Pug,
You're too smart to fall for WM9 again and again and so am I. I remember the post about the "shill" and as I remember it the poster was suspected of trying to post a "glowing' report in support of WM9 and direct business WM9's way. You didn't buy, I didn't buy it - nobody bought it (although it was never proven one way or the other).
Believe me I have bought more watches from more dealers than you can imagine. I won't name dealer names, but trust me, some of our "trusted" dealers here have been less then trustworthy. When something "questionable" in nature resulted in a transaction for me, I kept it quite and resolved the issue behind closed doors. WM9 has not even come close to the type of dishonesty I have experienced.
On WM9 I posted this over at RWG:
Don't get me wrong. I have my doubts about WM9 and sure enough when you look at his dial pictures there are differences from the first dial he showed to the second. Is this because he is concocting some big conspiracy to steal our hard earned money with inferior rep watches or are they honest mistakes? Really, untill someone gets a watch in thier hands, we are all just speculating. I understand the skeptisicsm about WM9, he has sold watches for a substantialy higher price then we can get for much cheaper from the dealers we all know. But in trying to be fair, I do not know of one instance were WM9 ripped someone off or scammed someone by telling them they would get a Swiss Movm'nt when they were sent an Asian Movm'nt as an example. I also think that WM9, from what I have read, has always tried to follow up and resolve any issues with disastisfied customers, sometimes even involving refunds.
I have asked some of the people who slammed WM9 to tell us exactly how WM9 scammed them or have some one you know step up and say how WM9 stole thier money and it was dead silent. Not one! I don't even know of anyone who has ever purchased or held in thier own hands a watch from WM9 - everyone seems to me to be going by hearsay or pictures from the web. And anyone who has been around the web for a while certaintly would agree that being found guilty from hearsay and pictures taken from the web is not very credable.
The only real way to resolve all the speculation is to buy one of his watches and look for ourselves. I am going to do that (buy a 16613). If it doesn't take Gen parts with out modding, trust me, we will find out. If it has cr@ppy 18k plating, we will know. If the rehaut is off, we can all b!tch together.
Unless WM9 doesn't want my money we should know in the next month or so. Untill someone actually gets a watch, I wouldn't bank on anything that is being said by anyone, including the BS I write. It's just that, a bunch of guys just bull$h!tting as if they know...
I hope we can move on and talk about watches - not create pseudo arguements about issues that only serve to make us look like know it alls.
Like the saying goes - The more I know, the more I know that I don't know.
I like to learn form these discussions. I am not much into the personal stuff.
The jury is still out for me on WM9. I know if he makes the case he says he wil make it will be one sweet sub case. If he doesn't, I will chock it up to lesson learned, move along, forget about him and hope someone else makes the case.
