Are You A Victim Of A Diamond Ring Scam or Other Bridal Scams?

We at BridalTips.com need to hear from you! Your bad fortunes can be turned around to help other brides! No matter what category it's in, or how small a scam you think it is, please let us know. We moved our email form to our car buying site, so Click Here To Email Us. We can even offer you tips on how to get out of the scam, or how to seek restitution, and who to report the scam to.

You'll know more on buying diamond rings than diamond store salespeople. View our Diamond Engagement Ring Deals Database, visitors email us specs and pricing of engagement rings purchased after reading our BridalTips.com buying guide.

Some diamond engagement ring salespeople try to Jedi mind trick you…

Diamond salespeople may lie to you that we only say what diamond advertisers pay us to say. That’s a lie, nice try, Darth Vader! Our BridalTips.com diamond buying guide was online long before we had advertisers, no one pays us to say anything. Our trusted reviews of diamond engagement ring sites are the most trusted, unlike diamond portals who often steal our content. It’s very difficult for advertisers to make it through our strict, rigorous review process before we allow them on BridalTips.com, then we join their affiliate program. We researched hard for diamond wedding ring sites so you don’t have to, and we turn away jewelry stores every week for failing our tough site approval criteria:

• They are all required to have at least 30 day money back guarantees
• Must provide GIA loose diamond grading certificate or equivalent for each diamond
• Must have satisfactory rating with BBB (Better Business Bureau)

Getting diamond prices and diamond ring quotes for your engagement ring

You should search major online jewelry sites to get a consensus of diamond prices right from your PC. Be sure to use "build your ring" and "compare diamond rings" features of online diamond jewelry stores to get your free price quotes, which usually beat mall diamond stores. While getting diamond prices, you are under absolutely no commitment to buy unless you enter your credit card in the shopping cart, so load up as many rings as you like into shopping carts, and choose the ring you want with the best price. Some sites even let you save your diamond ring comparison list and come back days later to compare more diamond ring prices and quotes, maybe add a platinum wedding ring set, or abandon your cart if you find a better ring on another site.

Is it safe to buy diamond rings online? Yes, and there's no obligation to buy

Our visitors here at BridalTips.com report great diamond engagement ring savings when they use trusted sites, plus there's no sales tax. Many of our visitors buy diamond wedding rings online from Blue Nile and Diamond Ideals. Some online jewelers are as close to wholesale diamonds as you can get. You and I wouldn't know a good loose diamond in our hand anyway so with trusted sites and certification, it's not a requirement to see it in a store first. It's safe to buy diamond jewelry online. We buy $3000 Dell computers unseen, you know it's a Pentium, yet you never see the computer first, right? Online diamond stores list the GIA grading report, you know what you are getting, no need to hug your diamond before you buy. Online diamond ring prices are equivalent to wholesale diamonds that you can't get at many mall jewelry stores. Most ship FedEx overnight, and have 30 day money back guarantees. Use the major sites that we recommend and you'll have no worries. Avoid jewelers who have less than a 30 day return policy.

Canadians can get diamonds online now
Canadians often ask me where to buy diamond rings. Blue Nile ships loose diamonds & wedding rings to Canada, for our friends to the North! Most others refuse to ship to Canada.

Book reviews for educating yourself

The best diamond ring book we've seen is Diamond Ring Buying Guide, with color photos of loose diamond cuts & shapes, clarity enhanced diamonds. Diamond colors show you shades of yellow and treated diamonds, how to judge loose diamond cut. Color photos show you good and bad cuts, tips on buying. There's color photos of inclusions, cracks, clouds, bubbles and photos of clarity grades I3 on up. Two other diamond engagement ring books you can check out:

• How To Buy A Diamond: Insider Secrets for Getting Your Money's Worth
• Engagement & Wedding Rings: The Definitive Buying Guide For People in Love

Information is power

Don't rely on diamond wedding ring salespeople to tell you what diamond rings are worth. Verify diamond engagement ring quality with your own eyes, wary of common diamond ring jewelry scams. We're not here to trash jewelers. Like any business, there's bad apples. When buying engagement ring diamonds, you should use The Folder. On our other site CarBuyingTips.com, I suggest bringing "the folder" to the dealer. Similarly, once jewelers see you're an informed diamond ring buyer, they cannot scam you. Read the diamond buying books we recommend, and you'll save $2000.

