The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I was on holiday in the Canary Islands recently and thought I would take advantage of the Free Port status and grab a tax free Breitling. Obviously the place was awash with fakes so I headed off to the authorised Breitling dealers. Even in these stores, you still have to haggle hard to get a decent deal.

I was on Fuerteventura so I dropped into one of the dealers in Corralejo. I checked out the range, and my bank balance and decided on the Superocean Heritage with stainless strap and started the haggling process. I got a price and went away to have a drink and think about it. On the way to the bar I found another watch store, Ideal Joyeros and went in to enquire. They told me they only did Rolex, but their other store at the other end of the island, Jandia, were Breitling authorised dealers. They phoned the other store and immediately offered me a good price on the watch, but i would have to go there to pick it up. I phoned the other store myself and checked they had exactly the right model in stock and the price. i even phoned back a second time, because i forgot to check they had the 46 mm size, again they confirmed availability and price. So the next day I hired a car and drove to the south of the island.

When I got to the store I was really, really annoyed when they told me that they did not have the watch in stock. Instead the guy tried to sell me what he claimed was a "special limited edition" version of the watch with a "better movement". He showed me the engraving on the back of the watch saying Special Edition. But of course this one would be more expensive. Because I didn't know the watch very well then, I didn't realise that ALL of the Heritage range have this on the back and that he was actually showing me exactly the watch I wanted but was trying to jack the agreed price up. I was really annoyed by this blatant "bait and switch" tactic that is actually illegal in all civilised countries.

When I got back to the UK, I wrote to Breitling in both Switzerland and Spain complaining about the treatment that I had received from their "authorised" dealer. They didn't even bother to reply. I have to say that I am disappointed with Breitling over this. How can a quality brand support ... (original text removed in the interests of fairness - see below)

So the bottom line, if you are in the Canarys and you are looking for a Breitling or other quality watch then be on your guard for shoddy sales tactics and lies. Especially if you decide to shop at Ideal Joyeros, because it doesn't seem that Breitling have any interest in controlling the behaviour of their "authorised dealers".

Breitling may be more interested in preventing the discounting by ADs, than in assisting buyers with problems in obtaining discounts.

It is not the "obtaining a discount" I have issue with. It is the sales tactics. You understand a bait and switch? Is that legal in the US? Or trying to tell a customer that a watch is something that it is not?

In Europe they can only recommend a retail price, they can't force it. They are priced to the local market anyway, if you compare FULL retail prices in US $4200 and good old UK £3170 - there is over a $500 variance in official pricing caused by local pricing conditions. Not been to Dubai? But we digress into the debate around if its worth buying abroad when you can buy from non authorised discounters at home for the same sort of money. The argument being you should buy from AD because they are trustworthy is it not?

PS - thank you for your interest and input.

My point was that you're complaining about dealer behavior to Breitling in the context of product discount. Breitling may be more interested in eliminating the discount, which would necessarily reduce or eliminate the likelihood of bait. This is not to say that Breitling is justified, but to point out that your priorities are not necessarily the same as Breitling's.

In any case, you may yet receive a response. You don't know whether Breitling is conducting an investigation, or, if so, whether you would be told of it, or any results thereof. You don't know what, if anything, Breitling could have been told as the dealer's version of events. And you don't know the Breitling workload regarding complaints of this nature, or the time frame on responses. I suggest that you do not have nearly enough data to form a basis for your stated conclusion that Breitling does "support" the sales tactics at issue. I will agree that it shouldn't take long to send you a form letter thanking you for your letter, and stating that the company will look into the matter, but, at present, I can go no further than that.

I feel your pain. Dishonesty in any business deal is unacceptable, but I agree that Breitling corporate will have a different perspective. The best recourse may be to use online review sites for dealers to air the details of your experience.

@Wrangler - I hope we can agree to disagree in the spirit of friendly debate?

Bait and switch: in the US the customer would take court action for false advertising, but here in Egland (part of the EU like the Canary Islands) , it is a criminal offence punishable by up to two years in prison for the offender (wiki is your easiest reference source for this). On the other hand, here in the EU, it is illegal for vendors to fix retail pricing, they can "suggest" SRP or "recommend" RRP, but they cannot legal enforce those prices.

