Influencers & VCA

[JLO1]

I'm bored of this topic - can we move on please?

 

[Bisoux78]

Let's not forget the fake rumors were started (or at least propelled by) by a somewhat credible VCA collector influencer and self proclaimed expert in jewelry consulting 🤣

Oh lord...Sybilla is the farthest thing from credible. She's under the same umbrella as "Hilaria" Baldwin...the fake it till you make it girls. 😆

 

[Step ONE]

Hi Ladies and VCA Lovers, I purchased my first Carnelian Alhambra in 2012 and adore it . I then purchased 2 sweet Alhambra necklaces for my girls and matching bracelets a Ten motif and matching bracelets both 5 motif’s for myself ! I adore the brand it’s absolutely stunning, whimsical and beautifully crafted. I think you have to buy what you feel makes you feel happy not because of the status and I think that’s what these people are doing! Not because they love it or it’s classy! She thought because she was an Influencer star they would’ve bowed down to her and they didn’t! Everyone is wearing cartier too so nothing special about the love bangle!

I hear you - but it’s a bit rich to call for balance when her supporters were flooding VCA’s Instagram with wild claims about fakes and all sorts of dramatic nonsense. If that’s the 'validity' we’re talking about, I might need a cup of tea and a lie down! 😁

P.S. The fact is, she wasn’t sold fake gold or a faulty bracelet - it deteriorated while in her care. I understand she was upset (I would’ve been too), and perhaps her SA didn’t bend over backwards the way she expected (we don’t always get what we want), but instead of handling it privately like most people here would, she chose to turn it into a spectacle.

Then again, in her line of work, living with your knickers inside out is practically part of the job description!
In the end, it’s all a storm in a teacup – and one that conveniently benefits Monica.
Maybe it’s better for everyone - her and the brand - if she sticks to the jewellery inspired by VCA instead.😅

I agree with this comment 💯 percent. I thought the book and orchid was hilarious! I still love the brand and was purchasing before it became a thing with these Gen Z influencers! You have to buy because you love it and not because of others experiences or circumstances! I believe that was her first piece with the brand maybe she should’ve started off with the sweet collection 🤣

 

[Step ONE]

What Monica "forgot" to mention is that she intentionally ignored VCA (not many know this) when they tried to reach out to her well before this blew out into the proportions it did. Monica ignored the attempts in pursuits of the drama. She fed into the victimization rather than being solution-focused. Now, when you go to VCA instagram page, it is flooded with "VCA does not use real gold, it tarnishes, fake jewelry." When none of this is true. Furthermore, Monica gets her views by putting layers and layers of products on her face, which could have caused the tarnishing. To close my rant, things could have been handled very differently from both sides (Monica and the manager) but I tend to believe that is not what Monica wanted. Dramatization brings more $$$.

Anyway, I just put a deposit on hammered Alhambra YG earrings.

Those are the people that wished they could afford it but really can’t so now this is there fuel

 

[caruava]

You hit the nail on the head here. I don’t doubt the less than ideal service. Even so, good influencers will use any occasion (and will often make up occasions) to drive views. In an attention economy, even painful experiences can be leveraged for monetization.

That’s what Monica did and it worked out big time. In one week, she gained:
1. New followers
2. A reputation for being an “avenger of the common people against big bad luxury brand”
3. An active ride or die audience she can leverage for future beauty brand deals (she’s a beauty influencer)
4. And of course her $6k refund

Strategically, it’s brilliant. However, it cost a relationship with VCA and likely any Richemont brand. Guaranteed she’s now on a watchout list.

One potential risk is that brands avoid influencers with controversy like the plague. If advertisers see her as an influencer that could incite riot against their brand, they either won’t approach or will lowball their offers to her.

Your last paragraph reminds me of that South Park episode where Cartman uses his 'status' as a yelp reviewer to demand free food.

I could never... I would rather give a bracelet away than publically do something like this.

