The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Never buy a watch from AuthenticWatches.com.
Here is a short story of my purchase of an Omega Seamaster Lady’s watch. Judge it for yourself if it is worth it to buy a watch from AutenticWatches.com.
I selected AutenticWatches.com because of their relatively lower price (approximately 20% less than the next similar seller) and the 3 year warranty they are advertising on their website.
After exactly 1 year of working fine, one day the watch completely stopped working.
After contacting AuthenticWatches.com I was advised to complete the ‘Return Authorisation Form’, include $40 for the return shipping and handling charges and send the watch to the provided address.
After about 4 weeks of waiting I received an email from AuthenticWatches.com advising me that the watch has a damaged pinion and it would cost me $205 to have it repaired. Of course I was really mad because the watch was to be covered by a 3 year warranty and it stopped working within a year. One would expect the watch to be fixed for free! I called AuthenticWatches.com, who said: “yah the pinion is broken, it was just glued together and it must be replaced”. I was mad because I was certain there was no impact damage to the watch, so I asked to speak with a supervisor. The supervisor still insisted that the pinion is damaged and it was probably damaged by over-winding, and also if I don’t like it, they will send it back, as is, without doing any repairs. As I had already paid $40, I decided to pay the additional $209 to fix the watch. It took about 6 additional weeks for the watch to arrive, and picture this – the watch did not work at all. I took the watch to an Omega authorized watchmaker for an inspection and it turned out that some of the bearings are completely loose and must be replaced, at a cost of approximately $200. Also the internal cleaning done by AuthtenticWateches.com was very poor and the watch must be re-cleaned. Of course AuthtenticWatches.com refused to take any responsibility, and offered to take the watch back for extra “repairs”. I decided not to send the watch back but I bet you if I did, the story would repeat itself with me being out of additional $200 and the watch still not working.
If you decide to buy an expensive watch from AuthenticWatches.com ask yourself a question where are they getting these watches from, and will they honour the warranty they give you?
My answer is: the watches are from the so called “grey market”, some of the watches were most likely already returned to the original dealer because they had issues. The 3 year warranty you get fromAuthenticWatches.com is a joke. Honestly, if you buy a watch from them, whatever you saved on the purchase price you will spend on fixing it, and all the grief you’ll get will come for free.

Sad for your experience. AD next time i guess.

Also expect this thread to be move in the feedback section.

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Mat

Breitling Navitimer 01
Omega Seamaster 300mc
Omega Speedmaster Pro "Mitsukoshi Mod"
Seiko Prospek Orange Samurai

Unfortunately this highlights one of the main problems with buying from a grey market dealer - the warranties invariably aren't worth the paper they are written on.

Personally I always believe that if you buy from a grey market dealer you should simply just assume you don't have a warranty at all, and if you get a problem you should just bite the bullet and send it back to the manufacturer and pay for the repair just as you would with an AD-bought watch once the warranty has expired. I think that if you want to save cash upfront by "buying grey" then you should offset that against the possibility that you might have to pay for repairs if something goes wrong. Personally there's no way I'd want some random guy with a caseback tool (and potentially no training at all in that particular movement) sitting in a grey market dealer warehouse, opening up my watch and messing about with the insides.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Completely agree with Driver8.

I'm also going to edit your original post to correct the spelling of AuthenticWatches to make it easier to find in searches.

Exactly.