So what should be the vendor's priority be? To prevent their agents carrying out sales tactics accepted internationally to be somewhere between immoral and illegal, or to fix retail pricing, also an act somewhere between immoral and illegal? We have consumer rights to protect us from unscrupulous dealers, but this shouldn't be about laws and rights, it should be about a brand owner doing the right thing voluntarily because that is how great brands are built.

I do not blame Breitling for the act. I'm not even sure I blame the store. I would be easy to convince that this was the action of an unprofessional rogue sales person, if anyone would like to take the time to convince me. I take your point though. I chose my words carefully but at this stage you are right I cannot reasonably support my statement about Breitling "supporting" these activities, so I have removed the words for the original post. I do however stand by my more ambiguous statement of "it doesn't seem that Breitling have any interest in controlling the behaviour of their "authorised dealers"." And will do until I see proof otherwise.

Have you worked out that some of my outrage comes from the fact that I work in marketing (totally unrelated field to this though)? Every time a rogue seller deceives you with false claims, it makes my job harder because you paint us all with the same brush and don't believe me even when I am telling you proven and referancable truths.

I work in channel sales (vendor sells to distributor who sells to reseller who sells to end-user) just like Breitling operate. If anyone complained to me as a distie about one of our resellers acting illegal in connection to one of our brands, I would be all over it like a cheap suit. Reputation damage limitation on behalf of my vendors. Breitling don't actually make it very easy to contact them directly, so in my original email of complaint on my return I included their Spanish and Swiss distributors - both of which use Breitling domain email contacts. Neither has acknowledged that communication in anyway. I believe this to be unprofessional.

For full disclosure I will mention that the head office of the store did respond to that email saying they were going to investigate, but they seemed (as you do) more interested in the prices than in the tactics. Oddly, I truly believe that I am doing everyone involved a favour here, even the offending store. If they continue with these shabby tactics they will at the least damage reputations and at the worst find themselves in legal hot water. And certainly I am trying to help buyers (maybe like you) that come along behind me.

So I am giving everyone a full week to respond to me with real signs of activity and remorse. Am I sad enough to adopt this as a hobby for the next three months? Yep. If I don't hear back, I will step this up. I will post my story to every watch, jewellery and sales forum I can find. I will use my skills in online marketing to promote those posting via social media, currently a major element in SEO (search engine optimisation). Notice that I am not currently keyword stuffing my posts with the name of the store. When I switch tactics I will get my posts sitting right under their own website in google searches. I thank you for your responses as they will help achieve this goal.

So watch this space. For your delectation and entertainment I will try to force it to play out focused here on this forum. I don't know how far I will get, it depends what comes up to distract me I guess - oh look a squirrel ...

@ Baco Noir

I honestly hope that Breitling appreciates that great brands are built from the grass roots upwards. It is not all about Beckham and Travolta if they ever want to take the top slot off Rolex: "Still the best of times for Rolex: Swiss watchmaker retains its places as number one brand in Britain." http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z2gByWTMCo )

And yes, I fully agree that thanks to the Internet and forums like this one little people like me have a powerful tool and a loud voice.

It's an interesting variation on bait and switch, when they show you the correct item, and the only "switch" is on the story and the price.

It's not that malignant like real bait and switch, but technically it is bait and switch.

Oh come on guys, surely that makes it worse? It would have been a traditional Bait and Switch but he chose to take advantage of a customer's lack of intimate knowledge of the product range and IMHO made it worse by misrepresenting the product.

I don't defend cheating AD, but the worse scenario would be real bait and switch with a fake watch.

If it was a fake watch that would simply be fraud. Bait and Switch also known as Switch Selling is the process of encouraging someone to come to your store to buy one product and selling them a different one. A classic would be quoting me a great Breitling price and then switch selling me to a Rolex.

But lets not get bogged down in the semantics of it. He was a naughty AD and at the least he should be better trained about acceptable sales tactics. I think we are all on the same page here

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience.

