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Warning of fraudulent Ebay seller - watchseller247 (no replies)

reverseworm — Wed, 08 May 2013 18:38:01 -0400

Hi everyone,

Just joined the forum to let everyone know of my unfortunate experience with an Ebay seller in the US so that they can hopefully avoid being duped like I have been.

Always been a Hamilton fan and I really like their Below Zero line. I found a seller on Ebay called Watchseller247 who carries a large range of Hamilton's along with a number of other quality name brands including Oris, Raymond Weil, Rado, Citizen, Tissot, Victorinox etc. The seller has their own Ebay store and has been around since 2005 with 99% positive feedback. I was never really concerned about buying from him/her.

I purchased a Hamilton Below Zero Black in December last year for US $1200. Watch arrived ok and looked genuine. It came in a nice Hamilton box with spare band and tools. After a month it started losing time. I read the warranty information and it came with a 2 year international warranty as long as the warranty card was stamped and dated - it wasn't. I started becoming concerned at this point.

I contacted the seller and they suggested sending the watch back for repair and that they had never had any issues with getting warranty work done. So I posted the watch back at my expense. This was in February this year.

After a number of emails to the seller (many of which went ignored) I was not able to get any indication of the timeframe for the return of my watch. Weeks turned into months - still no word from the seller or the return of my watch. Anyway long story short, I am now without a watch and $1200 poorer. The seller ignores my emails and refuses to engage. I threatened making a complaint to Ebay and PayPal but still nothing.

Given the amount of time that has passed I am not able to make a complaint with Ebay so instead I have contacted the police locally and also in Seattle where the seller is based. I also contacted Hamilton directly to alert them of this seller. I don't have any contact details other than an email address and a PO box. I am not confident of getting my money back, so I am determined to let as many people know as possible so that no one else becomes a victim.

The reason that these guys have such high ebay feedback scores is probably because of the timeframes involved - it is now impossible for me to leave negative feedback because it has been too long. The seller is obviously very aware of this and used a very effective delay tactic to avoid the negative feedback.

Please be careful - I believe this seller to be fraudulent and I am now convinced the watch I bought was a replica.

Please feel free to email me direct if you would like more details - I still have all the emails.

All the best.

Andrew

Warning : ashirian, shady person (no replies)

IanC — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 00:18:15 -0400

WUS poster based in the US. Requested two of my watches for a review/pics, review/pics failed to materialise even after 5 months (claimed he was studying and working 2 jobs), did not respond to PMs/email. In november 2012, he finally agreed to send them to someone else in the US, but wanted $21 to ship them, including "gas money" to drive to the post office.

Now in 2013 claims he is unable to ship the watches as he is out of town until the end of May, as his new job requires him to travel around the world. Has been holding onto my watches for almost a year now, and stalling for almost the entire time.

Paypal : sangjun86@gmail.com

Address : S.J. Han
1610 Chadbourne Ave.
Apt #6
Madison, WI 53726
United states

A '' Dave Wynne'' tried to sell to me a Titus but..... (no replies)

IF — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 14:00:12 -0500

..............he never replied when I asked for pictures! Beware of such persons when you post a ...''want to buy '' or ''looking for'' !!!

tanwill ( William Tan ) sent me a FAKE vintage Aquadive Caribbean 1000 (no replies)

ncmoto — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 09:13:00 -0500

tanwill William Tan of Alu-metal Singapore Pte Ltd and "friend"sent me a totally FAKE vintage Aquadive Caribbean 1000. He now refuses to communicate or return the Eterna KonTiKi I traded. He has now been BANNED over @ WUS

Ebay scammer: Watchbarn*com (no replies)

JY — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 02:45:07 -0400

I ordered a 'super thick 3mm' Nato strap from Jeff at Watchbarn*com on ebay but received a flimsy 1mm strap. Communication with this individual was terrible but I sent it back for a promised refund. Despite emails (which were responded to tersely and elusively) I never received a refund and as the time period to lodge a complaint expired I am out of pocket $40. This crook doesn't have any items currently for sale, but beware if you're shopping in future for a watch band - AVOID this US-based scammer!

xxxxx yyyyyy - dienstuhren.de on ebay is a xxxxxx - Pacardt Kampfschwimmer 1000m (no replies)

DEMO — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 10:48:05 -0400

subjectsmiley70! removed private name on August 28th 2012

dienstuhren.de on ebay is a xxxxxxxx. This is a warning for other members who might be thinking of dealing with him.

