Now I wish I had invested in Diamonds instead of...food. And rent.

false and misleading advertising

It is misleading to put the diamond necklace around a shadow's neck. It defies the laws of physics!

Yeah when I bought the engagement ring in 2007 I knew that was 8 grand that I'd never see again... when I read the title of this post I thought there might have been some hope to get some back... dashed.

Indeed, Diamonds occur plentifully in the earth, it is only by artificially limiting the supply of them that they can demand such a high price. They're a commodity that only has value in our society because they are limited, and we want them.

I just missed the deadline, I bought a diamond engagment ring (bought into the marekting blah blah blah) last march.

Though really how much money will this actually be? "Sweet I get 15 dollars, and the laywers get 4 million!"

@AngrySicilian:
$8000 for an engagement ring? Jesus - I don't want to even here about how much the wedding rings are going to cost. As students, we can only afford a $400 engagement ring (but she's happy with it, and I guess that's the point).

Well buying that engagement ring and diamond necklace is finally paying off!

$135 million is chumpchange to deBeers. There is a very good documentary out there on the deBeers monopoly. Interesting stuff. I avoided all the hype by buying my wife CZ's. (shhhhhh....)

I am glad to get anything back from the two diamond pieces of jewelry I wasted on a previous girlfriend.

I love our torts system!

@char: actually seems like its a lot

someone who bought a 4000 dollar engagement ring is looking at around 900 dollars back.

And I too am screwed, I got my ring Dec 2006.

...and I am glad that my current lady understands that diamonds are a total scam and wants nothing to do with them. I win in two ways!

@cobaltthorium:

wedding rings typically cost much less than a woman's engagement ring.

I've always been thankful that my soon-to-be-wife doesn't want real diamonds. Her ring is an old one from my grandmother, but she always said that she would rather have a manufactured diamond than a real one (in her words, they sparkle more, and aren't overpriced bullshit).

She also doesn't like gold. I scored a winner. ;)

Not that i'd encourage fraud but you only need to provide document proof if you claim a purchase over $10,000 according to the end of the submission. Take that for what you want it.

@alexak:
I didn't actually know that. Fortunately, she doesn't really care about the ring - it's more about what it means.

@alexak: Are you kidding? Then again, I live in crazy california. Weddings run $15k-50k depending on your need to impress....

People who spend large amounts of money for one of the raw forms of one of the most common elements on Earth (carbon) are morons.

@BuddyHinton: Nevermind. I'm an idiot and cant read....

So I wonder what the final amount will be for each person. $41 or some other token amount?

@BuddyHinton: But honney, that whole "diamonds cant be scratched" idea is a lie.

@Falconfire: I was quite happy believing this wasn't worth it, you've ruined that fantasy now :-p.

@BuddyHinton: Weddings are pretty overpriced to begin with, the average nupttials runs about 25 grand, and a large guest list can easily send it higher. It's worse in places like NY or CA, where a catering hall alone can run that much.

Paid 3k+ for the wifes ring. Then 50 bucks for a wedding License. Ceremony was free on mondays at the Juaquin County Courthouse.

Instead of blowing money on a wedding, we had a nice down payment available for a house.

@Shadowfire: Some of the diamond substitutes/manufactured diamonds aren't cheap themselves. I was looking at moissanite for a while and found it to still be several hundred to several thousands of dollars. Other gemstones can be as expensive or moreso than diamonds, as I found out when I tried to track down a nice (non-lab created)alexandrite for a center stone.

( cherry picked is great for drool-worthy unusual stones.)

@darkened:

It all depends on how you value your integrity. Mine isn't for sale.

I tried hard to get my fiance to come over to the idea of not using a diamond. In the end I popped down 5k for one because DeBeers had done a wonderful job making her think there was actually something behind a diamond engagement ring, and that it wasnt in fact invented by the company themselves.

Meh. We spent $60 each on our silver wedding bands, they had a design we liked. We got married in a park. The whole diamond and wedding industry marketing thing was wasted on us.

Where's the class action suit against resellers who buy wholesale and add 200% to the value? The resale offer I got for my $6500 stone - "appraised" at $10,500 (at least I didn't marry the crazy bi+ch) was $3500 because that's what they buy it for. And, no I didn't get ripped off...that's par for the course. Try reselling one sometime.

Present girlfriend knows she's getting someone that loves her and can pay the rent because his credit card isn't full of false promises.

@cobaltthorium: I bought it at Blue Nile, so at least I didn't have to pay sales tax or deal with those D-bags at the jewelery store.

I just set up an elaborate spreadsheet for the reception. It's an Italian style wedding, so I've got the guest list down to 250 (from 300s before) and I'm trying to convince my fiancee that don't necessarily need to have a Seafood table, a Sweets table, and a maned Espresso bar... or at least not all three of those! With taxes and fees I'm looking at 31.6 thousand. So much for that downpayment on the house. She says we'll get it all back and then some.. but I don't count my chickens before they hatch.