 

[lolakitten]

Not to beat a dead horse here, as I have been trying to avoid this whole embarrassment of a situation (I could not care less about influencers ect) but one thing stood out to me.

The nails.
Guaranteed those nails require copious amounts of acetone to process.
Acetone will cause that kind of discolouration.

(Avoiding the pink elephant in the room to comment on the (non) elegance factor of the nails )

And I’m out…

 

[Step ONE]

Not to beat a dead horse here, as I have been trying to avoid this whole embarrassment of a situation (I could not care less about influencers ect) but one thing stood out to me.

The nails.
Guaranteed those nails require copious amounts of acetone to process.
Acetone will cause that kind of discolouration.

(Avoiding the pink elephant in the room to comment on the (non) elegance factor of the nails )

And I’m out…

OMG I thought the same thing when it first happened. I see so many women at the nail salon with there expensive jewels on. I go with absolutely nothing including taking my wedding bad off

 

[Step ONE]

I'm bored of this topic - can we move on please?

🤣

 

[chanellover333]

OMG I thought the same thing when it first happened. I see so many women at the nail salon with there expensive jewels on. I go with absolutely nothing including taking my wedding bad off

My old nail tech used to wear a VCA and cartier stack!

 

[chareen]

Your last paragraph reminds me of that South Park episode where Cartman uses his 'status' as a yelp reviewer to demand free food.

I could never... I would rather give a bracelet away than publically do something like this.

I have heard of cases where Cartier would ban certain individuals from future purchases - online or the boutique bec of excessive returns or unreasonable customer complaints. I’m not sure if Cartier would go this route. But given the chaos of Van Cleef’s social media page, they could easily consider it. The Cartier brand is not without defects, and sometimes replacements are not done when it seems to be a manufacturing defect (I read cases in the other tpf thread).

But I could imagine Richemont would like their money back (Cartier and Van Cleef are its main cash cows), and there is a lot of love from Monica followers on the Cartier brand (ironically, Cartier’s RG does oxidize, but the polishing process is easy bec of the smooth surface). So banning Monica from future Cartier purchases IMO won’t make sense. In fact, when her husband hits the big leagues (surgeons do make lots of money in the long run; currently he is in massive debt ($300k plus - yes gen z is an open book in social media), I could see her sporting a decent VCA or Cartier pave collection like haileyoo in Instagram whose husband is also a surgeon who hit it big in the last 5 years. Monica would have been a good customer for luxury brands - but now she is a brand beware. They can tag her name on the computer, like they tag banned customers.

One brand who loves influencers is Bvlgari. lol. She can delve into that brand. Cartier and VCA do not use influencers - ever. Cartier does love Timothee Chalamet. Lol

As far as the “tarnish”, my guess is this. Something acidic dripped on that area. It is dead center (like I said, we tend to see the locks of the Alhambra bracelets on top of our wrist, so this must have fell on the palm area of her wrist as it was right in the center of the middle motif). It’s humid in Hawaii (another fault of influencers - they are target for home robberies because unfortunately U.S. privacy laws suck - you can easily google where one lives). She claims the stains appeared two months in. Obviously VCA did a very poor job of cleaning it. Ultrasonic will do nothing, but a Sunshine polishing cream and a nice soft brush would have done the trick. After Monica received it, the oxidized area keeps building bec of the poor cleaning job (what can we say, VCA has poor cleaning services). Then it looks like a dark ring. What is annoying is the last reel, where she took the bracelet to be tested, and my guess is the jeweler made attempts to clean it so the stain - while it was still there - isn’t as red or dark as before. So this tells me a gentle polishing cream would have done the trick - which I won’t take credit; I learned this from this tpf forum. Would it have come back? Perhaps if she kept doing what she was doing. But if she followed what Big Akoya advised in the past (love her) - clean and storing it in Wolf jewelry containers or put it in zip lock bags, I don’t think her piece would have oxidized as quickly or the stain would even return.

