[abs82]

Originally Posted by uansari1

I've learned over the past few weeks to be very, very weary of online stores and sellers on places like Chrono24. The latter provides you with protection, but it's still hit or miss. Case in point, I was looking for a polar 16570 with 3186 movement.

Watch Trading Co., based in Philadelphia and Miami, had one advertised. When I called, it had already been sold. They offered to take a black dial one that they had and swap in a white dial. I instantly started laughing.

Another online retailer based in LA was also offering the watch. I spoke to a sales person and submitted an offer online, which was accepted. They reached out to let me know they'd ship in a day or two as their watchmaker would be checking it over and making sure the timing was good. The watch was shipped as promised, but from Florida. When it arrived, it was a polar, but with a 3185. It also didn't come with the box and certificate that it was advertised with...I was told that would come separately. Anyway, after my watchmaker confirmed it was a 3185, I promptly returned it and have now gotten my refund. In fairness, the owner Paypal'd me $100 for my trouble and they covered return shipping..but I'd likely not buy from them again given my experience.

In the meantime, I reached out to a few Trusted Sellers here. Chase (Au_911tt) happened to have one that he recently took in. I had it in my hands 2 days later and it was exactly as advertised with box and papers, and in even better condition than expected.

Moral of the story...stick to the Trusted Sellers here and you'll have the smoothest experience possible. My experiences with online retailers have been crap, aside from Bob's Watches (they only advertise what they have in stock and all pieces have been fully serviced).

You're absolutely right! And your experience has been very similar to a few of mine. I've noticed that many of these less established sellers don't actually keep inventory. They just post fairly generic details and then when a watch is sold they go out to fellow dealers and try to source the watch. If they're unable to get themselves a good deal they just say 'oops watch has been sold sorry!' There's no repercussions or consequences. Unfortunately this time I'd had enough of the bait and switch and wanted to tell fellow buyers to watch out.