I Do, Now I Don’t Saves Jilted Lovers Money

Selling engagement rings, made easy

Love chooses us (or we chose love) with the best of intentions. I figured I’d be married for the rest of my life; now I’m almost done with a divorce. While I shall forever be an idealist with cynical tendencies, I have to chalk up my naivete to the brain chemicals. They also made me take out personal loans and cash advances to ensure that the bills wouldn’t prevent me from getting my ex her birthday, Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day present on time. So the chemicals were good for my health. They’ll be good for me again someday, too.

Some people aren’t quite so hopeful (they say “more realistic”) as I. Perhaps they’ve been burned before. Perhaps they don’t want to have to eat most of the cost of that engagement ring. Perhaps they’ve never heard about I Do, Now I Don’t.

As seen on Good Morning America

That’s exactly what happened to Josh Opperman. He had pumped years worth of savings into an engagement ring. One day, after returning home from work, he discovered that his lovely woman had left with everything but a table and the engagement ring she’d left on it. Opperman had been dumped like graying bathwater.

“It’s a terrible story,” he said.

The first thing he did was attempt to recoup his losses on the engagement ring. Unfortunately, the jeweler who’d sold it to him was only willing to give him 35 percent of what he had paid. In a flourish of greed, the avaricious peddler claimed the amount was so little because he was “trying to protect profit margin.” Needless to say, Opperman was up a creek without a paddle – or boat. His only flotation device was a diamond ring he couldn’t sell back.

But calamity can lead to prosperity

“I was saving for it for a few years. I was putting money away from my paycheck every month,” he said. Now he needed a way to try to get his head back above water.

And he found it. An “A-ha!” moment with his sister gave Opperman the idea to start a Web site called www.idonowidont.com. On his Web site, he would be the financial healer that helps people in the exact same situation he’d suffered through before. People could sell their engagement rings at 65 percent to 70 percent of their cost. Furthermore, engagement ring shoppers could find bargains on the site.

“On our site, we are basically skipping the middle man,” Opperman said.

Sellers can tell their stories, too

This is where the real healing begins. Money is one thing, but being able to unlock the heartache from our guarded hearts and set it free is a big step toward recovery. Sharing the pain also lends a poignancy that subconsciously acts as a sales pitch. As a guy, what would you rather buy: jewelry that comes from a place of strong emotion, which moves you in your desire to share your heart with the one you love… or a cold new piece of gold and diamond that has never felt the fires of love? OK, I know I’m stretching it a bit here… the real attraction is that they’re cheaper. Let it be your little secret, though.

Here’s a sample story: “We were never married nor engaged, but I purchased this ring in hopes of that commitment. Sadly, it never materialized,” one man wrote. “I got this ring from my ‘fiance’ at the time. He paid half cash and half with my credit card. I’m no longer wearing the ring, but I’m still stuck paying for it,” a woman wrote.

A simple recipe for engagement ring transactions

Idonowidont.com is very different from your standard jeweler in that once a buyer and seller come to an agreement on a ring’s sale, both the money and the ring are sent to I Do, Now I Don’t for safekeeping. While the money is held in escrow, a gemologist with prerequisite certifications appraises the ring’s value.

Mark Yakubov of Accredited Gemological Institute looks to be fair. “My job is to be very independent. I don’t know what the buyer wants or what the seller wants. I give my own independent opinion, and if it satisfies both parties, they take it from there.”

That’s exactly what engagement ring shoppers and sellers are doing during this difficult economy. They’re looking for convenience and good deals, which Idonowidont.com has proven itself capable of offering. Opperman was one of the first to test out his service, and he is a happy customer. As he is now married to someone else, hopefully he won’t need his Web site’s services again. But the option is there. Personal loans and cash advances are there too for when he needs to pay for that surprise ER bill in the middle of the night. If he has children, it’ll happen.

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