The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Edit: The matter has been resolved as stated in the updated subject.

http://breitlingsource.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=26557
This is the watch I purchased from mfserge a little over a week ago. Overall, the transaction went well. It took some time to complete but there were no problems with that on either side. To his credit he did ship it overnight.

The problem for me began when I received the watch. As it can be seen from the original sale post his description of the watch is the following:

"The watch is in absolutely beautiful condition with only a very very few swirls on the case and some usual swirls on the deployment."

I am going to include some statements from our PM conversation in order to illustrate my problem better. I asked him to be more specific and elaborate on the condition of the case a couple of times and these were his responses:

"The swirls are on the case and they're VERY VERY difficult to see because it's in THAT good of condition. I baby my watches and they all look brand new as you can see in the feedback forum and on eBay under username ............."

"The swirls are on the 9 oclock side of the case and theyre VERY VERY difficult to see, you have to hold the watch right in front of your eye to see them...the condition is truly spectacular! Also, the deployment has some swirls on it which is very common but still is great shape. You won't be disappointed with the condition."

Upon receiving the watch I was shocked to see the actual condition it was in. Here are some photos I took shortly after receiving it.




Dings on the inside edge of the right lug.

Ding on the bottom edge of the case.




Scratches on bottom of lugs.



Ding on outside edge and mark on top of lug. Also swirls on bezel coating below 9 o'clock mark.

Marks on side of the case.


Severe scratches on the caseback.

Swirls on the bezel coating. There are also some swirls on the coating of the 4 o'clock side of the bezel and I believe these can't be fixed.

There was never any mention of any of these signs of wear by mfserge.

I took these with my phone in about 5 minutes. I can have a friend take some macro shots in order to paint the picture in full detail if needed. To me the condition of the watch is substantially worse than his descriptions and images. I did express my disappointment to him, however he held his position that he accurately describes all the watches he sells and that the marks are common in the cases where people wear rings and change straps (there are clearly flaws which are not explained by either one of these cases). He did offer to send me a $100 upon providing a copy of a receipt after I get the watch cleaned up. I have not had time to stop by an AD and ask what they can do but the bottom two lugs certainly have noticeable depressions in the metal on the top edges and no polishing can fix that. I understand that this is a preowned watch and I did not expect it to be in a brand new condition, however in my opinion there was very limited and untruthful/misleading disclosure on the actual condition of the watch by mfserge.

mfserge seems to have good rep on this site and on his ebay account so I was very surprised by all of this. I was even more surprised by his reaction given the indisputable evidence.

I'd appreciate it if people express their opinions on this issue.

A couple of positives:
The crystal is indeed flawless as he stated. The condition of the deployment was also as mentioned and the timekeeping was even better than what he stated.

Edit: The matter has been resolved as stated in the updated subject.

Looks misrepresented to me.

I waited 6 DAYS for you to work out your problems with Paypal so you could pay. Then immediately after payment, your funds were placed on a fraud risk review for another 24 hours. I passed up 3 other buyers (one on here) to hold the watch for you, and you have the audacity to complain about dust in between the lugs and a few marks on the case-back from my wedding ring?? I did not misrepresent this watch, my photos show the true condition of this watch.

I see dust in the first photo between the lugs, I see nothing wrong with the 2nd photo it looks perfect to me, I see more dust in the 3rd photo in the corner of the lug, I see nothing wrong with the 4th photo the case looks perfect to me as I represented, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th photo shows marks on the lugs from changing straps which I told him about, 9th & 10th photo shows more dust in between the lugs, 11th photo shows a FINGERPRINT on the case, 12th photo shows the swirl on the 9th o'clock side of the case which I put in my sales thread, 13th and 14th photo show the marks on the case-back from my Tungsten Wedding ring which I wrote you about. You took photos in the brightest possible conditions, you can see your house windows are all open, and yet the case looks awesome!! With the exception of the two minor swirls on the 9 oclock side, the case looks great. My photos even show some scratches on the underside of the lugs from changing the strap, there certainly isn't any metal removed as your saying there is...that's untrue.

This is a Pre-Owned watch, NOT a brand new watch. I didn't advertise it as a brand new watch, you have to expect when buying a pre-owned watch that there will be some wear...and by your own admission you said the crystal is flawless and the timekeeping is even better than I said. I know you're fairly young and have little to no experience buying pre-owned watches but you got one heck of a deal on a watch that's in far better condition than you are trying to show. If you take macro shots of a watch sitting in a dealer's showcase you'll find some minor blemishes as well.. I have no idea what you're trying to prove but you're making it sound like you bought a watch that was beat up and that's not the case at all.

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

I am trying to keep things civilized but if needed I will post all the PMs to show how you kept repeating that there are no problems with the wait on your side after I warned you before we even initiated the transaction. We already went over this in PMs. This is to see the opinions of neutral people. My point is that I knew I was buying a pre-owned watch and your descriptions and pictures were misleading. I am gonna clean the dust and take some better pictures as well as get some macro shots done.

The first three photos show the dents in the inside top edge of the right lug just above the strap.

The 4th photo shows a scrape on the bottom edge of the case above the "R".

You told me about the scratches from changing straps after I received the watch. You withheld that information.

Pictures 9 and 11 show a dent in the middle of the outside edge of the left lug. Picture 10 shows a mark across the top of the lug.

Also, you never said anything about the case-back and your wedding ring before you sent the watch.

I'm sorry dude but a DENT??? What are you looking at?? I'm not going to engage in a public battle with you over the condition of the watch. This is my last comment on the situation.

