Ever bought a diamond? You may be eligible for a piece of a multi-million class action lawsuit alleging that diamond giant DeBeers conspired to monopolize the diamond industry by fixing, raising, and controlling diamond prices, and by issuing false and misleading advertising. The class is open to anyone who bought any diamond from anyone from January 1, 1994 to March 31, 2006. $135,432,500 will be divided amongst all the approved consumer claimants.
Here’s where you go to file a claim. Find out more details at diamondsclassaction.com.
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@kimsama: It didn’t and at the end it only said you were required to send in proof for over $10,000. It’s always easy to say well I lost the receipts and I gave it to a bitch ex gf and didn’t ask for it back.
Um, sweet. I love getting money back that I have long since spent and accounted for. Hopefully the payouts won’t be cheapened by a million people falsely claiming they bought $9,999 worth of diamond jewelry…
It’s about time people caught on to the diamond scam!!! Diamonds represent tradition for millions of people, but the darker reality is that diamonds represent exploitation and death (blood diamond anyone?). The diamond campaign was one of the most successful advertising campaigns in history because it managed to make a worthless commodity into a very profitable and lucrative industry. Women have been brainwashed into thinking that their boyfriend/fiance doesn’t love them unless they are willing to shill out two months salary for them. The two months salary gimmick is perfect too, because no matter how much you make you are really showing you care by spending two months worth of your salary on her.
I wonder if they are going to have a bottle water lawsuit next though, seeing as most of it comes from the tap…we’ll see…
Here is the best part. Obviously if too many people sign up then everyone gets a very small piece of the pie. If tons sign up then everyone gets a big fat 0.
Please be advised that if your pro rata share of the Settlement Fund is a payment of less than $10.00, no check will be sent to you as a result of prohibitive administrative costs.
If they get this out to everyone and can get those checks less than $10 then the lawyers and their administrative lackeys get it all.
shoot, you have to buy a wedding ring AND an engagement ring?
@redkamel: Welcome to Engagement Incorporated. “Leave your Wallet on the Altarâ„¢”
I bought a pair of wedding rings and an engagement ring at Meyers in Port Huron, Michigan in early 1994. But because I lived (and still live) in Canada, I’m excluded from the lawsuit. Shafted again, no fucking surprise there >:(
I’m stunned that this is real… it sounds like it’s right out of the same playbook as the Nigerian bank account phishing schemes.
@JollyJumJuck and all you others from up north:
Get you own legal system! Don’t you all have lawyers that want loads of money, too?
When can I expect my check for $0.25 after all the freeloaders submit their false claims for $9,999 rings?
@kimsama:
Yeah, probably not a good idea, especially when the signature line says “It is a crime to submit a false Claim Form and sign the penalty of perjury statement.” Ah, criminal perjury – for when common sense just doesn’t get through to people.
I wasn’t going to submit a claim, but then I read on the site that the max payout for a $2000 claim would be $640. That’s quite a bit, though I assume that if they get massive numbers of claimants, that may well go down to $10, which is the minimum amount. I went ahead and submitted a claim (I bought $4,300+ of diamond jewelry in 2003). Assuming the max goes up the more you bought, I could potentially get $1000 back. I’m not holding my breath though, since it didn’t require proof of purchase or SSN. I assume this will be like other Class Actions, such as the CD one a couple years back, where I DID get a check, for $15.
@picantel:
Or, more accurately, the lawyers DON’T get it all… They’re limited to 25% of it all, regardless. “Class Counsel will ask the Court for an award of attorneys’ fees in an amount no greater than 25% of the Settlement Fund. “
@cobaltthorium:
Actually, the wedding ring is the deal. It’s the dumb diamond that’s outrageously priced. Didn’t you always think diamond-studded saws sounded crazy? They aren’t b/c as one other commentor pointed out, they really aren’t that rare.
@Buran: Geek diamonds are fab. Best friends got one of their first back in oh, 2005? Pink. Shocking! They bought from the lab itself, Takara [www.takaradiamonds.com]
Another good source would be Gemesis [www.gemesis.com]
Enjoy!
I love the way some people feel sorry for themselves that they didn’t buy their diamond during this time period. Relax people. By not getting ripped off like the rest of us, you either saved yourselves the money being reimbursed to us, or you were able to buy a better ring.
For lab-grown diamonds, Chatham [www.chatham.com] based out of San Francisco also has very nice stones. They come in pinks, yellows, and blues (rounds only). Gemesis has other shapes, but they just do yellows and yellow-orangy/golden colors now.
Don’t look for white man-made diamonds – they don’t exist yet in large sizes. Instead go with a simulant like Lannyte [www.lannyte.com] which are lovely and very inexpensive, stay away from CZs… and I don’t much care for moissanite either.
Great, now let’s sue because aren’t forever since they are unstable at surface pressures and can be destroyed in other ways as well.
@alexak: wedding rings typically cost much less than a woman’s engagement ring.
Because her value is much less married. When engaged, she’s at least considered “marryable”!
@pegr:
Makes sense. Its like when you drive a new car off the lot, the value instantly decreases.
I was watching this inane how-to video on Yahoo about saving money on your wedding. The how to woman said the average cost of a woman’s wedding band is $1600 and the average for a man is $800. Crazy, but it’s all relative to what you make…I just bought a wedding band (we bought bands for each other) and it was about $800. No diamonds. So anything with diamonds would be about $1000 +.