Also she claims to be a VCA lover, but comes and posts a comment 1 time here in tpf since 2015 not seeking anyone’s advice. Like someone mentioned here, if she truly loved the VCA brand, she would have taken a replacement and take better care of it. Guilloche is not meant to be worn daily and stacked. They are delicate, not supposed to be professionally polished like the Cartier Loves. In fact, some influencers are spreading lies that is it super durable (styledbyshishi). It isn’t. The bracelets won’t remain shiny with regular banging. And that is the thing, Monica wore this daily and never removed it. Now that she sees it is beaten up - why get a new one when she is supposed to remove it. I don’t blame her if my intent was to wear it daily like a love bracelet

Uneven Oxidation - someone mentioned it pretty clearly here (maybe @nicole0612, and not even VCA workers could explain this correctly) - tends to build on uneven surfaces. The guilloche surface is definitely uneven because of the ‘fan’ design. The hammered is also an uneven surface, and I see pictures of oxidation on certain areas here in tpf.

Yes, Kathy the manager did her dirty by gaslighting her. If no one knew the word gaslighting, now Monica gave us a great example of the definition! But Monica kind of did herself dirty because now she is somewhat labeled as a complainer (retailers’ hate complainers and returners esp petty ones. Look at the fall out between our favorite expert YouTuber and her Cartier ‘friend’ Hannah - you know those returns hurt Hannah’s commission).

I do feel sorry for Monica because I could tell she really loves the clover design (she sports van cleef replicas like her earrings). And personally I love the quality and workmanship of Van Cleef pieces - if you are jewelry lover who seeks quality, you know what I mean. The VCA honeycomb pave designs with the quality diamonds are irresistible. And I did like the fact that brand was fairly low key unlike Cartier.

But I can’t feel too sorry for her because she is now famous (at least in her world). Is Van Cleef cancelled? Nah, I’m sure their PR already has a plan - use celebrities like Rihanna and Selena Gomez. Notorious Kanye West wore the perlee bracelet. Queen Camilla loves her Van Cleef. In fact, I really think Van Cleef wants less buyers and plans to increase prices like Hermes Birkins. I think the goal is to decrease demand because the supply is so limited. So Monica did them good. Kathy did apologize - Monica is petty and won’t pick up Kathy’s call and lets it go to voicemail. And VCA is notorious like a famous president we all love and can’t get enough of. What cancelled?

And yes, Kathy the manager does not represent all vca managers. I dealt with a vca manager in the Neimam Marcus boutique who kindly gave me a bouquet of flowers, complimentary service (i wanted more links on my 5 year necklace which she did for free), and all the travel cases one can as for… and a bunch of polishing cloths and cleaning kits. We just clicked I guess.

You know what is most annoying? I feel it was staged by Monica with her edits. Look, this was formally called a VCA addiction thread here in tpf. We have never seen a stain this bad (and surprise…faded significantly!) being discussed here. Let’s face it, there were (and still are!) some big VCA addicts in this forum.

There is my Big Akoya 2 cents. Long and winded, but hopefully useful. lol

 

[chareen]

From Monica’s Instagram

 

[CartierLVer]

I have heard of cases where Cartier would ban certain individuals from future purchases - online or the boutique bec of excessive returns or unreasonable customer complaints. I’m not sure if Cartier would go this route. But given the chaos of Van Cleef’s social media page, they could easily consider it. The Cartier brand is not without defects, and sometimes replacements are not done when it seems to be a manufacturing defect (I read cases in the other tpf thread).

