Just had the notification.
Just had the notification.
This is good news, however is this standard across all watches £1500 and up now?
On my site at least I don't seem to see the 'eBay authentication guarantee' badge on all of the listings. So I wonder if it's something the seller can opt out of or if he puts that it's modified etc it doesn't get authenticated.
The service is very good. I sold a watch on Monday evening and was instructed to send it for authentication. It was posted Tuesday morning RMSD and received Wednesday and signed for before I had even got up. I then received an e-mail around 13:00 to say it had passed testing and it was being dispatched to the buyer. The watch was passed to UPS and is currently out for delivery this morning.
This has added one extra day to the process and I was paid by e-bay before I even got to the Post Office.
I noticed that e-bay are lowering the value to watches over £1,500.00 - but I suspect it won’t be long before charges are introduced for this service.
You cannot opt out, it is a compulsory thing if you wish to sell watches over their levels.
But no complaints…
I wasn’t as impressed with the service. Timings were fine but I am angled to get an amazing breitling AVI 765 reissue and the ebay card it came with describes the movement as “automatic” when in fact it is a manual.Originally Posted by Wallasey Runner
Really makes you think whether they actually know what they are doing/authenticating.
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I used the service back in December and found it pretty straightforward.
https://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.p...ee-Odd-address
It also gave me some reassurance the buyer wouldn't claim afterwards that the watch had something wrong with it. Had a phone call from them saying they had lowered it to £1500.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Sounds like it can only be a good thing. Should stop some of the more common scams.
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I don't have enough faith in ebay to fully inspect and authenticate the movement of any high value watch. I'm sure there have been a couple of cases where the customer received a frankenwatch
Nothing's perfect but the authentication service should surely reduce the likelihood of fakes and frankens getting through.
How are they going to authenticate something like an Original Dreadnaught?
A watch they will never have seen or probably be aware of.
Cheers,
Ben
..... for I have become the Jedi of flippers
" an extravagance is anything you buy that is of no earthly use to your wife "
Is anyone knocking out fake Dreadnaughts?
I think it offer some piece of mind for buyers, and if they determine whether the watch is 'as described' then it's also great protection for the seller.
Agreed; the seller knows that he’s not going to be scammed by the buyer and the buyer has some peace of mind that he’s less likely to be sold a fake.
It also raises the opportunity to claim against eBay should the authentication be proved wrong and the watch actually be a fake. It would still be worth booking the watch in for a service on arrival for additional corroboration of its authenticity
I agree with this. In a lot of cases they are checking against the listing and they are unlikely to know the specifics of every watch, but if it stops the Gumtree type fake Rolex listings then that has to be a good thing.
I’m just going through this process as a buyer for the first time. There seems to be some uncertainty about whether case backs are removed or not. Assuming they do, what do they do if that watch is oil or inert gas filled, eg Sinn?
I am sure that they do NOT open it in that case!
If they make a mistake then you'll just get your money back.
Regarding inert gasses i was always taught they are better out than in.
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Selling or buying £1500+ watches is well above my paygrade, but if it wasn't, I'd see the main benefit is to sellers not being scammed by buyers saying its fake, its an empty box, it hasn't arrived etc.
Last edited by Ruggertech; 4th March 2022 at 12:02.
I get quite worried when small mistakes are made like that.
If I see a listing for a top brand, even if it isn't top money, a basic inaccuracy in description puts me right off.
If an authentication service says automatic when its a manual, or vice versa, that does not instil confidence.
It’s not perfect and it certainly isn’t a Haywood grade of watch verification followed by his team chasing round the City in a Sweeney style car chase in a Mark 3 Cortina after a bunch of wrong’uns trying to sell fake Rolex to the posh knobs in the City.
Hopefully it will stop the obvious fakes being listed and for once on e-bay there is an element of protection for sellers from the scum who instantly start making false claims, parcel not received, not as described etc. if the buyer is unhappy they have to present their case to the authentication team because the watch has already been checked by them, so hopefully will halt the nutters from trying it on.
If I was a buyer of a several grand watch I think I would still stay well clear of e-bay, but as a seller it’s more attractive than it was before.