I also bought a watch in Fuerteventura and my experience was slightly different. I dealt with Palacio Jewllers when I was there. I was looking around for a good deal on a brand new Aerospace on titanium bracelet. After a bit a chat I asked them to show me the watch. After a fair bit of haggling I had a good price on the table. I said I'd think about it and come back the next morning, so I did. The next morning the watch was there, still in the plastic wrap, boxes, paperwork, etc. They even threw in a free Breitling cap.

Now, personally it doesn't surprise me that you run into an AD that tried to bait and switch. Some of the dealers around the area were using, to put it politely, inadequate sales tactics such as saying; "Breitling ais going to push up the prices on Monday" when you were walking by looking at their window. An AD from London isn't the same as an AD from Fuerteventura sorry to say. They both might be authorised to sell Bretiling's products, but you have to admit that they deal in very different parameters. I'm not saying it's right, just pointing it out if you see what I mean.

Now, like everything else in life you have to be vigilant in touristy areas as they always try to instigate impulse buys. They make most of their money from people going on holiday for a week and have money to spend, whereas in London -for example- they know that their business is only going to be as strong as the relationships they forge with their costumers, hence the difference in the approach.

Does Breitling care about any of this? well, hard to say. I assume that as long as the AD meets the minimum requirements they are happy and leave the 'how-it's-done' up to the shop manager. Breitling isn't running the shops directly, unlike they do with their NY boutique which is a perfect example of how costumer service should be done.

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Phil_78

I very much agree with what you have to say and I'm happy that you at least had a good experience buying on Feurtaventura. I just wish that my experience with Ideal Joyeros (http://www.idealjoyeros.com) in Jandia was half as positive. As a Breitling Authorised Dealer I think that the behaviour of Ideal Joyeros was totally unprofessional and probably illegal.

What you say is fair and certainly when I have holidayed in Egypt and even Turkey I have exercised the principles of "buyer beware" knowing that their trading regulations are not as tight as ours. But Ideal Joyeros is in Feurtaventura and the Canary Islands are part of Spain and are therefore controlled by EU regulations and laws. There are strict laws against the sales staff of Ideal Joyeros behaving like cowboys and using Unfair Commercial Practices. I have even emailed the management of Idea Joyeros a copy of that particular Directive: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/Lex ... 039:en:PDF It explains very clearly that bait and switch is a fraudulent selling tactic.

Despite showing some apparent willingness to investigate, Ideal Joyeros, have failed to come back to me in a week. In fact I believe that all they were really interested in was finding out if I actually bought the watch on Feurtaventura and how much I paid for it. Ideal Joyeros do not appear to be at all interested in ensuring that their sales staff act in a professional manner or obey EU selling regulations. I find it hard to fathom why reputable brands like Breitling, Rolex, Omega, Tag Heuer, IWC, Cartier, Longines, Rado, and other quality watches allow Ideal Joyeros to be authorised dealers.

I can only imagine what tactics Ideal Joyeros might employ to sell other jewellery products like diamond rings where absolute trust in the dealer is a prerequisite to getting what you are actually paying for. As I say the sales guy at Ideal Joyeros deliberately misrepresented the Breitling watch trying to convince me that it was some sort of special edition version of the watch that they had agreed a price on. What do you think someone prepared to do that would do if you were buying something that you need an expert with a loupe to see flaws in?

You have probably guessed that I am still fuming about this. My wife and I were only on holiday on Feurtaventura for a week. We took a full day hiring a car and driving down to Ideal Joyeros in Jandia which is right at the bottom of the island. That day was completely ruined by Ideal Joyeros' staff member's shabby sales practices. And to be honest the next two days weren't too great either as foolishly we still hoped that Ideal Joyeros would act honourably and actually deliver the Breitling Superocean Heritage watch to us as they had absolutely promised to do. I looked the sales guy in the eye and said to him "so you and I have a deal. You are going to deliver my watch to me on Thursday evening at the latest" He shook my hand and promised faithfully that it would be done. I guess being a Brit I just have higher expectations that businesses ensure that their staff behave reputably.

The experience has tarnished my faith in the concept of authorised dealers. The whole idea behind ADs is that they are reputable businesses that can be trusted. Why should I buy from an Authorized Breitling Dealer like Ideal Joyeros when I can buy with greater confidence from a non-authorised dealer in the UK?