A Penticton resident is at the end of her rope trying to get her wedding ring band back after she claimed a jewelry store sent it to the wrong customer following its re-sizing.
Aja Thew said she had dropped off her wedding band and engagement ring to the Michael Hill jewelry store in Cherry Lane Mall on May 20 to get resized before her five-year wedding anniversary.
Thew said her rings were custom-designed by a goldsmith in Kelowna, but her husband’s wedding band came from Michael Hill, and she felt comfortable at the time dropping them off to get the work done.
“I was told on May 20 that the resizing would take three weeks,” she added.
When that date came and went, Thew said she called the Penticton store and found out there was some confusion with her rings.
“I was told they were sent for repair, not resizing. I explained that I didn’t need anything repaired, just resized. That issue was cleared up within a couple of days or so.”
Thew said she got the call her rings had arrived back at the store five weeks after dropping them off.
“I went in to go pick up my rings. I was so excited. Then they tried to give me a wedding band that wasn't mine,” she said, adding that her engagement ring was correct, but the wedding band included with it was not hers.
“I looked at it immediately and said, ‘Oh, this is wrong. That is not my ring.’ And they said, ‘Oh, are you sure?’ I said, ‘Oh, I'm sure’. Right away, I knew, not my ring.”
“I took my engagement ring. They said, ‘No worries. We're gonna get right on this, and we're gonna figure this out. You'll get your ring back right away.’ And then I didn't really hear from them.”
Eventually, Thew received information from the store manager that her ring was accidentally sent to another branch and would be expedited to her immediately, coming in less than a week. But after a week passed, her ring still did not arrive.
Thew’s panic grew when, throughout the next few weeks, she said was told different stores that the ring ended up at and different dates when the ring would be returned to her.
Thew provided Castanet with emails between her and different Michael Hill customer service centres, all responding by forwarding her concerns to the store management team at Cherry Lane.
“I've emailed multiple email addresses that I can find…Anyone who will listen to me,” she added. “I ended up finding out that the store didn't have it. They had given it to someone. It was a fight to get any information.”
“Basically, they've given my ring out to a customer.”
Thew said she was told by the manager on June 23 that the customer was aware and was bringing her ring back as soon as possible.
“It makes my stomach hurt because I'm thinking whoever got my ring, knew it wasn't theirs. So why did they accept it? And then why are they not returning it?
“I just don't know if I'll ever see it again and no one's helping me get it back or get answers and I don't know how many times I've cried over this.”
Now, more than halfway through July, the ring still hasn’t been returned.
Thew said she was told the other customer was bringing it in the week of July 3, but that didn’t happen. Then she was told the other customer was bringing it back on July 12, which also hasn’t happened.
“We've been told, 'Well, the customers don't live near the store,' so ‘You're just gonna have to wait till they have time to bring it in.’ That, to me, is unacceptable. They took my ring that they know isn't theirs. So something has to be done, whether it's an employee of Michael Hill going to get it if these people can't return it to the store so they can expedite it. I don't care. I just want it back.”
Thew then filed a police report for the missing ring and shared her story on social media, hoping to get more action.
“I just feel like the longer this goes on, the less likely I am to ever get my ring back. So I just thought I need to make the public aware,” Thew said.
Thew said the police called her on Friday afternoon and said they have been in contact with Michael Hill and that now a FedEx box is being shipped to the customers who have her ring in order for them to ship it back to the Nanaimo branch and then, hopefully, to Thew.
RCMP media relations officer Cpl. James Grandy confirmed that a police file had been made and that an RCMP officer was advised by the jewelry company that the missing ring was being couriered to the store and would be available later this week.
No criminal offence was determined to have taken place.
Castanet reached out to Michael Hill for comment. They did not respond by the publication deadline.
