zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

Sorrym but I have to pick up on a few points here.

Posted By: SteveW62 <Steve_Waddington@yahoo.com> Date: 1/1/08 14:16:42 GMT

In Response To: Re:
AUTHENTIC WATCHES.COM????? (Stephen)

I'm very sorry this happened.
Me too, as are probably most posters here

I wouldn't use the word sorry, I'd use the word cheezed you got taken... It's disappointing.

I've asked Zowie to post a warning on their site but they won't.
I have no Idea who you have asked or when or how, but I've never recieved an E-mail on this subject & I don't recall reading a post asking for this. Having now just checked ths thread, I see you asked in 2002. I can't find too many posts by yourself ( 45 in total under the name Stephen ) so I guess you have been lurking & posting infrequently for quite a while now. If so I'm a bit amazed at your following comments. But firstly, back to your request.

The Zowie Forum & The CHRONOCENTRIC website is NOT affiliated to ANY watch dealer/company whatsoever.

That is correct. The website and the forum has no affiliation with any watch dealer/company/firm.

The site was the SOLE property of Derek Ziglar, until his untimely death a couple of years ago. After this Jeff Stein Co-moderator of our sister Heuer Forum ) took over ownership. Chuck Maddox is the other Co-moderator on the Heuer Forum.

I also along with Jeff do have "oversight moderation" duties here in the ZOWIE Omega Discussion forum, and also perform "fill-in" moderation duties when Steve and Keith have been away from the net while traveling and hence unable to be "on-call" for moderation duties.

Keith Downing also moderated here for some time, but has been inactive for some time. We will soon be formally naming and introducing a new moderator here at ZOWIE but you'll have to wait and watch for that announcement.

I started to Co-moderate the OMEGA forum with Keith Downing almost exactly 2 years ago.

So we 5 people "ARE" Zowie - in the official sense. No-one can speak for Derek

Sadly...

& I will only speak for myself, But this is my stance on this point.

Authentic Watches is a grey market watch dealer. We ( - from this oint WE refers to Zowie/Chroncentric & the majority of our forums members ) do NOT recommend that anybody buys watches from Authentic Watches or ANY other Grey Market watch dealer.

Agreed. Zowie/Chronocentric and for that matter OnTheDash has never recommended any specific Gray Market dealer, nor specifically Authentic Watches by name, and I am pretty sure I have never personally recommended purchase of a new watch from a Gray Market dealer. In fact the only uncertainty I can think of was when Ashford.com was blowing out Displayback Moonwatches for about $1,400 a couple of years back [with intact serial numbers] when they still owned TimeZone.com. Then I might have said "check with a local AD [or Keith's AD] and do a cost-benefit analysis for your needs and desires" and state that the price Ashford offered was a tempting one...

If we were to post a warning about Authentic Watches, then we should also post about ALL Grey Market watch dealers. I don't have a list of them ( or even interest in making a list ). That'd be a never ending list, that constantly changes as various companies come & go.

Agreed. I have a hard enough time keeping up with the official website URL's of the manufacturers of watches much less the Gray Market dealers.

Now I do have a page which has a bunch of links to various watch dealers on line. I'm sure many of them are Gray Market. However, there is a disclaimer at the bottom of that page which states the following:

There are a lot of links here on this page. I do not and have not done business with more than a small fraction of the firms listed on this page. Their inclusion here is not and should not be read as any sort of endorsement or recommendation. About the only requirement for inclusion on this page is that I will not include links to any site which offers FAKE or COUNTERFEIT watches, and I am increasingly less likely to include links to sites which concentrate on products which I have no interest in.

BEFORE you consumate any deal, it is up to YOU to perform due diligence, it is not my job or duty to perform it for you. If you are not buying a watch directly from the firm who makes it or their authorized dealers or agents, you are conducting business with the individual/firm on your own with only the legal recourse that applicable law may [or may NOT] provide. I am neither a lawyer nor negotiator nor abitraitor, do not expect me to become involved if some transaction you've entered into goes sour.

Have fun, but be careful out there!

Seems clear enough to me.

We can & do ) regularly send requestors information on our "forum Authorized Dealer".

Agreed. Keith Downing referred many thousands of people to his Authorized dealer for many many years. When Keith stepped back from the online watch discussion community, I [as one of the same dealer's satisfied customers] stepped up [along with the fellows Steve names in the next line] to answer requests for an Authorized Dealer that a customer would recommend. I know that I've made many hundreds of referrals to the same dealer as Keith. However, I have also recommended other Authorized dealers in various areas whom I am familiar with [but mainly in the Chicago metroplex]...

For legal reasons we will NOT post these details, but they are available for ANYONE who asks. ( MMC / Turbinator / Chuck Maddox or John Rochowicz can help you ).

Agreed, we withhold the details so that the AD remains in compliance with their contractual obligations and also because most forums prohibit posting such information on their sites..

This dealer will give you a great price on a BRAND NEW Omega watch, service that cannot be beaten

Well, I've never seen nor heard of any better service.

& all the safety of knowing that you have purchased a 100% legal watch from a 100% legal Omega supported Authorized Dealer.

Agreed.

Sure you may save a few more dollars, by going "Grey", But, hey, read this thread to see what kind of risks you are taking!

Agreed. And in fact I have in the past taken on propogandists... Here is a particularly memorable exchange with a fellow whom I nicknamed "Sparky"...:

They must have ties with them or something

Nope, as I stated above, we have no ties in anyway whatsoever to ANY watch dealer. Not even the AD that we recommend. We just like to pass on info on the good guys !

