Now i know why everyone avoids returning a watch.

[HPoirot]

Sooooo last month, i got a faulty watch in the mail. Long story short, i sent it back to the dealer for an exchange. Here's a chronology of events.

13th May - Watch was posted by me.
28th May - Watch was finally received by the other party.
13th June - Dealer is still 'preparing' the watch. No tracking number yet.

The sad thing is, by now, my interest in said watch has already waned, and i'm thinking of exchanging it for a different watch. Something which i'm sure will cause even more delays.

Here comes the worse part: i just sent back another watch on 10th June. Guess i won't be seeing it till at least August.

Anyway, i didn't name anyone because i'm just here to rant, not to seek recourse.

I'm guessing this is a typical returns process when it comes to reps?

 

[Mr. Pap]

Send once a watch back, waited 2 months until i got it back and broken again... So total waste of time and money since you pay the shipping costs,so save your self and try something local...

 

[revhrd]

this is why I tend to buy of other trusted members conus, a watch that has been proven to work. Sorry to hear about your wait.

 

[levelmanroger]

Sadly, sending a watch back will often take several months, you will pay shipping, and you only have a 50/50 chance of it being right.
Some dealers are better than others. RM tends to do a bit more QC before shipping, and has a wathsmith CONUS for repairs if I remember correctly.
I've only had to send 1 back - a DSSD I bought from Trevor. He actually posted my new watch to me before I even made it to the post office to send the bad one back. But that is not normal.

 

[waddster]

I don't believe I would ever send a watch back to China. I haven't had to yet,(knock on wood) but I did receive a watch that I probably should have. Had it fixed by trusted watchsmith instead. I would just assume pay to have it serviced and be done with it. Good luck with your watch and it is probably good that not everyone chooses not to send their faulty watches back or we would all be in trouble if they realized that we would be willing to except anything. I imagine they are pretty good about fixing the problem.

 

[tokeyx]

Yea man, I figure they will all need service eventually to keep running, so if they break sooner than later, that just means I'm having them serviced sooner than later. There is no guarantee your "fixed" watch won't break in a month anyways. I just factor in the cost of service to the cost of the watch when I'm deciding if I want to buy it or not.

 

[PecMan]

i sent back 345 watches and the 349 watches came back 2 me working perfectly!
ok maybe im over reacting a little

 

[Del]

@ HPoirot - yes, that is a typical returns timescale. It sucks.

 

[Speed-Racer]

opcorn:...It's part of the hobby, I had one that i sent back twice... It still didn't work. I took it to a local watchmaker it sat over there for 6+ months he returned it and said you need to send that thing to Omega :lolcina: I sent it to one of the boards recommended repair guys (won't say) sat at his shop for 5+ months...I had him send it back. Then I sent it to Katt two weeks boom back perfect. Then, I sent it off and had the case bead blasted two weeks.

Sometimes things just take a while....

 

[believer123]

I avoid sending them back like the plague. I'm in the CONUS and it is easier to have them repaired for a few buck here...

 

[HPoirot]

Knowing what i know now, i would've taken it to a watchsmith first.

The second exchange was unavoidable though. they sent me a quartz version of an automatic watch i ordered.

doubt there's a watchsmith out there that can rectify that!

Latest update: watch was shipped yesterday. yay!

 

[bonecollector]

FWIW, I had to return a watch for a refund to Narikaa once, the whole process took less than two weeks. But, not China, so I have no experience in that area.

 

[donaldejose]

I have never had a pleasant time trying to return a watch. Sometimes they came back broke and sometimes they never came back at all. I have yet to send a watch back and have it returned fixed.

In my experience about one out of every 10 watches I have ordered from overseas has had to be just written off.

In contrast 100% of the watches I have bought from Fakemaster and BKLM in the US have been either right from the start to quickly made right.

In my experience if you live in the US and buy from a person in the US you will receive what you ordered and it will work. On the other hand if you live in the US and buy from someone in Asia you will receive something and most of them will work but some won't and you will have a terrible time trying to get it set right. Once you are dealing with postage to Asia you have so much time passing and the dealers don't really seem to care whether or not they follow up on fixing your watch. For the last one I sent back I even included all the e-mail correspondence so the dealer would know exactly what that watch was. Still no response from the dealer after 6 months.

 

[mbjoer]

Recently received a Rolex GMTIIC where the GMT hand does not function. Found out that it is a common problem with the movement and not an easy fix.

So now it is going back, but I am sceptical as to the outcome.

However, sending it back serves one other purpose. It makes life difficult for the dealer, who hopefully in turn will make life difficult for the maker. Getting the same model back from many customers provides a message.

They are all only there for the money, so if they do not have easy transactions they will move on to other watches with better design/QC.

 

[bigdeal]

I've never read a thread where the poster sent a watch back to china and was happy with the result.

Maybe that's because happy customers are less vocal than unhappy ones, but like you said, avoid sending it back at all costs!

 

[Kal Vilmer]

Yeah, that sucks but like some have said before, it is part of this hobby.

 

[mydnytrydr]

Yeah, that sucks but like some have said before, it is part of this hobby.

+1........ :-(

 

[Bomba]

You guys wouldn't believe the condition of a watch that I received from one of our TDs.... It was rusty, scratched and worst of all... used.

The TD kind of gave me an attitude about returning it but offered a full refund once received back in China. It's a cheap quartz version and I will likely just eat the $100 or so, and chalk it up to education.

IMHO, you get what you pay for and expect certain possibilities to occur when you buy from certain vendors. Namely those who drop ship and don't take QC pics.

Debating whether to post pics or not. I probably will at some point once it blows over, because you guys will be floored when you see this thing.

But I never intend to ever send a watch back. Too much trouble, IMHO. Unless it's a super expensive piece arriving DOA.

Lol, watch now my Hublot tourby that's on order will arrive DOA... Ha! Karma....

 

[plymman]

I always try to buy second hand in the sales section as generally they're tried and tested or the faults and issues with a watch are (usually) clearly mentioned. I have had a couple arrive DOA from dealers that put me off.

I have 3 rules when buying reps:

1. Assume that you've lost your money already, if it arrives its great, if it's fully working it's brilliant. What we are doing here is illegal and there's too many things that can go wrong, scammed, customs, postal damage, losses etc..
2. Never spend more than you can afford to lose.
3. If a watch has problems, always sort it yourself or find a trusted local watchsmith. Sending reps in and out of the country, back to China etc.. just increases your risks of a loss and at best leaves you without a watch for months.

 

[smascarinas]

I've never sent a watch back since all the thread regarding how hard it is to work with. On the other hand, I had a problem with a watch from Angus / Puretime and he was more than willing to work out a solution with me.

He agreed to pay for a % of the service cost and that made me happy! Watch is working flawlessly now and I'm one happy customer. However the whole transaction took a while before getting my reimbursement, but in the end I got a fully serviced watch.