The Chicago area is expessive for a wedding.

@ClayS: I didn't have that knowledge available to me until i submitted my actual cost. Figured i'd just make it available for others consideration.

Everyone knows big portions of these class action lawsuits go unclaimed and goto the lawyers or some random "charity" that most likely the lawyers or company has plenty of paws in.

Darnit! I knew I shouldn't think that diamonds are ugly. Now I don't own one!

Why am I such a picky woman?

I guess DeBeers now wishes they had sold the diamonds with a "mandatory arbitraion" clause....

I missed the cutoff date by two weeks! I bought mine in mid-April 2006!!! YARRRGH! Damn you, DeBeers. You DeSuck.

My (then girlfriend...now wife) and I went back and forth a number of times over whether to buy a diamond or some other gem, an old ring, a new ring, or nothing at all. She's a sociologist and I'm sentimental, so traditions (even if they are manufactured traditions) carry some weight with us. We opted for an old diamond in a new setting. We were advised against an old ring entirely because they tend to be weaker from old welds or old alloys. The cool thing is that unlike every modern diamond, the cut is imperfect. The net effect is that instead of reflecting back white light (the brilliant cuts) her ring refracts the light. It is not as bright as a brilliant cut, but the rainbow effect is dazzling, and noticeable. By virtue of being "used", it was significantly cheaper. Plus its a lot like us; imperfect, but colorful.

we're thinking of eloping because we don't want a certain family member to know about the wedding. She'd ruin it for everyone.

Mother in law from hell? Hell doesn't want her!

@darkened:

I believe the way this works is that $135,432,500 has been allocated to settle the lawsuit. The lawyers have already been taken care of (no surprise there). The $135M will be split between the claimants. If there are people cheating the system, legitimate claimants, such as yourself will get a smaller piece of the pie.

Is this really, really true? Because that would be a huge financial relief. And more than pay for some work that had to be done to the house.

@AngrySicilian: $8000? Jeez! My fiancé paid about $1500 for my ring and I feel bad that he spent so much. I do recommend Blue Nile for engagement rings - the ring (platinum) is beautiful and we got a great deal on the diamond.

@Shadowfire: Where can you find a reputable seller of the manufactured ones? I've been hinting at the bf that manufactured is OK with me (and I think it is, I'm a geek and how they make those is really interesting) plus platinum is nice...

@North of 49: I love my ex-inlaws. Seriously. They're some of the coolest people I know. Still talk to them pretty often -- it wasn't a contested divorce or anything.

Did I just get lucky?

[www.theatlantic.com]

For the classic, if a bit outdated article on DeBeers.

@Jaysyn: You got something against tradition? I like the tradition but you don't have to spend thousands adhering to it.

@ North of 49: I feel your pain. It's your wedding and you should invite anyone who will ruin the experience for you. My husband and I had a low-budget, low-drama wedding on the beach in Hawaii 6 years ago and we made sure to only let his mother know a week out (which was the amount of time it took us to plan) so she wouldn't be able to make it. She's still sore about it.
To stay on topic, I'm thrilled about this lawsuit. Since we didn't spend much on the wedding (less than $600 including limo and my non-dress), we felt it was worth it to splurge a bit on my engagement ring.

@cobaltthorium: Pawn shops are a good place to get jewelery. Many of them don't even try to evaluate the stones and just buy by weight of the gold.
I bought my wife's wedding ring trading a sweet, sweet pistol for it. I took the ring to another jeweler to have it evaluated before purchase (made an arragement with the pawn shop) to make sure I was getting a good deal. I wound up getting a very nice ring for several hundred dollars cheaper than from a jewelery store.

Thanks for the notice, I've submitted my claim. :)

So this means that diamonds are going to be dirt cheap from now on, right?

Right?

@darkened: Probably not a good idea to file a false claim. If they ask for proof, the possibility you'll get entangled in a fraud lawsuit is always there. I generally follow the rule that if it asks for a Social Security number, you don't want to fraudulently file a form.

Wow, this is a big deal. I didn't realize how much I blew on diamonds over the years until I pulled out the receipts... Aww, she was worth it. According to the 'long form'I stand to get back well over a grand... Maybe I'm reading it wrong??

@Shadowfire: Your girl is smart. Gold is so tacky! Yuck.

The milfh is Ms/Mrs No49's mother. Let's just say that the less we see of her, the happier Ms No49 is.

As for diamonds - this stinks cause we've bought several in the last few years and since we're Canadian, we can't get a penny.

@cobaltthorium: Yeah, I got a cheap gold wedding band for about $40 when I used to travel alone a lot in college. It saved me a lot of trouble. :)

My real wedding ring, which I felt was a little on the spendy side, cost about $600. My husband's was about $500.

@