I can't go that far, Steve. I have "ties" to a number of firms listed on my pages... I'm a customer of a number of them. Mostly a satisfied customer, sometimes not entirely satisfied. And I do respond to emails seeking recommendations for straps, servicing, watchmakers or Authorized Dealers. So I do have some ties, but that's personally. As a moderator, and principal in the operation of Chroncentric, OnTheDash and their associated forums, etc. there are no official ties.

At this stage I should point out that I have RARELY edited or deleted a post.

Up until recently, I have rarely deleted or edited a non-spam post in any of the forums. However, lately, I have deleted obviously accidental NoMessage posts in the forum without a unique descriptive title [to keep the forum's appearance clean], and there is a well known bug with certain web browsers where "---------WebKitFormBoundary" and a bunch of garbage text is appended to user's names, email addresses and post bodies [and links] and I will [sometimes] edit those posts to eliminate the "-------WebKitFormBoundary" garbage out of the forum for estetic reasons.

I have no qualms about deleting SPAM messages, I am more likely to warn posters when they have transgressed against forum guidelines rather than edit content or delete posts. But I will do either as I see fit.

You WILL find posts from people in our forum who have had a good experience by using Grey Market dealers. This doesn't mean that we recommend them.

Correct.

It means we respect the posters opinions & they have a right to express it. THAT'S ALL.

Agreed.

Like the various safety clauses state on DVD etc. "The opinions expressed here, by individuals, DO NOT neccessarily reflect the manangements opinion"

Exactly.

- way too many people have been scammed by these guys.
I can't believe they're still in business.
I hope you are now referring to Authentic Watches & not "us" ( Zowie or Chronocentric )

Or OnTheDash, or the individuals who are involved in providing these venues for your education, entertainment and participation.

_ I will assume you ARE referring to Authentic Watches. & I agree 100%

Please take some time & scan through our forum. I think you'll find that we DO NOT recommend Grey Market dealers. But we DO recommend a great AD.

We do, but you have to ASK us OFF-Forum for that recommendation, we do not post that information on the forum. And OF COURSE, the best time to ask for our recommendations is BEFORE you have bought something not after!

If more people took the time to do this, Authentic Watches & others would have fewer customers.

Absolutely!

If we are asked, we recommend against it.

At the very least recommend alternatives to Gray Market dealers and highly recommend that all potential purchasers weigh carefully the benefits and risks of the various means of obtaining the item they are seeking.

But we are not always asked. & quite often all we get are the complaints afterwards.

Sad, but true.

Amazing how we, good people, have zero power to protect themselves from online thieves,

Nonsense!

We each do have power, but we each have to exercise common sense before sending off our money. We each can look around, we each can ask questions, we each can seek recommendations, we each can educate ourselves. But we each have to go to that "due diligence" effort to make sure we're purchasing the right product from the right proveyor of that product. I can't make people ask me for a recommendation, nor can Steve, Jeff or anyone else. Each individual has to go to that effor for themselves [or not]...

or better yet, bloody pirates.
Yes you DO have the power. KNOWLEDGE is power. do some research BEFORE you spend your money.

Agreed, if you purchase from a position of ignorance, the place to look when placing blame is the mirror nearest to you.

Prevention is always better than Cure.

Absolutely! Foresight is better than regret.

But having spent your money then coming here to Complain / Cry about poor service isn't really doing anyone much good is it ?

Well, it might make other people think twice before doing business with those folks, if they bother to search through this thread or do some research on "Gray Market" via the search feature on the various forums.

All I can thank you for is that hopefully other prospective customers learn from your mistakes.

Of course it's too late if one didn't do the requisite research before purchase, but hopefully people who follow the forum will file this thread away so that a little voice reminds them the next time they are in a similar situation.

Please let me finish this post as I started my expressing my commiserations to anyone who has bought from Authentic watches or any other Grey Market dealer. We don't recommend it, never have & never will.

Please let me finish this post with a variation on what Steve said above and I'll follow it with some thought of my own below...

Folks who have had bad experiences with transactions, be they be private person to private person, eBay, Brick & Mortar, WebRetailer, Gray Market or AD have my sympathy and commiseration. That's not the way to conduct business. I am sure there are decent [and perhaps even good/great] Gray Market dealers out there. Perhaps Authentic watches isn't one of them [I don't know personally from first hand experience].

And while I have no problem with suggesting people keep an open mind above purchase from Gray Market sellers or from the used market, typically when seeking to purchase current [or recently discontinued] model watches my preference is to point people to an Authorized Dealer.

Steve

Like Steve, I personally can't speak for what was requested of Derek during the time he operated Chronocentric/ZOWIE, namely prior to his suicide on May 29, 2005.

Since the time Jeff Stein was able to obtain administrative control of the Chronocentric.com domain [about 4-6 months after Derek's death] we have not received any request I'm aware of to post a warning about anything. Even if we had, I don't know how we would administrate or manage a list of "shady dealers" any not avoid a bunch of grief for having such a list posted publically.

It is not our job to perform due diligence for each person wishing to make a purchase. That is the job of each individual themselves [and perhaps their teachers and parents to have taught them a little common sense when they were growing up]. In any instance it's simply not our job. Nor is it our duty to insert ourselves inbetween every person who wishes to purchase something and anyone who wishes to sell them one, reputable or not.

IF one seeks our guidance or council, we are typically a post or an email [some of us even an AOL Instant Message] away. However we are NOT psychic [psychotic maybe] and we do not read minds. It's much much more effective to ask our advice before you've sent your money than to seek our advice once a deal has gone sour.

If that rubs people the wrong way [shrugs shoulders] that's just the way it is.

Let's all be careful out there!

-- Chuck
[Chronograph Collector, moderator over at the OTD Heuer Forum, and "fill-in"/oversight moderator of the other forums under the Chronocentric.com umbrella]...