Common buying mistakes and scams to avoid
We hear from diamond ring buyers who get scammed because they violated my rules of protecting yourself. It's amazing how foolish young lovers can be when shopping for diamonds in the Caribbean islands, thinking they are going to get high end diamond jewelry at lowball prices. What they get are lowball diamonds at lowball prices, with lies about "how high it will appraise back home", or how it's "top notch jewelry." The cruise ships recommend local diamond jewelers, but remember, they are getting paid for it. This advice is for your use at any jeweler:

• Do not buy a diamond over 3/4 carat without getting a GIA diamond grading certificate, or an AGS certificate or equivalent.
• Force the diamond jeweler to put in writing on the sales invoice the exact 4Cs grading of the diamond, otherwise do not buy.
• Do not accept ANY appraisal from the store that is selling you the diamond engagement ring. DUH! Insurers don't accept them, so why should you?
• DO not buy diamond in the Islands, they lie like crazy, they have bogus guarantees of how your diamond will appraise. No laws protect your purchase outside the U.S.

Diamond Engagement Ring Questions to ask yourself

What size diamond ring should I buy? What is an good diamond ring carat size? Platinum or gold?

The consensus among girls is that diamonds should be one carat. Engagement ring diamond prices per carat jump after 1 carat, so diamond cutters whose stones are .99 carat instead 1.0 carat are scolded. Some prefer a 1.05 ct loose diamond of lesser quality than a 0.95 carat loose diamond. Use the useful Recently Purchased Loose Diamonds at Blue Nile tool. I send lots of guys there to see what others are buying. Here's my formula:

Your love for your fiancé has nothing to do with diamond engagement ring pricing.

Don't let salespeople "Jedi mind trick" you. Beware the leaven of the Pharisees! You are asking her to spend the rest of her life with you, that's the gauge of your love.

How do I find out my fiancée's wedding ring size before shopping jewelry stores?

It's not relevant, jewelers easily resize diamond rings later. You can get one of her rings when she's not looking and have it sized, then go shopping for her diamond engagement ring. Discount diamond engagement ring buying sites will resize the ring for you after you give it to her. Don't try to trace one of her rings, to get the size, you'll be off too much. Try sliding her ring down your finger and mark the top of the ring where it stops. Then your jeweler can tell you her size.

Helzberg diamonds

We get asked all the time about Helzberg Diamonds lifetime guarantee if your diamond is chipped or is lost from the diamond ring mount. Diamond jewelry stores like Helzberg that offer these programs require that you bring your diamond ring into their store every six months for examination. If you miss one of these check-ups, your "lifetime" warranty at Helzberg jewelers would be voided.

"How can I buy a ring online if I can't see it first?"

Yes. Many honest online diamond ring sites will give you a great deal. The key here is the GIA certificates, you are buying diamond jewelry according to known published specs, just like you buy computers online from Dell according to the specs without seeing them. Many BridalTips.com visitors email us with great success buying their diamond wedding rings from online diamond stores. Your credit card is safe and encrypted. At restaurants your credit card imprints end up in the dumpster for crooks to steal. Honest diamond ring sites make you feel at home, and you can buy engagement ring diamonds online safely. Here at BridalTips.com we will not steer you wrong.

WARNING: Synthetic Moissanite diamonds

Synthetic Moissanite diamonds (silicon carbide) gained widespread use in 1999. These fake diamonds are so good that standard diamond jeweler thermal conduction testers cannot detect them! Moissanite rings sell for nearly as much as real loose diamonds, further confusing diamond engagement ring buyers. According to the Diamond Ring Buying Guide when you look through a 10x loupe, if you see double facets or a doubled diamond table reflection, it is a Moissanite synthetic.

Loose Diamond Grading Reports, AGS & GIA Certified

Two U.S. organizations protect us consumers, provide diamond industry ethics, and promote strict standards used to grade loose diamonds. The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) and the American Gem Society (AGS) labs do not appraise a fully assembled ring, they grade only the loose gems. Internationally, International Gemological Institute (IGI) produces diamond grading reports, appraises diamond engagement rings. Most jewelry experts and diamond industry insiders we spoke to prefer GIA and AGS, with reputations for strict grading parameters. Another lab, European Gemological Laboratories (EGL), is unknown to most U.S. consumers. They created controversy with some jewelry industry people, adding a clarity level SI3, which jewelers have told us should be the lesser I1. This potentially allows a diamond that should be an inferior I1 to sell for more as an EGL SI3. Some jewelers view this as less strict than GIA, preferring to only sell GIA or AGS graded diamonds. Mondera Online Diamonds only uses GIA and AGS reports in order to provide consistency to customers and avoid the price fluctuations that may exist amongst different reports on the market.

