Some of you may already be aware that there is a thread on the CPAA forum that attacks me personally, attacks online pearl sellers in general, and attacks the credibility of Pearl-Guide.com.
I defended myself, other online pearls sellers, and Pearl-Guide.com in the exchange on the CPAA forum last week. I was in an argument with someone who I thought was a jeweler, using the handle pearldiver52865. This jeweler claimed to be a B&M jeweler who was being hurt by what he called “our predatory pricing tactics.” He also claimed to have received a strand of our pearls, taken them to the JCK Show in Las Vegas, and compared them against Mikimoto and Mastoloni Pearls’ pearls, as well as the Imperial Deltah pearls he stocked in his showcase.
I am sure you are all familiar with the Mikimoto Pearl Company. Mastoloni Pearls is a very large, well-established pearl wholesaler from New York. Not a retail jeweler.
After much debate on the CPAA forum, user pearldiver52865 thought he had caught me in a lie and promised to post and blog everywhere he could on the thread, including Pearl-Guide.com. Shortly thereafter, on Friday, Pearl-Guide.com received a new member signup by someone with the username pearldiver52865.
As one of the administrators of this Web site, I have access to all logs that include new user notifications. I immediately checked the IP address of this new user. I checked this IP address against other member accounts on Pearl-Guide.com and it matched perfectly the IP address of an existing member of Pearl-Guide.com, MASTOLONI-PEARLS.
In addition to this match, I was able to trace the IP address of the new member, pearldiver52865. The IP address, when typed in as a URL, returned the “Mastoloni Pearls – Salesperson Assist” log in page.
http://www.cpaaforums.org/viewtopic....a9a938080f8cea