As much as I like to moan about eBays failures with this authenticity program at £1500 plus the money back guarantee for 30 days of the regular it’s made eBay probably one of the safest places to buy a second hand watch
I’ll never sell a big money watch on eBay again. They fined me for final value fees after I took a listing down, I still own the watch and could prove it, but they wouldn’t have a bar of it.
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Did it sell on ebay and you received funds? What happened?
Item didn’t sell, I had messages from a few dodgy buyers trying to get me to sell outside of eBay. I said no and got fed up, removed the listing and then got the fine.
Escalated with their customer service, sent them pictures of the watch with the date numerous times and they wouldn’t budge.
There’s lots of stories of this happening.
Ebay put a warning up that you may need to pay fees when you cancel a listing. It’s not specific to watches and applies to anything that has a bid on it at the time of cancellation. No bid, no fee. Has a bid, you pay fees.
Their rules and, as you’ve found, they stick rigidly to them.
Last edited by SydR; 17th July 2022 at 11:44.
I didn't know this.
Thanks for sharing =)
This assumes an auction style listing though. Would be interested to know if the seller above was selling on an auction and the auction had live bids, i.e. it would have sold if it wasn't withdrawn.
I always sell using buy it now and if I pull the auction for any reason (change of mind, sold on a forum etc) , I revise the buy it now auction price to £1 and once updated, I then then cancel the auction.
My auction was purely buy it now. No offers were live, I had just had some messages from unscrupulous buyers wanting to buy via bank transfer outside of eBay.
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So was it an auction or buy it now or both!?
Does anyone know if the part of authentication process involves checking the watch (serial number) against any of the stolen property registers?
What a good question! No, I don't know.
I wonder if they have access to Rolex's database. I suspect not.
This was my thought - my father had a Rolex stolen recently and his local Rolex dealer has circulated it as stolen on their database. I've registered its loss on other registers as well so maybe the eBay authentication process checks one of them.
What did they charge you for then? I assumed you would just be liable for the listing fees.
I think it's only if bids have been received & you cancel it with 24 hrs or less to go.
I've been stung once but it was only for £9.00
PS
It does actually tell you that fee's may be charged when you go to cancel it.
Sent from a technical device.
Last edited by sickie; 17th July 2022 at 18:32.
Sorry for the confusion, it was listed as Buy it now. EBay charged me with final value fees, claiming this was due to selling the item outside of eBay. I appealed the fine, proved I owned the watch but they had no interest.
Their system had flagged my account due to receiving these messages from sellers who wanted to buy outside of eBay.
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Did you ask them to look at your sent messages, rejecting the advances? I find it bizarre they would just assume you've sold it off-site?
Yep sent copies of the messages had them check their account. The response was essentially, “we’ve flagged your account, we believe you have sold the item”. Absolute shisters.
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Find this hard to comprehend.
Know many people who have told me they have dealt outside eBay without any consequence. If you haven’t broken their rules I don’t see how they can enforce this on you. Generally they are reasonable so perhaps you need to escalate.
Alternatively there may be some fine print which was not adhered to, which we are not seeing here. eBay certainly has plenty of fine print, I think we can all agree on that.
As I say from my experience they have been reasonable but perhaps I have been lucky. I once had a £1 offer. The item was listed for 30 days and then it auto re listed. It then sold. I didn’t obviously read the fine print which said the offer is only valid on the original listing not any subsequent relist.
When I called to query why I was charged they waived it but informed me they were right to charge.
Maybe times have changed and they are now just crooks which is what it sounds like in your example?
Just found the chat transcript I had with them here is eBay’s message.
I raised a complaint along the lines of should I not get a warning rather than jumping straight to a fee. I received a message where they shared their contact details with me and I took no further action. I still own the item and can prove it.
“Thank you for writing back to eBay Customer Service with regard to the final value fee charged in your account due to Off eBay sales.
Alexander, while I understand your point, the charge still applies. Please note that we strongly do not allow our members to exchange contact information such as phone number, email, physical address, banking information or any link while a listing is ongoing. And please understand that we are doing this because we want all transactions to happen within eBay with our objective to protect both buyers and sellers.
