Lynn M.

I have been a customer of this company for well over a year. They have made many changes over the last few months. They will change policies without putting them in writing and informing customers BEFORE new policies are implemented, sometimes at the whelm of the COO who decides to just call the customer up without warning and change their policies as of that moment. VERY unprofessional in their approach to customer relations. They cater to influencers instead of their regular customer base, meaning influencers get any rare materials while regular customers are not offered these rare materials. They charge high prices for "couture" products that are NOT the quality that you are paying for. When they mess up on a band, they tell you these are "handmade" and refuse to accept a return. Their prices have dramatically increased in the time I have been a customer while the quality of product and customer service have declined even more dramatically. Their jewelry line quality is horrible and you pay high prices for jewelry.
They have an extremely high employee turnover and it shows in the quality of workmanship and customer service. Staff is overworked and it takes days, or even weeks to get anyone in customer service to return an email or message. The company removed its customer service phone number from the website months ago, so there is no option to call when you need immediate help. All this and they changed their return policy to three days (but only on "limited edition" bands, everything else is completely nonreturnable) for a regular refund if payment was made by card/cash and they implemented a restock fee if you refuse a gift card or store credit, without informing customers when the restock fee was implemented. They implemented a non cancelation policy so you can no longer cancel a product even if it is taking months to create. Their turn around time for creating bands states 2-3 weeks, when in reality it is taking 8-10+ weeks and that's if nothing goes wrong with the band. They make you pay upfront for your items and take weeks/months to get them to you, but if you ask to cancel or return, they no longer allow this. They supposedly have a "satisfaction guarantee policy" but you can't return a band if you don't like it, so they obviously do not stand behind their own products!
I have returned watch bands and it took them two months to refund my money, this was after they had already sold my returned bands. They have misplaced custom orders, misplaced upcycled Louis Vuitton bags, sold upcycled bags (to create a band from) to an influencer before I created my band from the bag, completely made custom bands wrong numerous times, pulled all band orders out of production for weeks, promised expedited processing times and free priority shipping, but received regular first class shipping, for "black status VIPs", just to name a few of the problems I have personally had. You get different answers to the same questions and when you ask which one is the correct answer, they contradict each other again. The CEO will get on social media and call her customers "trolls" and post negative comments about other businesses (who make watch bands or similar jewelry), ex-employees, and even customers that they feel do not "support" them, meaning if you complain at all, the owner calls you a bully/troll on her IG pages. The owner actually closes any customer's account who says anything she perceives as negative about the company and goes as far as threatening legal action against other businesses and customers. They state that you have violated their anti-bullying policy, but refuse to provide a copy of said policy and refuse consistently to tell you what you did that was bullying. When they close a customer's account, they block all access to their website, app, and social media platforms and cancel any paid/open orders stating the customer will receive a refund in the form of a check within 5 business days with the amount being at the "sole discretion of Spark*l's Chief Financial Officer and non-negotiable." I have never seen a CEO act in this manner. This is not a professionally run business. They lack any real leadership, organization, or logical managerial processes.
If you want to support a company that thrives on disorganization and drama, this is the one. If you want to support a small company that makes quality upcycled watch bands and you get what you pay for, look elsewhere. You can find much cheaper upcycled watch bands and similarly made/styled solid sterling silver or gold jewelry for cheaper prices.