D-UH-17•08•06 GmbH
xxxxxx yyyyyy
Kirchplatz 6
31737 Rinteln
Deutschland

Email: info@dienstuhren.de

I have been a long time member on Ebay with 100% positive feedback. You guys know me here on the watch forums as a long time member as well with 100% positive feedback.

• I purchased a Pacardt Kampfschwimmer 1000m dive watch (ebay item 250975518536) through his company on March 17th. I received the watch two weeks later. I was not happy with the quality of the watch and the lug screws were stripped when I received it. His listing states he accepts returns so I contacted him to return it for a refund and shipped it USPS Registered Mail back to him.

• He states he never received the watch so I start a trace. A month later The watch package is returned to me by German Post / USPS. There are stickers on it saying unable to deliver to that address. I contact the seller, (xxxxx yyyyyy at D-UH-17•08•06 GmbH) and tell him it has been returned. I think this is a little fishy because he confirmed the return shipping address. I tell him I am returning it again and shipping it FedEx (out of my pocket) so that I can track it. I track the package all the way to Germany. The last FedEx posting says REFUSED BY RECIPIENT. Now I know why my 1st USPS Registered Mail shipment was returned. He is not honoring his return policy.

• Now there is no reply from him after many attempts of emailing him. More than 45 days has elapsed with the purchase so I cannot get a refund through Paypal or Ebay. I contacted both Ebay and Paypal about this and they confirmed they can not do anything because of the elapsed time. They did say they will look into the seller and his business practices.

I highly DO NOT recommend dealing with or making any purchases with dienstuhren.de, xxxxxx yyyyyy at D-UH-17•08•06 GmbH

Scammed macg@windowslive.com (no replies)

baki555 — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 19:04:34 -0400

Buyers beware.

I tried to buy a black monster from PMWF memeber MACG. I sent the payment via paypal on April 11 and was told that the watch would ship ASAP once the payment was received. Shipment date was supposed to be April 12. That changed to April 16. And finally, the watch supposedly shipped out April 20 via Airmail from Bulgaria with no tracking. I was told by Mac that it would take 15-25 business days till arrival. It is now June 2, and no watch. I have contacted Mac multiple times with no response. I tried to file a complaint via Paypal, but was denied because it was opened more than 45 days after the transaction. Well I would have filed sooner, but I wanted to wait the full 25 business days. So now I am out the payment with no possible recourse.

If it wasn't for the fact that I had had good luck with PMWF in the past, I would walk away right now. However, all buyers beware of MacG.

Beware Scammer: Seth Loot (setloo001@gmail.com) (no replies)

jaredkanallakan — Wed, 09 May 2012 10:15:53 -0400

I had posted a WTB entry in the sales forum for a Steinhart Watch, particularly the Ocean Vintage Military. A couple of hours later I was emailed by a "Seth Loot" saying he had an OVM that he would sell me for $400 shipped, and I told him I would take it. He then asked for my address, and gave me his information and said as soon as the money was confirmed as sent via Western Union he would ship the watch. I let him know I was skeptical about blindly wiring money to the UK to a stranger, and he linked me to a vintage Rolex forum where there were two people vouching for a "Seth." Again, I was skeptical about the transaction and insisted on at least using Paypal, and the last I heard from him he said he was going to create a Paypal account. I did do a little searching for user-pics of the OVM to see if he could be a scammer that had stolen someone's pics claiming it as his own watch, and lo and behold I found a post in the Watchuseek forums for an OVM that had the three pics he sent me as well as 10 more. The Watchuseek poster seems to have numerous listings for sales in that forum, and says he is based in Italy and his email address confirms that. I'm assuming the Watchuseek poster is legit, and I have emailed him with some questions. Seth Loot said he was not a member of the PMWF, so I couldn't check on any previous posts/transactions. Here is the info he gave me:

setloo001@gmail.com

Seth Loot
39 Groove Street
London
E15 2JB
England

Watch out for BRETT LIVELY in WV, USA. (4 replies)

Jake B — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:28:03 -0500

Watch out for BRETT LIVELY in WV, USA.

I'll preface this by saying that this is the first post of this nature I've ever made, in about 8 years of buying, selling, and trading watches. This post is made in the interest of educating sellers so that they may avoid winding up in the same situation.

