Thanks for helping to set the record straight. There's plenty of sobering information that's true these days, we shouldn't have to wade through dismal news that turns out to be false. But unfortunately, that's one price of the Internet Age--disinformation spreads as quickly as accurate info (sometimes faster). A good rule is to always question any email that is forwarded to you and doesn't have a clear source. Snopes is an excellent web site to either verify or debunk. And those ads--both the real one and the parody--are both great and both true!!!

Very true that you dont know what is accurate. You just have to trust that in some cases the economy is just not as bad as it is made out to be. Most rumors are started by a unhappy customer or let go employee.

thanks for the clear up...as a manager for piercing pagoda, my staff as well as myself was getting a little nervous because we kept hearing this from customers. we received an email from our ceo neil to settle our fears, but im glad to have it confirmed.

thank goodness. I work at zales and you have no idea, I had three people call in asking and four people ask me in person just in the last two days!

I am also a Manager of Piercing Pagoda and frankly I so annoyed by people asking me if we are closing after the holiday season that I am tempted to pull my hair out!! GET OVER THE HYPE PEOPLE...IF WE WERE CLOSING WE WOULD KNOW ABOUT IT!!!

I am a Manager at a piercing Pagoda as well. We are not closing, please stop asking. We have been around for a very long time and we will not be going anywhere.

Yes, I too am getting tired of people believing this story to be true. As long as people believe us everything will be fine. But a comment to Venesa W., if Zales Corp. is closing your store you will NOT know about it until the day they close it. Our mall closed one of the three locations a couple of years ago and those employees only found out the day they started packing everything up. As a major corporation, for security reasons, they are not going to let anyone know till the last minute so merchandise does not disappear and they still have employees till the end. But rest assured we are not closing. We are one of the few brands the Zales is showing a profit on.

i am still skeptical. we have 6 corporate employees coming this week as they have been hitting up multiple locations in my state over the past few days. As long as I've been an employee I've never seen this many (only 1) come visit. I am thinking that maybe they are closing some stores and they are starting to assess which ones to close right now. For security reasons it would be stupid to announce that 100+ jewelry locations are closing and a thousand people out of work, esp right at christmas, everything would go missing...i still think something is up. dont be so sure of yourselves!

corporate visits are a common thing. i've worked for the company for 7 years and we've had at least 1-2 corporate visits every year. they are trying to change the ideal of pagoda. make them a cleaner, nicer jewelry store. they also do unannounced visits, and you may have helped them and never known. its always been a complaint from stores that corporate is never around and they never see how things are. they need to see stores, to know whats needed and whats not. they cant help us make our stores better if they dont see them. im a manager and i've had 4 corporate visits this year alone. all to make the stores better,to see what we need and what is really going on. they dont need to see your store to size up if you cant sell. thats why they close stores. b/c you cant produce numbers. they dont need to travel to see that.

It is getting frustrating. I am an assistant manager of one of the piercing pagodas. we are not closing people. and why would anyone go up to someone working and say i heard you guys are closing down. Thats just like saying "Hey i heard your loosing your job." come on people dont listen to everything you here. Piercing Pagoda makes a lot of money for Zales Corp. It would be a very stupid move on there part. We will see when January comes.

Take a closer look to find the truth. There is more truth to that email than mistruths!

you would not know about the store closing as the home office would worry about theft from employees because alot of times people who are losing there jobs after the holidays don't care so they will steal from their stores as they are closing so it's not like they have to worry about losing their job as they already are losing it.

YES, LIKE THEY WOULD ANNOUNCE THEY ARE CLOSING ALL THOSE STORES SO EVERYONE CAN BAILOUT! NOT. I BET SOME WILL CLOSE THAT ARE UNPROFITABLE, AND ONES THAT MAKE MONEY WILL STAY OPEN. LOOK AT YOUR PNL STATEMENTS.

I WAS WITH PAGODA FOR OVER A YEAR AND A HALF, WHEN I CAME INTO WORK ON 12/26/08, MY REGIONAL MANAGER WAS ALREADY THERE WITH PAPERS TO CLOSE MY STORE &

as i was saying above. i had no prior warning that i was going to have my store close and lose my job... more that 20+ stores were closed on 12/26/08. the company is going under

We need you to come through Rob! What's going on with Zales???

"C'Mon Rob" ... I wrote about Zale today in my "new year's" post but am not aware of any news with them beyond that. They should be announcing their holiday sales results soon, and that should give us a better picture. I know there is a little more talk about them, but there are a lot more companies that are in far more danger right now. If there is something specific you want me to look into, you can email me at rbates at reedbusiness.com.

as of now i have found that 38 stores closed on 12/26/08 & more have closed since then... i found out info on the inside that the company is going down...