I sold my engagement ring on Vinted within days of my ex and I splitting up – there was no way he was getting it back

MAYA JAMA is feeling the heat – and not just from the scorching South African sun on Love Island.

The reality show’s host was sent a legal letter demanding that she return the £800k engagement ring given to her by her ex-fiancé, Australian basketball player Ben Simmons.

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Maya, 28, got engaged to Ben, 26, in December 2021 after a whirlwind romance.

But the split came last summer, with the pair saying they wanted to focus on their careers.

While reports suggest Maya has every intention of handing the sparkler back, should she?

Here, two women – who were both faced with the same dilemma – share their very different views on the debate.

No, says Lisa Stares, 49, – who sold her ring online a week after the relationship ended

SINGLE Lisa, a mum of three who lives in Doncaster and works as an administrator, says:

My engagement ring is mine, nobody else’s, so why should I have to give it back? I can do what I want with it.

Richard Walker

Richard Walker

At the end of the day, a ring is a gift like any other and nobody expects gifts to be returned, regardless of the circumstances. So this isn’t any different.

My ex-fiancé took me on holiday to Mexico while we were together and it would be like him asking me for half of the cost back now we’ve split up. It would be ridiculous.

Women who give their rings back must be crazy.

I put mine up for sale within days of the split.

First I tried pawning it to a jeweller, but they said I would get more money by selling it privately.

The relationship with my ex began in August 2021 after we talked for a long time through dating app Tinder.

Last August we moved in together and a month on came the proposal.

It was really romantic. He took me away to a log cabin and proposed in the hot tub.

But looking back it was all a bit of a whirlwind.

Unfortunately, the ring didn’t fit and when we took it back to the jewellers, I swapped it for a different type that came with a wedding ring, costing £1,000 for the set.

They were beautiful and we talked about getting married in Las Vegas this year.

But living together meant we got to know one another better and we began to realise that we weren’t that compatible.

I couldn’t see myself spending the rest of my life with him and a few weeks ago, our relationship ended. The feeling was mutual.

A few days later, I decided to sell both rings on Vinted for £400.

When someone offered me £250, I accepted, because I couldn’t see the point in waiting for more.

It didn’t even enter my head to give them back to my ex-partner, and he didn’t ask for them.

I turn 50 in March and plan to use the money to pay for a weekend away to celebrate, or I might put it towards a bigger holiday in the summer.

There’s no benefit to keeping an engagement ring in its box for years either, gathering dust.

Maya is in the limelight and no doubt feeling the pressure to hand hers back, even if it’s to retain her dignity.

But in the real world, if you can get rid of it and move on, then do that. But definitely don’t give it back.

Yes, says Jane Hawkes, 47, – who returned the same engagement ring TWICE

JANE is a consumer expert, who lives in Gloucester with her husband David, 48, an IT consultant. She says:

AN engagement ring is not just yours, or his, but it’s a symbol of commitment.

When that breaks down, give the ring back to close that chapter and move on.

When someone gives you an engagement ring, they’re giving you a piece of their love.

When that love dies, the engagement ring should be returned to its rightful owner. It doesn’t belong to the person it was presented to any more.

I was given, and dutifully returned, the same ring twice. I only kept my engagement gifts, which were a lot of kitchen accessories, because nobody wanted them back.

I was 18 and had been in a relationship with my first boyfriend, James (name changed), for two years when he proposed.

We were madly in love, at least for the six months the engagement lasted, before he broke things off when we went to separate universities.

The ring had been his grandmother’s, passed down to his mum, then passed down to him.

What followed was the typical mess of late teens, early twenties “love”.

We continued to be in an on-off relationship while we partied hard at different ends of the country.

But when I went to live in Austria for a year as part of my German degree, I met someone new and cut ties with James completely.

Eventually I came home and, with the excitement of my foreign love affair very firmly in a different country, we muddled our way back together and he proposed, with the same ring, for a second time.

I was 21 and it lasted for nine months before I acted on feelings of suspicion and discomfort and broke it off.

If there was any moment where I could have kept the ring, that was it. But it still wasn’t mine.

I went to his mum’s house and posted it through the letterbox.

Even certain celebrities think the same way I do. Kim Kardashian gave her £1.6million ring back to ex-husband Kris Humphries when their marriage failed 72 days after it began.

And Jennifer Lopez gave Ben Affleck her engagement ring back after their first go at things back in 2003, despite rekindling their relationship years later.

And I can’t believe anyone would keep their engagement ring after a break-up, let alone sell it on for money.

Is nothing sacred these days? Cashing in on your engagement ring is the same as selling your granny and asking for the change.

It is harsh, unnecessary and thoughtless.

If it was the other way around and somebody sold something that I’d given to them as a token of my commitment, I’d be really cross.

More than 20 years on, my life is a world away from young love, break-ups and teenage engagements.

I can’t imagine having the engagement ring from that previous life gathering dust in a drawer in my adulthood.

It belongs to a different time and certainly doesn’t belong to me.