Brett Lively ordered a custom made watch from me. The watch was sent out immediately, and the Paypal status was updated as always right away with "In Process", followed by a "Posted" with shipping and tracking info. When these updates are done, Paypal automatically sends the status to the email address attached to the Paypal account. There is no saying that shipping info was not received. Within approx 1 week, before receiving the item, or even allowing a reasonable amount of time for shipment, Mr. Lively initiated a Paypal dispute and a Chargeback, claiming non-receipt, and also claiming that he'd not received shipping info (not true) and that he'd been sending repeated emails asking for shipping info (not true, no emails were received until exactly when he initiated the chargeback) He then received the watch, and lifted the Paypal dispute, making me think that things were fine. However, since he initiated a Chargeback on his credit card, Paypal received no money, and hence I have no money either. Now, Paypal and myself wait while his credit card company makes a decision which may take up 3 months. Now, Mr. Lively has a watch, has not paid for it, and is giving me the run-around. He will not pay for the watch, and when he does respond to emails (which is spotty) he shoots me gibberish about Bill me Later and waiting for money from Paypal. This all means nothing to me, or Paypal, who are trying hard to help me with this case, since shen he cancelled the credit card payment, no one received money. Now, the "decision" is in the hands of his credit card company. I'm told that in nearly 100 percent of cases, the credit card company sides with their client regardless of facts, so it looks at this point like I'm out of luck.

Bottom line: He ordered a watch, cancelled Payment on the credit card, received the watch, and now will not pay up. Now this joker's walking around with a handmade custom watch, for free, at my expense.

His last message to me:

"Jake,
To date the money has not showed up in my Bill Me Later account.BML is waiting on PayPal for the funds.
Brett"

Problem with that is, there IS NO MONEY TO SHOW UP FROM PAYPAL. PAYPAL HAS NO MONEY FROM HIM. He cancelled the credit card payment by initiating a chargeback!

My last message:

"You cancelled the credit card Payment by doing a chargeback. Paypal has no money from you, or your credit card company after the chargeback you initiated. That is why they took back the money again. Since you cancelled by doing a chargeback, your credit card company is now investigating and I'm told it can take up to 75 days. I'm fully up to speed with what's going on, as I'm following with Paypal, who are doing their best to assist me. So far, you ordered a watch, I sent it right away, you then cancelled the payment before receiving it. I am now out a watch and have no money, and neither does Paypal. We're now waiting on you, and your credit card company who are still under the impression that you've not received an item since that's what you've claimed. This is looking very much like a very well known scam now to everyone involved, and if it's not, then pay me for my watch. Fix this, Brett..and now please. I'm losing patience, and fast."

I had heard of this type of nightmare before, and apparently it's more common than you may think. Sellers beware, and by all means stay away from Brett Lively if you don't want to find yourself at the pharmacy investing in a box of Pepcid AC.

Where it stands, the very best case scenario is that maybe, I may receive money in a few months. Worst, I'm out a few hundred bucks. In any case, not a good transaction by any means, and obviously the man wearing the free watch should correct this right away. If this were you in the same situation, would you expect this guy to stand up and send payment for your watch right away, or would you be content in waiting a few months to see if his credit card company sides with you, or their client?

About the (not registered on PMWF) person having tony_adams4792@hotmail.com as email address> (no replies)

Bock — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:59:55 -0500

One of our members placed a WTB for a Bernardt, this person responded to him where he offered a Rolex in nearly matching colors, also adding he could offer a Rolex in exact same color combination our PMWFer was searching for. After our member replied by "are you sure you sent the right pics?", the response was that about anything could be gotten, and just had to say what.

No hard evidence, but a case of pure gut feeling. And our PMWF member and I think one should stay away.

Scam Alert: Hijacked ID and Password - robrobin (no replies)

robrobin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 09:39:25 -0400

Scam Alert: Hijacked ID and Password - Robrobin
TRF members please be advised about this current fraud. My ID, robrobin, was hijacked over the last 24 hours on Watchnet, Timezone and WUS. I've been contacted by over 51 individuals about this. Through PM's and emails he has asked potential buyers to send Western Union Money orders to Nena Pinag, Pasig City in the Philippines. The email address is robin007@gmx.com. The watch was a Planet Ocean and his price was $1100.

My ID has been reset and the post removed from all sites but I want to make sure there are no other forum members that are thinking of sending this seller any money.

Thanks TZ, WN and WUS moderators.

Rob Sacco aka robrobin

beware scammer - nasko989 (no replies)

Anonymous User — Wed, 04 May 2011 21:03:22 -0400

Paid via paypal for this ad: [www.pmwf.com]

email used:
mac1@mail.bg
mac2@mail.bg
accounta@email.bg

He gave a Tracking number DHL 3148203225 but more than 48 hours after, result is still "No result found for your DHL query. Please try again."