I would like to let you know that any transactions done outside eBay will give us less control, hence will give you less protection. And that's what we are deeply concerned about.
I perfectly understand that there are specific scenarios where the buyer might want to check the item first in person, or possibly want to discover their seller’s exact location for pick up. In this case, I just want to remind you that once the item have been paid for the item, that is the only time you can provide or ask any contact information and arrange collection of the item.”
Last edited by AmosMoses; 17th July 2022 at 22:56.
That’s a rubbish experience. This sounds a lot like <I hurt you because I love you>. It’s utter nonsense as a basis on which to fine their customers.
Having said that, if contact details were exchanged (even if it was to check the item) and then the watch was pulled, I can sort of see how eBay would get shirty. One can just as easily get the buyer to take some pictures and say the item is in the seller’s possession.
To be clear, I’m not saying that’s what you did and eBay should have just let it slide if there was doubt but it wouldn’t take a genius to circumvent their fees if they allowed people to arrange meetings in private and listings disappeared afterwards.
Have used it before and think it works well. Takes a lot of the scam aspect away if you are a seller and obviously gives you confidence as a buyer.
I spoke to an eBay agent on telephone about it recently. They said there are four watchmakers employed by Stroll who between them have 100 years experience.
Hope it's not three with 33 years experience and one with 1 ;)
I might have overlooked something, but at a glance the company seems to be in the US (Ohio). So every watch above the value threshold will have to take an American detour - is that correct? That seems mad.
No, they set up a UK branch to handle eBay's UK authentication business. They are based in Ruislip.
https://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.p...=1#post5951159
https://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.p...=1#post5946641
https://find-and-update.company-info...mpany/BR023769
Last edited by markrlondon; 7th September 2022 at 16:17.
Ah okay, not too bad then. Will a EU buyer, buying a watch from the EU then have to pay import fees from the UK after inspection?
Last edited by AdmiralNilsson; 7th September 2022 at 17:42.
Read the documentation. :-) The authentication scheme is country-specific. As far as I know it only operates (so far) in the USA and UK (UK for about a year now). Also it does not cover international sales (not that you asked about those).
Last edited by markrlondon; 7th September 2022 at 20:35.
But I would rather speculate wildly while in the toilet :).
You are right, I’ll leave it be.
Last edited by AdmiralNilsson; 7th September 2022 at 21:38.
Based in Ruislip.
RS STOLL & Co. UK
Rapid, Hawkers Yard Unit 21a Stonefield Way, Ruislip, HA4 0BH
Type of business - Inspection And Authentication Of High End Wrist Watches
https://find-and-update.company-info...mpany/BR023769
______
Jim.
I’ve sold through the scheme once and it turned out to be a smooth operation.
It didn’t occur to me that they would open the caseback, I assumed the check was more basic. I.e. stick it on a timegrapher (see if the beat rate is correct etc), examine the watch from the outside, check the serial number against any paperwork etc. I didn’t expect it to be particularly thorough.
If they open up the caseback within warranty then there’s a whole heap of trouble awaiting when manufacturers start voiding warranties.
Last edited by Berty234; 7th September 2022 at 17:14.
Yes. See the thread about the Tudor watch and voided Tudor warranty: https://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.p...-Advice-please
In that case, if I remember correctly, the Tudor warranty was voided because external work had been done to the watch. But it would probably have been voided anyway if Tudor had been able to detect that the case had been opened.
So yes, in my opinion don't sell watches that are still within their manufacturer's warranty period via eBay if you don't want the warranty to be voided.
This caveat assumes that the manufacturer's warranty would in fact be voided if the watch was opened for authentication purposes with no actual work being done to it. This is of course manufacturer-specific. I suspect that not all manufacturers would necessarily be as quick to void their warranty as Tudor was. But check with the manufacturer.
Last edited by markrlondon; 7th September 2022 at 20:30.
Highly doubt they open the case back due to all reasons mentioned and plus it is probably a 3 min per watch inspection.
On eBay UK site they state the following. Note, no mention of movement inspection:
Multi-point inspection
Independent authenticators verify multiple inspection points, including the crown, bezel, dial, case, clasp/buckle, hands, end links, and reference number.
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