More on the diamond class-action lawsuit

(WHAS11) - Millions of Americans who bought diamond jewelry could be in for a sizable rebate.

It’s all thanks to a class-action lawsuit that accused the DeBeers diamond company of price-fixing and monopoly practices.

If you bought a diamond between January, 1994 and March, 2006, you could be eligible for a share of the $295 million settlement.

$135 million is allocated to customers—the rest to retailers.

Radio Personality Aaron Miller agreed to be my guinea pig for this story, saying the chance of a rebate doesn’t cheapen the engagement ring he bought for his wife.

“The day they called me and said it was ready, I went and picked it up and immediately went to her and proposed,” Miller recalled, “I couldn’t hold on to it secretly.”

“He’s terrible at lying,” Susan Miller agreed.

The Miller’s have been married three and a half years.

“I picked the ring out by myself and I surprised her with it.”

Like most couples, her engagement ring is their biggest diamond purchase.  As it turns out, a rebate on an engagement ring could present a sort of test of your marriage.

While Aaron says “Any money we get back should be mine,” Susan shakes her head.

“Totally disagree. This is a 50/50 deal now.”

Settling that debate might be difficult, but applying for the rebate is easy.

More on the diamond class-action lawsuit

The rebate amount is based on your total diamond purchases from January,1994 to March, 2006.  The more you bought, the bigger the percentage of your rebate.

For instance, if your diamond ring cost $4000, you could get as much as $1280 back - 32 percent of the purchase price.

But don’t spend that windfall just yet.

Legal and administrative fees will eat up a big chunk of the settlement. 

And the more claims that are filed, the smaller the pieces of that $135 million pie.

“It would be a nice unexpected surprise is kind of how I would treat it.” Susan acknowledged.

“I did the class action lawsuit a few years ago for everybody that bought (music) CD’s,” Aaron explained, “and ‘you’re going to be getting your share of millions of dollars’ and I got like 2 dollars. So I’m not expecting much.”

Alicia Garcia of Karina’s Jewelers says she was not aware of the consumer rebate until I told her.

She was aware of the rebate offered to diamond retailers, like her jewelry store.

She says the big winners will be the biggest diamond retailers.

“Costco has a lot of buying power, or Zales, Sterling Incorporated, all those big companies have a tremendous amount of wholesale power,” Garcia said as she leaned on her jewelry case.

“They’ve got millions and millions of dollars of diamonds.”

Consumers, meanwhile, will probably get much less. If your share is less than $10, you won’t get paid anything.

But it’s free to file a claim - and might take you just ten minutes at the computer.  If you are claiming more than $10,000, you’ll need to show proof.

On the online form, you fill out contact information and specifics for each diamond item you are claiming. 

And how will the Miller’s spend their rebate?

“She has a secret stash she’s saving to get diamond earrings.” Aaron acknowledged. “So whatever we get back on this probably go to purchase more diamonds.”