Corporate Greed Case Study: Helzberg Diamonds & Its Impact on Consumers

TLDR: A lawsuit alleges Helzberg Diamonds has built its online business on a foundation of “fake sales” and “made-up regular prices,” creating a perpetual cycle of discounts to mislead customers into believing they are getting a limited-time deal. The legal complaint details a system where products, particularly those over $300, are allegedly never sold at their advertised “regular” price, a practice that violates multiple state and federal laws. Read on to understand the full scope of the allegations and how this case highlights systemic failures in corporate accountability and consumer protection.

Introduction: The Illusion of a Good Deal

Advertised sales are powerful. They create a sense of urgency, a feeling that one must act now to capture fleeting value. A lawsuit filed against Helzberg’s Diamond Shops, LLC, alleges the national jewelry retailer has weaponized this consumer impulse through a systematic campaign of deceptive pricing on its website.

The complaint, brought forth on behalf of plaintiff Kim Owens and a proposed class of thousands of other consumers, paints a picture of a company engaged in perpetual, fake sales. The core of the allegation is that Helzberg advertises inflated and artificial “regular prices” for its jewelry, only to offer seemingly significant, but ultimately illusory, discounts.

This practice is not an occasional marketing tactic but a core feature of its business model, designed to dupe consumers into making purchases they otherwise would not. Kinda like how Invicta watches are always 90% off lmao but that’s a story for another time

This case is more than a dispute over a single transaction; it is a window into the structural failures of a market system that incentivizes such behavior.

Under the pressures of neoliberal capitalism, where profit maximization is the ultimate goal, the line between aggressive marketing and illegal deception can become perilously thin. The allegations against Helzberg suggest a calculated decision to exploit consumer psychology for financial gain, a strategy enabled by lax regulatory enforcement and the immense difficulty for any single customer to uncover the scheme.

Inside the Allegations: A System of Corporate Misconduct

The legal action against Helzberg Diamonds outlines a deliberate and consistent strategy of false advertising. The company is accused of creating an artificial sense of urgency and value by marking nearly all of its products with discounts from “regular” prices that are never genuine.

The Perpetual Sale

The lawsuit contends that for Helzberg products priced at $300 and over, referred to as “High-Priced Products,” the items are consistently on sale. This is achieved through either a sitewide discount or a minimum value discount, such as “$50 off $299+,” ensuring that these items are almost never offered at their listed “regular” price. An investigation by the plaintiff’s counsel, using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, supports this claim. Of 85 randomly selected screenshots of Helzberg’s website taken between 2022 and 2025, 79 of them showed a discount applicable to these high-priced items.

This evidence suggests the “sale” is the standard operating procedure, and the higher, crossed-out price is an anchor designed to make the actual price seem like a bargain. The complaint argues this tactic misleads a reasonable consumer into believing they are receiving a true discount off a prevailing market price. In reality, the discounted price is the effective regular price.

A Timeline of Alleged Deception

The complaint provides numerous dated screenshots from Helzberg’s website, illustrating the constant nature of these promotions. These examples are intended to show that as soon as one “limited time” sale ends, another one immediately begins.

The Plaintiff’s Experience

The experience of the named plaintiff, Kim Owens, serves as a case study for the harm. Around December 2022, Ms. Owens purchased a “14K Forever One LC Moissanite Ring” from Helzberg’s website. The ring was represented as having a regular price of $2,199.00, but was on sale for a discounted price of $1,499.00.

Ms. Owens relied on these representations, believing she was receiving a substantial, time-limited discount of $700 off the ring’s market value. The lawsuit asserts that she would not have made the purchase had she known the “regular price” was artificial and that the discount was not genuine. The complaint states the product she bought, like other “High-Priced Products,” is consistently available for less than its advertised list price, making the represented discount and sale period false.