Where do loose diamonds come from?

Diamonds are composed of pure carbon, starting out as coal millions of years ago, heated and compressed into carbon crystals, which are very tightly packed groupings of carbon atoms. Each carbon atom is nicely bonded to 4 neighboring carbon atoms, so good luck trying to break that bond, I'm going for a beer instead. This is what makes diamonds so hard, and loose diamonds are used as industrial tools and drills as they are harder than the substance they are drilling into. Diamonds are mostly found in South Africa, Russia, Australia.

What Is De Beers Diamonds?

De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., is the oldest, largest diamond mining company, with a number of diamond mines. A monopoly, they are illegal and cannot sell loose diamonds in the U.S. Instead, they sell loose diamonds to 150 "Site Holders" 10 times per year. Site holders then distribute loose diamonds to diamond cutters around the world. De Beers controls most of the diamond industry. They changed Japanese tradition into giving diamond engagement rings in 1966 when they opened up shop there. De Beers makes some finished diamonds as well as uncut diamonds that are marketed to diamond cutters, diamond brokers, and diamond wholesalers, where they end up in diamond districts, finally diamond jewelry stores.

Loose Diamonds Lesson

This is the GIA description of the diamond engagement ring I bought my wife for your reference as you read this article:

Diamond Carat Weight: 1.03 Carats, Color Grade: H, Clarity Grade: VVS2, Diamond Cut: Round Brilliant, Fluorescence: NONE
Depth %: 57.5%, Table %: 64%, Girdle: Thin to medium, Culet: Small, Polish: Good, Symmetry: Good. This will all make sense real soon.

Which rings are people buying?

A good gauge is the Recently Purchased Diamonds at Blue Nile. That diamond search function is a snapshot of diamonds people are buying today. Then when you're on the diamond web sites, you can play with each of the "4 C" factors and see how it affects the price.

AGS or GIA Certified Diamonds, A Must Have

I recommend you only buy a diamond if it has a GIA Diamond Grading Report or equivalent, who only certifies loose diamonds, not the entire ring. Jewelers call them "GIA Certs". Dated certifications are laminated and typed. Don't confuse this with a diamond appraisal, it's a diamond grading report, accurate the date of grading. Most jewelers will get a GIA if it's over 3/4 carat. You want GIA certificates dated 1 year or less, unless the diamond was in a vault unused. The GIA lab experts grade diamonds with microscopes, UV lights, etc. With the GIA cert, jewelers can't overstate your diamond, a violation of FTC rules. The GIA cert "maps" your loose diamond, showing inclusions and blemishes plotted as viewed from above or below. The GIA cert aids you to spot inclusions when you view the diamond through a 10x loupe. GIA reports might be stale if the diamond had abuse since it was graded. When you shop Blue Nile, Diamond Ideals or Mondera, they list the GIA cert online before you buy. How many mall jewelry stores will do that for you?

The "Four C's" Of Loose Diamonds

Welcome to the 4 Cs of loose diamond buying You've heard the "Four Cs" a million times while buying engagement ring diamonds, but what are the 4 C's?? They are Carat, Cut, Color, Clarity. Each "C" effects reflected light in it's own way. The Four C's are 4 important parameters that are used to define the quality (or lack thereof) in a diamond. These 4 parameters work together to control selling prices and how good your gem stone will look.

1) Diamond Carat Weight

This is the weight of the loose diamond, one carat = 200 mg. The engagement ring diamond I bought was 1.03 Ct. Marketing tradition says spend 2 months salary, and get the best diamond you can that fits the bill. Most girls have psychological goals of 1 carat. It's amazing how diamonds smaller than 1 carat look really small. For many girls, Carats are the most important part. They show off their rings to their friends like a trophy, and the bigger it is the crazier they get. Some girls don't care about size and are just happy that you love them (I'm referring to the diamond). For some girls 1/2 to 0.75 Ct. is fine by them. Don't buy a 2 carat diamond engagement ring just because it's 2 carats. It could be a yellow 2 carat diamond ring loaded with flaws. You'll need the other 3 C's to ensure you get a quality diamond. Ask for the EXACT carat weight, you don't want to hear "It's about a carat". It's either 1.0 carat, or it's not.

Pricing Example Exclusive On BridalTips.com: Shopping for diamond engagement rings is like shopping for meat. Buy them by weight, cost per carat, not just by selling price of the diamond, so you can verify you are paying fair value. The table below shows 4 diamond prices. "Diamond D" is the best deal, it costs only $3874 per carat, whereas the cheapest, "Diamond A", costs $4700 per carat, less bang for the buck.