Nothing in the wording of the settlement appears to exclude estate jewelry. My wife’s engagement/wedding rings, anniversary pendant and a Christmas gift ring all came from Dianne’s Estate Jewelry in San Francisco–the Christmas gift ring dates to 1885. But they’re all diamond and purchased in the specified time period, so I filed.
If you read through all the small print, the attorneys for the consumer class are going to ask the court for 25% of the award in order to “cover their expenses”. The total for consumer subclass is only $135M to compensate US consumers for all their diamond purchases between 1994 and 2006. According to MSNBC [www.msnbc.msn.com] the U.S. RETAIL diamond market is 50% of the entire world’s retail sales and was a whopping $33.7 Billion just in the year 2005. So here’s the deal: The attorneys get $33.75M, leaving $101.25M as compensation for consumers to share for all their diamond purchases over the last 12 years. And DeBeers will no longer have to worry about any future litigation! That sounds pretty rosy for everyone EXCEPT consumers. An engagement ring is supposed to equal 3 months’ salary — isn’t that what they’ve been saying since they started pushing diamonds on us in 1938? How about DeBeers cough up AT LEAST 3 month’s worth of annual U.S. diamond sales??? That would be $8.43 Billion. Instead, consumers will only receive about 0.3% of a year’s sales (the retail sales over a period of 24hours) to somehow compensate us for the last 12 years of collusion and price-fixing! This is just a scam for the attorneys to get rich quick and for Debeers to screw Americans into giving up their right to sue in the future when more legitimite attorneys are serious about taking DeBeers to task. I bet the final settlement payment is less than $25 bucks/consumer who signs up for this offensive agreement. Don’t fall for this crap, take action and write the court to tell them you don’t approve of this agreement: ” To be valid, your objection must be postmarked on or befeore March 4, 2008, and mailed to: Diamonds Claims Administrator, P.O. Box 9432, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55440-9432. ” You can still sign up for the class action if you really want to and your objection will not keep you from receiving whatever tiny settlement this is going to get you, but by agreeing to sign up for the settlement and not opting out then you are giving up your right to sue DeBeers or be part of any future class action lawsuit — when one might actually be worth something.
@AngrySicilian: 8k ring? I’m impressed.
@JD: Wedding bands rarely have diamonds in them. They’re just gold. I’ve bought mine at a fairly fancy shop and they were 350 per person.
Some good slogans DeBeers should use.
Nothing says F$&K the third world like a diamond!
15% chance its a blood diamond. But 100% your are getting ripped off.
De Beers is a cartel (like OPEC). Diamonds are not particularly rare but are managed to appear to be so by De Beers. Through crafty marketing over the years and peer pressure, they have convinced many that giving a diamond ring to a woman means something lasting. And this in a world where at least 50% of the marriages end in divorce within 5 years! There’s “a sucker is born every minute” works well for De Beers.
While diamonds look good new, most woman don’t take good care to keep them sparkling after the first few months. They get grungy and dirty, often looking dull and ugly on woman that continue to wear them. OTOH, particularly in big cities, a lot of woman fearing undue attention from potential thieves and worse, deposit that expensive piece of carbon in a safe deposit box, only taken out to wear on special occasions.
“Synthetic” large carat diamonds are being made and are readily available these days. There are absolutely no differences between true synthetic diamonds and nature made ones in terms of hardness, brilliance, etc. What can be different are trace impurity markers and the lack of fractures and such internally. This is generally how De Beers and the jewelry industry are able to tell man-made from natural stones. But diamond manufacturing companies are learning to mix the right impurities in to their diamonds to eliminate this tell.
Synthetics cost something like $5/carat to make. But the jewelers who market them often sell them at near mined stones prices. Why? Because De Beers has done such a good marketing/indoctrination job, that they can get away with this. Greed is eternal, right?
Save yourself a lot of money and buy a simple gold wedding band. If your fiancé MUST have a real diamond, buy a real synthetic one. It will be at least a little cheaper than a mined diamond. Or capitulate to the marketing and buy a mined diamond. Help support managed artificial scarcity, environmental damage, some degree of slave labor and pay for the jeweler’s new Mercedes or BMW.
Some links to check:
[www.wired.com]
[www.wired.com]
[moneycentral.msn.com]
[en.wikipedia.org]
[www.amnh.org]
[www.apollodiamond.com]
[www.gemesis.com]
@uricmu: She sorta picked it out… built online at blue nile. Here’s the picture
[bp2.blogger.com]
Lol, bought my wife her diamond in april 2006. Figures…
One of my friends bought his wife a 26,000 engagement ring. Best part is he only makes 40k a year. 3 Months salary my ass.
@JD: Mine has diamonds and ran about $600. Yeah, they’re small, but we bought from a small local jeweler with designers & makers on site, so we got much nicer stuff for less bucks. (Ours were recreations of designs from a particular jeweler in London in the 1800s; I just wanted a plain band but my husband could not be satisfied until we found his historic band … and then of course I fell in love with one by the same designer!)
Misleading advertising? You mean even if I give her a diamond she won’t love me forever?
@Davezter: Dude, don’t hold your breath. The agreement is offensive, sure, but I’d rather get $25 than nothing. There won’t be another, “better” settlement later on. Diamonds don’t cause cancer; there isn’t the impetus for a big-tobacco like maelstrom against deBeer’s.
Just an update, I submitted my claim online on Friday for $3800 in diamond expenses. Easy enough form, we’ll see what happens.
I STILL can’t file a claim. I enter my name and address and the system just hangs and times out.
I’ve tried everything, Firefox-IE-Home IP-Work IP.
Anyone else having the problem or know how to help?