Regulatory Capture & Legal Loopholes

The lawsuit against Helzberg alleges direct violations of established consumer protection laws, raising questions about the effectiveness of the regulatory bodies meant to enforce them. The very existence of such a widespread and long-running scheme points to a failure in oversight, a common symptom of regulatory capture and the legal loopholes that corporations exploit under neoliberalism.

The complaint specifically cites California’s False Advertising Law, which prohibits making statements that are known to be untrue or misleading. It explicitly forbids advertising a “former price” unless it was the prevailing market price within the last three months. The lawsuit contends that Helzberg’s list prices fail this test, as they are not the prevailing prices at which the goods are actually sold.

Furthermore, the legal action invokes regulations from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which prohibit deceptive “former price comparisons.” The FTC explicitly warns against fabricating “an artificial, inflated price for the purpose of enabling the subsequent offer of a large reduction.” The allegations suggest Helzberg’s entire online pricing model is built upon this forbidden practice. The ability of a major national retailer to flout these clear regulations for years suggests a system where enforcement is either under-resourced or lacks the political will to challenge powerful corporate interests.

Profit-Maximization at All Costs

At its core, the Helzberg case is a story about the incentives created by a system dedicated to profit maximization above all else. The lawsuit alleges a business model that treats consumer trust not as a valued asset, but as a resource to be exploited for short-term gain. By creating a perpetual illusion of sales, a company can stimulate demand and drive purchasing decisions based on false information.

This strategy is profoundly rational from a pure profit-seeking perspective. The sense of urgency created by a “limited time” offer discourages comparison shopping and critical thought. A consumer who believes they are getting a 30% discount is more likely to make an impulsive purchase than one who knows the “sale” price is effectively the everyday price. This artificially inflates demand, allowing the company to maintain higher prices than an honest market would bear.

The lawsuit claims this mechanism harms consumers in two ways: it induces them to buy products they otherwise wouldn’t have, and it allows the company to charge a price premium built on deception. This reflects a broader dynamic in late-stage capitalism, where shareholder value is often prioritized over ethical conduct, and marketing departments are incentivized to push the boundaries of legality in pursuit of revenue growth.

The Economic Fallout: Distorting the Market

The economic consequences of such unethical practices extend beyond individual consumers who overpaid for jewelry. When a major market player engages in systemic deceptive pricing, it distorts the entire marketplace. Honest competitors who price their products transparently are placed at a competitive disadvantage.

A business that refuses to create artificial list prices and fake sales may appear more expensive to the consumer, even if its actual prices are lower or the quality is superior. This creates a race to the bottom, where deceptive marketing becomes a tool for survival, and ethical businesses are punished. This dynamic ultimately harms the consumer by reducing genuine price competition and rewarding manipulative advertising strategies.

The lawsuit seeks to recover the money consumers lost, described as a “price premium” paid due to the misrepresentations.

This financial injury, multiplied across tens or hundreds of thousands of customers, represents a significant transfer of wealth from ordinary people to a corporation, based on a foundation of deceit. This is a microcosm of the wealth disparity inherent in a system where corporate power is allowed to operate with insufficient checks and balances.

Public Health Risks and Environmental Impact

While the legal complaint against Helzberg Diamonds does not contain specific allegations regarding public health or environmental damage, the corporate mindset it describes is one that is often linked to broader social harms.

A business culture that prioritizes profit to the point of allegedly deceiving its own customers is unlikely to prioritize environmental stewardship or public welfare when those considerations conflict with the bottom line.

In a neoliberal capitalist system, externalities—the social and environmental costs of doing business—are frequently ignored unless a company is forced to account for them by regulation or public pressure.

The same logic that might lead a company to create fake sales to boost revenue can also lead it to cut corners on safety standards, source materials from unethical suppliers, or pollute the environment to reduce operational costs. While there is no evidence of this in the Helzberg case itself, the corporate misconduct is a red flag for the kind of corporate ethics that can produce such negative outcomes elsewhere.