I've tried everything, Firefox-IE-Home IP-Work IP.

Anyone else having the problem or know how to help?

@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.

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.

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]

Nothing says F$&K the third world like a diamond!

15% chance its a blood diamond. But 100% your are getting ripped off.

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.

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.

@pegr:

Makes sense. Its like when you drive a new car off the lot, the value instantly decreases.

@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"! ;)

Another good source would be Gemesis [www.gemesis.com]

Enjoy!

@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.

@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. "

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.

@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.

@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?

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.

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...

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

@AngrySicilian: "She says we'll get it all back and then some.. but I don't count my chickens before they hatch."

I definitely would not count on it. (And I definitely wouldn't mention that expectation in any way to your guests or you'll end up in Miss Manners. :) )

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.

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

Right?

@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.

[www.theatlantic.com]

For the classic, if a bit outdated article on DeBeers.

Did I just get lucky?

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.

@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.

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!

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

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

Why am I such a picky woman?

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.

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.

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.

@darkened:

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

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

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.

@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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

I love our torts system!

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

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