The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Hello Breitling Forum,
I am new to this forum but have owned a number of Breitling watches. I had an encounter at a watch store yesterday when purchasing my new Breitling for Bentley GMT Midnight Carbon that I suspect was a scam and would appreciate your feedback. As the GMT Midnight Carbon is an exclusive release for Tourneau, the only place that I could go to purchase one was a local Tourneau store here in Los Angeles. When I visited the store, I was told by the sales person that the watch was $10,000, but that I could get a discount of a $2,000 if I purchased it. Additionally, the sales person said that if I traded in my current Breitling Chronomat, they would further discount my purchase price to $6,500 for the GMT Midnight Carbon. As the Midnight Carbon is my favorite watch, I agreed to the deal. However, when the sales person wrote up the receipt I noticed that the sales tax was against the entire $10,000 original retail sticker price, not the $6,500 price that I was purchasing the watch for (which the sales person seemed a little surprised that I noticed). The resulting difference was roughly $300 in extra tax that I was asked to pay for my discount and my trade in watch. I found this quite disturbing, especially as they would be re-selling my trade-in watch and again applying tax to the consumer when the sale was made. I argued this issue for a bit, but with the sales person and store manager, but they insisted that it was company policy. However, I did some research today and this appears to be a tax fraud scam. I reported it to the local police and intend to follow up on it, but would like some feedback. Has anyone ever heard of this type of thing? Also, is there a corporate complaint option to report this kind of activity to Breitling and/or Tourneau Corporate. It seems to me that if Breitling has a relationship with Tourneau and it's employees are skimming the sales, then Breitling would be losing sales revenue from their distributor, Tourneau. It doesn't seem fair that Breitling should suffer from the actions of some sleazy sales people, when they're making great watches. When I researched the store online, there were many, many bad reviews and I'd like to know (1) if what they did was wrong as I suspect and (2) who best to contact at Breitling and Tourneau to report this fraudulent activity.

Thanks!
Woozy (still a fan of Breitling, regardless of the sleazy sales person selling them).

I know I must be missing something obvious here, but what does Tourneau benefit or gain in this?? It's late Friday afternoo, I'm about to leave the office, and my brain has shut down for the weekend.

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SHARKMAN

The salesperson gains an extra $300 in profit on the transaction by fraudulently overcharging for sales tax (e.g. 8.5% tax against $10,000 retail sticker price is $850, whereas 8.5% tax against the $6,500 sale price is $550. The difference is a $300 profit for Tourneau).

Tax should be calculated after adjusting the price of your trade-in. Maybe they just didn't know the tax rules? It was my understanding that Tourneau will not give a discount plus money towards a trade in the same transaction. it's one or the other so I'm very surprised to hear they gave you a discount plus money on a trade. Nice work.

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"I don't own any watches, I just lease them"

Yeah but Bro, if they rung it up and gave you a receipt showing the tax was calculated on $10K and they are doing that all the time and pocketing the differnece, there is a HUGE trail there. They would have to be pretty foolish. They turn their gross sales #s into the State Gov't.

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SHARKMAN

I have the receipt and that's exactly what it shows, which is why I asked the question. Who at Breitling and/or Tourneau would be the best person to notify of this?

OK maybe I'm stoopid, but I really don't see a scam here, I see a mistake by the sales rep and the only party receiving more money from this is the government who are making $300 more in tax.

I fail to see why Breitling would care - they haven't lost out and it won't be their policy to get involved in a dispute on local taxes. I imagine that the best person to contact would be Tourneau using the contacts section of their website to get a phone number / e-mail.

I don't know if this makes sense or not but is it possible that they used your chronomat as $3500 towards the price of the watch, then charged you $6500 so you essentially paid $10000 for it, thus owing the sales tax on all $10000.

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"Leave the gun, take the cannoli."

Welcome to B-source..I would check with the better business bureau, get the number for your local office. Sorry it turned out for you like that, from my personnel experience here in NY all their stores are ran by a bunch of crooks and nasty sales people..Hope you get them.Good luck

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Navitimer World

I think this is the more likely reason for the "extra" $300 in taxes.

This is what I was getting at too.

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SHARKMAN

Don't lie.

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"Leave the gun, take the cannoli."

Haha. My OP was "how does the AD benefit." They don't with a receipt and computer entry showing the full amount of sales tax. And if the AD has a policy to not discount or offset trade in against new watch, you will pay sales tax on the full purchase price, then they will reduce the amount you OWE after tax by the trade in.

This isn't an uncommon practice. One AD I have used does just that, the other charges tax on the difference. It's just the way the corporate bean counters lay down the rules, not an indication of fraudulent schemes or artifices.

It is entirely possible that the particular sales person didn't really know what he/she was doing. That happens too.

I just don't get in general the knee jerk "conspiracy" reaction some people have. Though I still can prove Lincoln shot Kennedy.

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SHARKMAN

No he didn't, Kennedy's still alive

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"Leave the gun, take the cannoli."

I didn't think anyone else knew. He's in Reno with Elvis and Andy Kaufmann.

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SHARKMAN