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Press Release: The law firm of Cummings Manookian announced that it will begin filing a number of class action lawsuits centered on the dumping of billions of dollars of intentionally overgraded diamonds on hundreds of thousands of consumers. Diamond overgrading is the practice of deliberately misrepresenting a diamond’s characteristics to a consumer. Most commonly, a jeweler claims that one or more of the diamond’s 4Cs (carat, color, clarity and cut) is greater than its true grade. Doing so, allows the jeweler to charge the public far more in price than he or she could command at the diamond’s true grade. For years, through a global commercial conspiracy, unscrupulous jewelers and their wholesalers have passed off inferior diamonds as far more valuable than their actual worth by having them “certified” or “graded” by known fraudulent grading houses. At the request of diamond retailers and wholesalers, these grading houses issued bogus certificates purporting to grade a diamond’s 4Cs, using industry-accepted Gemological Institute of America (GIA) terminology. In reality, the certificates intentionally and consistently overstated the quality of the diamonds on the GIA scale by as much as five grades. By overstating the diamond’s value, dishonest jewelers, wholesalers and the grading organizations conspired to, and were successful in, ripping off the U.S. public to the tune of billions of dollars. In many cases, consumers paid premium prices for jewelry that is better described as junk. The Nashville-based law firm of Cummings Manookian pioneered the legal avenue to recovery for consumers defrauded by diamond overgrading. The firm filed the first cases in the country on the issue and its lawsuits were instrumental in the downfall and disbanding of one of the most notoriously fraudulent grading organizations, EGL International. Following a months-long, nationwide investigation, Cummings Manookian has determined that the practice of defrauding consumers via diamond overgrading was so pervasive in the diamond industry, that multiple class and mass actions are required to seek redress for the hundreds of thousands of victims. The suits include as defendants nationally and regionally prominent retailers, wholesalers, and grading organizations. The lawsuits will be filed in rounds with the first round expected in early June. According to attorney Brian Cummings, “Because of the widespread nature of the fraud and the availability of triple damages and attorney’s fees, this may be the largest consumer action to ever hit the jewelry industry.”
Consumers can learn more about overgrading, the options available for recourse and start the process of filing a claim online on the firm's website: http://diamondlawsuit.com
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