But I could imagine Richemont would like their money back (Cartier and Van Cleef are its main cash cows), and there is a lot of love from Monica followers on the Cartier brand (ironically, Cartier’s RG does oxidize, but the polishing process is easy bec of the smooth surface). So banning Monica from future Cartier purchases IMO won’t make sense. In fact, when her husband hits the big leagues (surgeons do make lots of money in the long run; currently he is in massive debt ($300k plus - yes gen z is an open book in social media), I could see her sporting a decent VCA or Cartier pave collection like haileyoo in Instagram whose husband is also a surgeon who hit it big in the last 5 years. Monica would have been a good customer for luxury brands - but now she is a brand beware. They can tag her name on the computer, like they tag banned customers.

One brand who loves influencers is Bvlgari. lol. She can delve into that brand. Cartier and VCA do not use influencers - ever. Cartier does love Timothee Chalamet. Lol

As far as the “tarnish”, my guess is this. Something acidic dripped on that area. It is dead center (like I said, we tend to see the locks of the Alhambra bracelets on top of our wrist, so this must have fell on the palm area of her wrist as it was right in the center of the middle motif). It’s humid in Hawaii (another fault of influencers - they are target for home robberies because unfortunately U.S. privacy laws suck - you can easily google where one lives). She claims the stains appeared two months in. Obviously VCA did a very poor job of cleaning it. Ultrasonic will do nothing, but a Sunshine polishing cream and a nice soft brush would have done the trick. After Monica received it, the oxidized area keeps building bec of the poor cleaning job (what can we say, VCA has poor cleaning services). Then it looks like a dark ring. What is annoying is the last reel, where she took the bracelet to be tested, and my guess is the jeweler made attempts to clean it so the stain - while it was still there - isn’t as red or dark as before. So this tells me a gentle polishing cream would have done the trick - which I won’t take credit; I learned this from this tpf forum. Would it have come back? Perhaps if she kept doing what she was doing. But if she followed what Big Akoya advised in the past (love her) - clean and storing it in Wolf jewelry containers or put it in zip lock bags, I don’t think her piece would have oxidized as quickly or the stain would even return.

Also she claims to be a VCA lover, but comes and posts a comment 1 time here in tpf since 2015 not seeking anyone’s advice. Like someone mentioned here, if she truly loved the VCA brand, she would have taken a replacement and take better care of it. Guilloche is not meant to be worn daily and stacked. They are delicate, not supposed to be professionally polished like the Cartier Loves. In fact, some influencers are spreading lies that is it super durable (styledbyshishi). It isn’t. The bracelets won’t remain shiny with regular banging. And that is the thing, Monica wore this daily and never removed it. Now that she sees it is beaten up - why get a new one when she is supposed to remove it. I don’t blame her if my intent was to wear it daily like a love bracelet

Uneven Oxidation - someone mentioned it pretty clearly here (maybe @nicole0612, and not even VCA workers could explain this correctly) - tends to build on uneven surfaces. The guilloche surface is definitely uneven because of the ‘fan’ design. The hammered is also an uneven surface, and I see pictures of oxidation on certain areas here in tpf.

Yes, Kathy the manager did her dirty by gaslighting her. If no one knew the word gaslighting, now Monica gave us a great example of the definition! But Monica kind of did herself dirty because now she is somewhat labeled as a complainer (retailers’ hate complainers and returners esp petty ones. Look at the fall out between our favorite expert YouTuber and her Cartier ‘friend’ Hannah - you know those returns hurt Hannah’s commission).

I do feel sorry for Monica because I could tell she really loves the clover design (she sports van cleef replicas like her earrings). And personally I love the quality and workmanship of Van Cleef pieces - if you are jewelry lover who seeks quality, you know what I mean. The VCA honeycomb pave designs with the quality diamonds are irresistible. And I did like the fact that brand was fairly low key unlike Cartier.

But I can’t feel too sorry for her because she is now famous (at least in her world). Is Van Cleef cancelled? Nah, I’m sure their PR already has a plan - use celebrities like Rihanna and Selena Gomez. Notorious Kanye West wore the perlee bracelet. Queen Camilla loves her Van Cleef. In fact, I really think Van Cleef wants less buyers and plans to increase prices like Hermes Birkins. I think the goal is to decrease demand because the supply is so limited. So Monica did them good. Kathy did apologize - Monica is petty and won’t pick up Kathy’s call and lets it go to voicemail. And VCA is notorious like a famous president we all love and can’t get enough of. What cancelled?