[www.dhl.bg]

Warning to all.

<<< Beware scammer alert >>> - PSA (11 replies)

sharkfin — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 08:50:59 -0400

<<< Beware scammer alert >>> - PSA

Hello everybody. This post is basically a PSA- (public service announcement) of a bad guy (scammer) I recently had the misfortune of dealing with.
I hope the mods here allow this post to make light of such crimes amongst the boards. I feel there should be place to have such postings to alert
anyone to avoid being scammed and loss of hard earned money. A good/bad guys sticky thread for alerting scammers.

So, I've had some bad luck as of late in my journey for grails.
Against all better judgment and the urge of temptation I succumbed to the hands of a scammer.

I sent off my money to the scammer via bank transfer. Now, no word/reply or tracking, nada. :(
I trusted the guy, and assumed all was good as one needs a legit person/account details for bank transfer to be successful. But this guys had the balls to still pull this off.
I was told by bank rep via phone support as transfer gone through, can't reverse. He also suggest I contact the FBI and I've done so with a complaint filed off.

I had a momentary lapse of judgment and did the ultimate noob mistake. Was too good to be true. :( I feel so stupid and peeved at myself. Too trusting I guess, but will learn from this experience and hopefully not make another mistake like this again.
I now gone full circle and have tasted the ugly side of this hobby. So will take break from the watch world to recover and reassess the collection.

I hope this post will help someone in the future and bring out such scammers so others can avoid at all costs.
If any one has any advice on how to deal with this person, or can contact him locally perhaps with local authorities to bring this person to justice, I welcome that.
I'm trying to contact authorities in both local and this scammers jurisdictions and have since contacted the FBI on this matter.

I contacted this scammer,Alexander Voorhies via his email, grantvalley@yahoo.com to buy the Doxa watch as posted in the ad for sale.

Our communication was instantaneous and quick to reply up until payment had been made and further inquiries of pending tracking info for alleged deliver of sale of goods, the Doxa watch.
Upon viewing other members posting that this was a fraudulent criminal, due to bad past track record and almost instant banning and deletion of his member account and posted ads, I had
begun to try to contact Alexander Voorhies to address these allegations and the nature of his dealings set forth with me. He did assure me this was not true, but I did believe his word but
He has since disappeared and no contact since. :(

I'm not totally sure if all his info given to me is exactly true except for the banking info. But in order for bank transfers to go through to complete, this info must be correct.
So my money did go to a Alexander Voorhies in CA and his contact/bank info is here.

I have made repeated calls,left messages on his voicemail and no replies what so ever.

This scammer, had posted in the sales forums of PMWF.com and Timezone.com. He may have posted elsewhere that I'm not fully aware of now.

He went by the nicknames: speedmister @PMWF and grantmaster @timezone.

His email address was grantvalley@yahoo.com

His real name and info is here:

Alexander Voorhies aka -speedmister, and grantmaster
30300 Antelope Road Apt#611
Menifee, CA 92584
(951) 229 7306
His banking is with Wells Fargo in Menifee, CA.

Might I suggest a section for good/bad guys posts as a resource for good reference for those who may need info before they deal.
I wish I had some info on this guy before I got taken. :(

Yes, some may say, why did you not think this was a scam? Well, I've had a few sweet deals, and was lucky to find,also thought was too good to be true. And this guy
did provide me with legit bank info which helped make me think he wouldn't risk a scam as he's shared his identity. Just goes to
show, some guys just have got some balls to pull this off.

This was a very sad situation I stepped into, and was very reluctant to post as am very embarassed to admit in being conned. :(
But decided to post my story, in hopes some good can come from sharing. All efforts put forth for a positive and constructive result.

If I have violated any forum rules by this post, or offended any persons, I didn't mean to do so, and apologize in advance.

Thanks for reading.
Dave.

STICKY! Please read this BEFORE you post on "The Last Resort" >>> (no replies)

Reto — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:49:20 -0400

Dear all

1) You cannot edit your posts in "The Last Resort". So please review your entry very carefully before posting.
2) We as the Administrator team will not be able to edit your post if there was a new development. E.g. post a positive turn in events as a reply to your original entry
3) As the name suggests, you will have to pursue every possible way (Private Messages, Emails, Phone calls, Police reports, Letters etc.) BEFORE posting on "The Last Resort"