Zale Fights Viral E-mail

By Rob Bates -- JCK Online, 1/1/2009 2:00:00 AM

A recent viral e-mail about gift cards—which suggested that Piercing Pagoda is closing all its stores and Zale is closing 105 stores "after January"—is wrong, Zale says.

Snopes, the Web site that tracks viral e-mails, calls it "a mixture of accurate, inaccurate, and outdated information." For instance, it correctly notes that Whitehall and several other retailers are liquidating. But Zale spokesman David Sternblitz says the company has no plans to close its Piercing Pagoda division.

As for Zale itself, Sternblitz notes that, while the company closed some stores last year, it also opened a similar number. He adds the company has "no large-scale closings planned at this time. Our strategy is the same: There may be one-off store closings as leases mature."