Diamonds increase in price per carat at intervals like 1.0, 1.25, 1.5, etc. If you want a 1.0 carat, try 0.96 instead. Here's a search I did once:

• 0.94 Carat H color, VS2: $4756 (cost per carat=$5059)
• 1.04 Carat H color, VS2: $5491 (cost per carat= $5280)

Two diamonds listed above, close to 1.0 carat, you can't tell the difference in size, but look at the huge difference in price.

2) Diamond Color

Most diamonds range in color from clear to yellow, clear being the best. This diamond color chart shows how jewelers rate diamond color:

Most U.S. jewelry stores use the GIA letter scale. Ideally you want gems that are D, E, or F in color. But your wallet determines the color grade, not you, most likely a J or a K color diamond. Most people get G, H, or I. Colors like J,K,L are more affordable. D,E,F are rare and expensive, out of range of us common folk. Don't consider M-Z, they have no business in diamond engagement rings, they belong in costume jewelry. Still some jewelry shops pawn them off on you as excellent diamonds. This is why I tell you to bring the Diamond Ring Buying Guide with you to the jeweler and refer to the color charts so the jeweler knows you researched your diamond wedding rings.

Don't Eat The Yellow Snow
Some people like yellow diamonds in the "Z" color range, referred to as fancy color diamonds, or fancy yellow diamonds. Some jewelers trick you by making a yellow diamond look white, and show the diamond on a black velvet pad or background. It sure does make the diamond look great but INSIST on seeing the stone on a white background (Even a white piece of paper). Black will make even the most yellow diamond appear white. If jewelers refuse you, WALK OUT! Better yet, hold it against a GIA color stone guide.

Diamond Fluorescence

Diamond fluorescence is your diamond's reaction to ultraviolet light. We at Bridaltips.com have interviewed the experts and they are divided whether fluorescence helps or hurts diamond values. Some unscrupulous jewelers pull a Jedi mind trick, showing you how "perfect" your diamond is as it turns blue under UV! So what, my T-shirt looks cool under UV lights also. They can't sell you on the diamond engagement ring's real attributes. UV lighting is not how we view normally diamonds, so it's a bogus show, a waste of time. These stones might look whiter in fluorescent lighting than they really are. A little bit of blue fluorescence is acceptable, but only in diamonds on the yellow side, as it takes the bite out of the yellow. Experts claim fluorescence makes a clear diamond appear cloudy in sunlight. You don't want a diamond engagement ring with fluorescence if your diamond is clear. The GIA cert indicates if there's diamond fluorescence. Loose diamonds with higher diamond fluorescence sell for less than diamonds with no fluorescence. So it does not matter which side wins this argument, it's how the market perceives diamond fluorescence that counts. This reduces values of diamond rings 10-20%. FTC forbids Misuse of the term "blue white" to make a loose diamond sound better. In a test done by GIA, they claimed "experts could not agree on the effects of fluorescence from one loose diamond to the next diamond. Most felt that strongly blue fluorescent diamonds were perceived to have a better color appearance when viewed from table-up. There was no trend when the loose diamonds were viewed table-down. Most experts saw no relationship between fluorescence and transparency."

My advice to you: Side with the market on this one and pick a good clear stone for your diamond wedding ring so that you don't need fluorescence at all to make up for the yellow, and don't obsess over it. No one views a diamond straight down from the top anyway.

What is most important in choosing an engagement ring diamond? Cut, color, clarity or carat?

3) Diamond Cut

Diamond cut probably controls more variables affecting the quality and subsequent pricing of your engagement ring diamond. If diamonds are not cut to the right shape and proportion, the effects are less than optimal, even if it has great color and clarity. If the diamond is cut too deep, you'll see large dark shaded areas when viewing it through the table. Quality of the cut is why GIA certificates are so important, as they include data that salespeople won't point out: Depth % and Table %, ratios compared to the width of the diamond. A good table cut should be 53-64% of the width. Good Depth % are 58-64%. Anything outside this range means the diamond is too deep or too shallow. Polish and symmetry (i.e. facet alignment) fine tune the price. You want the GIA cert to declare at least "Good" for both. In a nutshell, the 4 C's mean squat without good proportion data.

Princess Cut Diamonds

Princess Cut diamonds don't have the same proportional requirements as round diamonds. For princess cut diamonds, just make sure the depth percentage is between 60% to 71%. The industry is still undecided on good specs for Princess Cut diamonds. No trade agreement has been established on them yet, American Gem Society is working on it. Make sure your special girl likes princess cut diamonds before you rush out to buy that engagement ring. And make sure she comes back here to visit BridalTips.com once you are engaged.