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

Never had any transactions with buyer or seller, so have no experience to go by. My comments are simply as follows with no editorial provided, just observations and personal expectations:

1 - It's not particularly surprising to find a used watch with minor dings in addition to scratches
2 - I don't consider the strap changing marks on the bottom of the lugs to be minor and would expect a seller to declare them to a potential buyer
3 - I consider the scratches on the caseback to be serious and would expect a seller to declare them and adjust the price accordingly
4 - The photos in the sale thread appear to show a different condition than the photos in this thread
5 - The photos in this thread do clearly show dust, but in most of them I also see 'less than perfect' condition, but see comments in 1 - 3 as to how I feel about that condition
6 - I don't expect sellers to have to declare every single flaw in the sale ad, and would have no issues with the declarations being in PM (and I have no knowledge of what was or wasn't stated in PMs)
7 - If it were my watch I would declare the scratches on the caseback in my sales ad and try to show them in pictures (but see 6 above)
8 - If one party states that delays in services like PayPal are not a problem then they can't use that delay against the other party later, but I have no knowledge of whether such a statement was made in this case.


Just personal observations in response to the request for comments, not intended to state a position in favour of or against either member.

I've already spent way too much time looking at both sets of pics, but this is what I found.

The scratches on the bottom of the lugs are shown in this picture in the original sales listing:



However, the caseback scratches are not shown. I'll agree with YKS that it's not fully represented due to the caseback pictures, but I think Serge did show the lug scratches in this pic.

Good luck to both you and hopefully you can resolve this.

_________________
Justin
Please contact me via PM for the contact details for Govberg Jewelers
Govberg is an AD for over 50 fine Swiss and German watch brands.
Visit them on the web at http://www.govbergwatches.com or call 800-528-8463

Look at your photos showing the underside of the lugs, photos 4-8...in those photos look at the caseback...you can barely notice any flaws in the caseback even in your own photos. A few of those photos actually show NO MARKS on the caseback. My photos dont show those imperfections because they NO WHERE NEAR AS BAD as you're trying to display.

Here are your own photos....I don't see a mark anywhere on the caseback...that proves just how superficial and slight they are.






Now lets look at the lugs in the photos where you super-zoomed in on the superficial marks on the caseback. Look at the lugs in these photos. Do they look anywhere near as bad as your other photos or my photo from my sales thread that jnelson posted?? You're attempting to make this watch look in far worse condition than it is.

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

Like I said, the pics are taken with a cell phone camera. I can't "try" to display anything with that. It's extremely clear that they are thee and they are noticeable. Yes, you can work with angles to minimize them but it wont change the fact that they are there.

If you can 'minimize' a mark from a different angle then they aren't as bad as you're trying to portrait!!! From certain angles the marks don't just get minimized, they DISAPPEAR like magic! You have used words privately and publicly such as, gouge, dent, metal removed, and dings. Those words aren't even close to the real condition of this watch. Go get your macro lens and take super closeup shots to try to prove your point but I'm done with discussion and I'm sorry that you can't just enjoy a beautiful timepiece.

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

Again, just look at the way you described the watch.

"The watch is in absolutely beautiful condition with only a very very few swirls on the case and some usual swirls on the deployment."

"The swirls are on the case and they're VERY VERY difficult to see because it's in THAT good of condition. I baby my watches and they all look brand new as you can see in the feedback forum and on eBay under username ............."

"The swirls are on the 9 oclock side of the case and theyre VERY VERY difficult to see, you have to hold the watch right in front of your eye to see them...the condition is truly spectacular! Also, the deployment has some swirls on it which is very common but still is great shape. You won't be disappointed with the condition."

The swirls you mentioned are indeed very minor. They are nothing compared to the lugs and the case-back, yet you didn't mention those? Clearly you misrepresented the watch.

edit: Again I am not really interested in debating with mfserge. I only made this post to try and get some neutral opinions. Based on everything said so far it is simple to see who has valid points and who is desperately trying to defend something non-exhistant. I've drawn my conclusions and hopefully others will too.

And just to show that this is complete bullshit...







All you are showing with your "analysis" is that you don't have any knowledge about photography, light, etc.

Gentlemen,

Private messages are private for a reason.

Posting them is not explicitly a breach of the rules, so I am not going to edit, but I really don't think that anything is gained by posting them.

It is not my job to resolve disputes between members and I have no intention of stepping into this. This section is for the provision of feedback and that has been provided and responded to.

Now take your differences private and resolve it - I'm pretty sure that the rest of the members don't need to see another 200 photos of the caseback taken from different angles.

I am not locking this thread at this point to allow for editing.

I agree.
and, what the hell, how it possible to scratch lings of a precious watch as this one so hard? who changed the strap? this is unprofessional, next time mfserge, go to an AD for that.

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Breitling Antares B10047
Breitling Chronomat B13050
Breitling Chronomat A13050.1 - pilot bracelet
Breitling Chronomat Blackbird A13050.1 - serie spéciale
Breitling Avenger Seawolf E17370
Breitling Chronomat EVO A13356 - pilot bracelet

Personally I couldn't give a damn if the caseback and lugs have scratches on them, as long as they're not gouges which when you look at them on an angle they don't seem to be. I don't wear my watches upside down so...whatever. As for the scratch on the case? it's a used watch, that'll happen, if someone wants a perfect watch they should go to an AD, if they want to save a couple of grand and deal with some minor stuff then buy used. Personally I've bought two watches from Sergio and I couldn't be happier with the condition of them, but that's just me.

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"Leave the gun, take the cannoli."