And yes, Kathy the manager does not represent all vca managers. I dealt with a vca manager in the Neimam Marcus boutique who kindly gave me a bouquet of flowers, complimentary service (i wanted more links on my 5 year necklace which she did for free), and all the travel cases one can as for… and a bunch of polishing cloths and cleaning kits. We just clicked I guess.

You know what is most annoying? I feel it was staged by Monica with her edits. Look, this was formally called a VCA addiction thread here in tpf. We have never seen a stain this bad (and surprise…faded significantly!) being discussed here. Let’s face it, there were (and still are!) some big VCA addicts in this forum.

There is my Big Akoya 2 cents. Long and winded, but hopefully useful. lol

Hello,
Thank you for the break down. But i kindly ask you not to judge Monica’s husband! I know of them as they are my friends mutual friends!

This Monica topic is getting out of hand! You all are dogging her when she showed proof of what happened to her jewlery from VCA, whether she caused it herself or not! I am 100% on Monica’s side and VCA did her her dirty!

Please put yourself in her shoes! 👠

I have read a lot of TPF forum members and you all are bad mouthing her to the point it is ridiculous!

You ladies do know how to throw someone under the bus!

 

[nicole0612]

Hello,
Thank you for the break down. But i kindly ask you not to judge Monica’s husband! I know of them as they are my friends mutual friends!

This Monica topic is getting out of hand! You all are dogging her when she showed proof of what happened to her jewlery from VCA, whether she caused it herself or not! I am 100% on Monica’s side and VCA did her her dirty!

Please put yourself in her shoes! 👠

I have read a lot of TPF forum members and you all are bad mouthing her to the point it is ridiculous!

You ladies do know how to throw someone under the bus!

When you choose to be a public personality, to a certain degree are you not agreeing to more scrutiny and commentary than a private individual? There are financial and preferential treatment opportunities on the plus side, and criticism on the negative side. I would say that society should draw the line where people or their children are directly put at risk through their exposure as public personalities. Otherwise it seems like they have chosen the path that works for them, with the advantages and disadvantages that come with it.

 

[sunshineshiney]

Hello,
Thank you for the break down. But i kindly ask you not to judge Monica’s husband! I know of them as they are my friends mutual friends!

This Monica topic is getting out of hand! You all are dogging her when she showed proof of what happened to her jewlery from VCA, whether she caused it herself or not! I am 100% on Monica’s side and VCA did her her dirty!

Please put yourself in her shoes! 👠

I have read a lot of TPF forum members and you all are bad mouthing her to the point it is ridiculous!

You ladies do know how to throw someone under the bus!

With all due respect, no one is throwing her under the bus. Many of us have owned VCA for years, including the bracelet Monica had. We are simply stating facts and opinions based on our own experiences.

Yes, jewelry in general tarnishes (based on so many factors, already discussed here). However, tarnishing would happen *throughout* the piece - not in one specific spot (also previously discussed on tpf).

Many of us have been in her shoes in other situations before.

If I buy an “expensive vehicle”, I’m not going to assume the paint will never get scratched or chipped simply due to the price or make of the vehicle. Once I drive it off the parking lot or after it is delivered to my home, it is MY responsibility.

Influencers are all about views and clicks.
If I knew Moncia IRL, trust me, I would not be telling anyone at VCA that I know her.

 

[rolandogm]

Both parties handled the situation poorly. Monica was wrong to publicly "expose” VCA when she could have solved the issue in private. VCA makes fine jewelry that requires diligent care. Bleach and chlorine can tarnish gold. Even Tiffany & Co. states this on their website.