Hearts On Fire Diamonds

"Hearts On Fire" is a trademarked brand name owned by Hearts On Fire Company, LLC. These diamonds start from the top 1% of all diamond cuts. When you look through the bottom of the Hearts On Fire diamond you can see a heart pattern and the diamond is very brilliant. You'll find other marketing names similar to this out there. According to the company, every Hearts On Fire diamond meets or exceeds the AGS 000 rating. Many people mix up the name and ask us about "Hearts Of Fire", there is no such name. My guess is they are thinking of the Hearts On Fire brand.

4) Diamond Clarity

Diamond clarity is important. Diamonds have natural flaws called inclusions and blemishes inside the diamond. These can be tiny air bubbles, black carbon deposits, clouds, or feather cracks. Look at ice cubes, you'll see they crack inside and look like white feathers. On the external surface blemishes can be chips, imperfect corners, scratches, or pits on the surface. Some diamond flaws are so small you need a microscope to see, or a 10x loupe. Some flaws are so bad Mr. Magoo can see them. The easier flaws are to see, the worse the diamond is. The diamond will not properly bounce light as it should and will not sparkle as much as you'd like. Ideally you want zero inclusions in your diamond. But life is a trade off, the fewer inclusions, the more it costs. The more it costs, the more inclusions you'll be willing to live with! Once again the GIA and the AGS are there for us with more standards. Below is the GIA Color Grading Scale, and the AGS scales, graded by looking at the diamond through a 10x loupe. Most jewelers use the GIA scale. As you shop the mall jewelry stores, the tags may have the GIA letters on them. The ones you'll see the most of are VS2, SI1, and SI2, typically the ones you and I can afford. Diamond color clarity has a big effect on price.

Clarity Enhanced Diamonds

Clarity enhanced diamonds are a short cut to be avoided. Some diamond jewelry contains clarity enhanced diamonds, reworked losers, without a GIA cert, as GIA does not grade clarity enhanced diamonds. Some jewelers use a laser to vaporize black carbon deposits inside flawed diamonds, leaving a white track similar to ski tracks, that a trained jeweler could easily spot with a 10x loupe. Some jewelers perform fracture filling by injecting temporary clear solids whose index of refraction simulates diamond. But these are temporary solutions to permanent problems, band aids, that make your gem look 1-2 grades higher. Over time, humidity, and temperature extremes, clarity enhanced diamonds don't last. Some jewelers don't tell you it's a clarity enhanced diamond, and if you get one, it better be priced much less than other gems of the same color and clarity level. Clarity enhanced diamonds are like buying a car that's been in a wreck, then painted over. This is why I tell you to bring the Diamond Engagement Ring Buying Guide with you to the jewelry store for the clarity charts and photos of clarity enhanced diamonds The jeweler knows they cannot pull the wool over your eyes.

How Do the 4Cs Affect Your Diamond Price?

It's hard for the novice to visualize how the price is affected by carat, cut, color and clarity. So I like to use the interactive search function At BlueNile. It lets you see how quality and size tradeoffs affect diamond price. And narrowing your search from over 30,000 diamonds, it's easy to find the right diamond. Play around with the parameters and you'll see the price change. You can also Design your own diamond ring with them.

Rapaport Diamond Report And Rapaport Loose Diamond Price Sheet

The Rapaport Diamond Report is a subscription for the diamond and jewelry industry, providing diamond prices, news, business issues, and fashion of diamond wedding rings, consumer trends. Many jewelers subscribe to this "Kelly Blue Book" of diamonds. Jewelers rely on "Rapaport Sheets" for world-wide wholesale diamond prices. Rap sheets are weekly spreadsheets listing wholesale diamond prices by color and clarity on tables corresponding to the carat weight you choose. If you visit a Rapaport "member" (subscriber) jeweler, maybe they'll show you the wholesale price of your diamond, showing how much profit they are making, like some car dealers show you the invoice. They are under no obligation to, but the jeweler that sold me the diamond for my fiancé showed me the Rapaport Sheets and it ended up being the deciding factor of the sale. Jewelry stores, take note. Most jewelers buy diamonds at "a discount from the Rap Sheet", usually 10-20% off. So a jeweler can show you the Rap Sheet, charge you the "wholesale" price, and still make money, just like a car dealers make money selling you the car at invoice.