend (now fiancée) live in Brooklyn and bought ready-made rings from Mociun for each other, and needed to have them sized. They were told it would take a certain amount of time, and they planned an out-of-town huge engagement party with their families around that date. Mociun missed the date THREE TIMES and this party was repeatedly rescheduled at the last minute. In my friend's words: "Mociun was a complete nightmare for them." So it is here I will add that my engagement ring purchased elsewhere in NYC was resized in less than two business days and overnighted to me in time for me to fly out to visit my family to celebrate my engagement.

Bottom line: do not waste your money or time on Mociun. They will accept your custom request and tell you it will take 3 months maximum no matter what your budget or desired stone is--even if it's going to take months and months and months beyond that date. And then they will probably treat you like your money and business and experience is worth nothing to them.

By the way, we walked into a ready-made suit chain on our way back to our hotel, without an appointment. We were immediately offered FOUR glasses of water and given a comfortable place to sit while they accommodated our walk-in: two glasses for us, and two glasses...

(PART 1 OF 2)

I am writing this review because I don't want anyone else to have the same horrible experience with Mociun.

THE SHORT VERSION: Mociun is unresponsive, has poor customer service in-store, and does not deliver on promised timelines or agreed budgets. Do not risk ruining your engagement experience or wasting money and time on such an expensive and important purchase at Mociun.

THE FULL STORY: Early this year, my now fiancé and my best friend started the custom design process with Mociun. They were struggling to find a stone they liked for me after several months. (I think my fiancé perhaps didn't have a ton of clarity about what I might want, and Mociun was unable to deliver stones within his budget that were akin to what he was asking for, so there was a lot of delay and a lot of back and forth.) He ended up proposing to me with a stand-in ring purchased from Mociun with the understanding that he could return it for a credit, and since I didn't love the ring and it was expensive, we opted to go that route.

After several months of this, I decided I would like to be involved in my own ring design, as I am myself a designer and have a specific aesthetic. I gave my fiancé and friend very clear notes on what kind of stone I wanted, which were sent over to Mociun, and we made arrangements to come to NYC from DC for a weekend and meet with Caitlin Mociun herself. She was not available for a weekend meeting, so my fiancé and I both took days off work and paid several thousands of dollars to make the trip up, once hotel and train and meals were factored in.

When we arrived for our appointment, we were covered in sweat from the walk in 85-degree weather, and our two dogs (both in carriers) that we had to bring on our trip with us were also extremely hot. No one offered us any water or anything else to drink, despite the fact that we were about to spend $40k+ on a custom diamond ring, and no one was wearing a mask--so in my opinion the pandemic can no longer be an excuse. The only masked person in the store was Caitlin herself, but she pulled her mask down repeatedly throughout our appointment to drink the can of Spindrift she had out in front of her. So often, in fact, that by the end of our appointment she stopped bothering to pull her mask back up. That was a major customer service misstep that made us feel like we didn't want to even be there, but we had come a long way and my fiancé had already paid the $1,000 deposit on the custom ring process.

The bigger issue, however, is that Mociun had not prepared a single stone that was what we asked for. Yes, specific stones take time to find. I understand. But if you have weeks to prepare for this meeting and are then unprepared for it when we arrive, why not tell us in advance? Maybe we could have rescheduled our meeting?

During the appointment Caitlin also informed us that she was about to go on a month-long vacation. With her upcoming vacation and how long everything else had been taking (more than twice as long as their initial estimate), it was clear we would not get a ring any time soon. With our wedding only 5 months away, we were nervous.

Adding another layer to all this, the ring we returned for credit was apparently not allowed to be put toward the custom ring, so we had to buy more things from Mociun to make use of that money. Is money paid not money going to the same store? It left a very bad taste...

We haven’t heard from our custom specialist in 6 weeks and counting. Of the stone options we’ve been provided since putting our deposit in June:

1st batch, received over a month after putting in deposit: (2 stones)not shape or cuts we were looking for. (3 stones) over budget by 2-4K, 1 of which was already sold—And none were really what we asked for but closer than the other two.

We provided immediate feedback that same day and provided reference photos of other Mociun rings that were closer to what we were looking for in reference to shape and cut.

2nd “batch” we received about a week later. The (1) stone showed promise, it was only slightly over budget, but the photo we received was incredibly blurry and we did not feel comfortable moving forward without better images. We responded immediately with this feedback and was told they were going to “call the stone in” so they could take better photos. —this was 3 months ago and we’ve never seen new photos of this stone. We followed up for a little over a month on this option but still no photos.

3rd batch of stones was received over a month after the last batch and 2.5 months after deposit was given. All 3 stones provided were 3-6k over our agreed to budget. We provided feedback within 24 hours and have not heard from Mociun in 6 weeks.

To be clear, we have been consistent about our wants from the start (elongated rose-cut geo diamond about 1 carat in size) we were told both in person when we flew to New York to come to the store (we live in Los Angeles) and also in our initial conversations before and after putting the deposit down that this was possible within our budget. In 5 months we’ve received exactly 0 stones that fit within those parameters. And the ones that do fit that description were several thousands of dollars above our budget. It is irresponsible to confirm a budget with clients several times before and after receiving a deposit and ensure that these needs can be met and 4.5 months into this “process” and we are no closer to getting a phone call or email response than we are to having a ring.

For a company that boasts itself on a custom process with “unique” and “unusual” stones and settings as part of their custom process we’ve more often than not received perfect and traditional shapes throughout this process.

On numerous occasions we have asked our custom specialist to give us more frequent updates even if they are non-updates (ie we inquired with three vendors this week and they don’t have anything that fits your needs at this time, etc) and in response our wait time between emails have gone from 3 weeks to 4 weeks and now 6 weeks and counting. We called the store earlier this week to check in with our specialist. We were told she was unavailable but the person on the phone confirmed to us that we would receive a call back later that day or the next day. Neither has happened.

We decided on Mociun because we thought they were going to be able to give us the custom engagement ring of our dreams. This process has been nothing but...