Payment and Shipping

Our pricing is according to the different payment methods. We start with a cash price, this is the price advertised on our site. According to the different payment methods, there might be extras added. The quote will clearly show the total for each payment method.

1.) PayPal - We charge no PayPal Fees!

Our PayPal email address is hwbbhwbb@yahoo.com . Please note that PayPal eChecks are not immediate payments and take 7 to 10 days to clear. Thank you.
Please go to www.paypal.com for details. If you are not a PayPal registered Member, you might want to register, it does not take long and the verification process is normally completed once you received your next credit card statement. PayPal will make a small deposit on your credit card and you will have to verify the amounts deposited and that verifies you as the owner of that credit card. Once registered, you can immediately make payments that are being charged to your credit card. If you want to withdraw money, then you can add a bank account to PayPal.
You can also charge your credit card via PayPal. More >>>

2.) Western Union - quite expensive but fast service
Western Union Money Transfer will cost you around USD 20 to 35 depending on your location and the transaction amount. This amount is not included in my quote.
Important: You need to send me the Firstname, Lastname, Country, Amount and MTCN (money transfer control number) under which the Send Money Request has been made. weneed this information to collect your payment with my local Western Union agent and to check your payment online. All payments are paid out in local currency and Western Union has gruesome exchange rates, thus the 5% surcharge for this payment method.
Please go to www.westernunion.com for details and to find your nearest Western Union agent. New! Western Union payments can now be made online via your credit card for US and Canadian customers!

3.) Money Wire (TT), required for Watches > 1'000 USD
Simply tell us when inquiring that you would like to wire money and we will send you our account information.

For all the following methods you will need a stamp and an envelope, because all the following methods are snail mail based. Upfront some typical delivery times for letters to Bangkok, Thailand. In anycase, wewill always immediately notify if a payment has arrived and we will ship the watch the next working day. PMWC has an excellent reputation for very fast shipping. Please see the sales references for many testimonials.

Type of Document	Traveling Time USA - Thailand	Remarks	Cost
Airmail letter unregistered	7 to 10 days (Letter from Florida 14 days!)	Only for Checks and Money Orders! Never for cash!	ca. USD 1
Airmail letter REGISTERED	7 to 10 days (Letter from Florida 14 days!)	Best used for Checks, Money Orders and Cash	ca. USD 10
UPS Global Priority Letter	4 to 5 days	Best used for Checks, Money Orders and Cash	ca. USD 15
Note: regarding Money Orders, Checks and Cash: Always wrap your check or cash in an A4 or letter size paper and never send just a check or bank notes in an envelope. If someone uses a strong light, he might be able to see the content of the letter. Never send Cash in unregistered mail! There is nothing we can do if cash in a unregistered airmail letter gets lost. Also note that we will have to charge USD 8 for cashing an International Money Order or a Check, thank you.

4. International Money Order
Normally issued by the post, bank or companies like Western Union. Not to be confused with the Western Union Money Transfer
Please go to your country's postal services website to check about costs and details

5.) Personal Check or Cashier's Check
You will receive the postal information in the quote where to send a (registered recommended) letter containing a personal or cashier's check or money order payable to Wong Fung Yee, Hong Kong. We will ship the watch one working day after having received the check from Monday to Saturday.

6.) Cash (only via registered Airmail)
If a letter containing cash gets lost on the way, the money is gone. Thus please register your mail containing cash.

Typical Turn-Around Time for your Watch Order
Please note that these are estimates. In the case that your watch is picked for inspection by customs (about 1% chance), the delivery might be slightly delayed. Turn-Around Time is the time interval between the arrival of your payment and the delivery of the watch to the address you specified when ordering.

Adding Watch Accesories to your Watch Order
Please have a look at this page, the Watch Accessories page gives you on overview over all special discounts if you combine a watch order with a watch accessory purchase. Also, additional watch accessories will not add to the watch shipping cost, unless specified. As long as the watch and the accessory are below 500 gram (including packing), the additional watch accessory ships with no additional shipping cost!

Shipping and Handling Cost
We prefer shipping by EMS (it is called Speedpost in Hong Kong and might have yet another name in your country). This is a joint service amongst state postal services around the world. The watch will be delivered by your state post (exception are only a few countries where the state post has outsourced that delivery), e.g. USPS for US customers in most areas. EMS has proven to be fast and very reliable at great low price! As an example, a FedEx parcel from Hong Kong to the US costs around USD 50, EMS costs half of that and the delivery speed is absolutely comparable.

Shipping, it is all in this box...

We do not take any profit from handling and shipping. we will charge the actual shipping and handling cost rounded to the next 5 USD amount.

Shipping from Hong Kong, 95% of our stock is in Hong Kong		SEIKO 5 in Pouches^	Normal Boxes	Heavy Boxes*
Zone	Destination	Shipping Cost
Zone 0	USA (incl. Hawaii), Australasia, Japan	USD 20 to USD 25	USD 23	USD 30
Zone 1	Canada, Europe and India	USD 25 to USD 30	USD 30	USD 35
Zone 4	South East Asia (Singapore, Malaysia)	USD 20 to USD 25	USD 20	USD 25

Some exceptions from Zones: Czech Republik, Poland, Romania - please send a mail to inquire rates

^packaging varies, if the SEIKO 5 is depicted with a box on the site, the shipping will be USD 25
*Heavy = over 500 grams, this is normally indicated next to the price for each watch

Note: If you buy EMS/Speedpost insurance, the insured value will be printed automatically on the mailing label.

Customs - Tax free amounts

USA: Purchased items below USD 200 are tax exempt (one item per person per day!)

Canada: Very low customs limit of CDN 62.50! (if you have more news, we are listening!)

Europe: EU countries EUR 60 to 100 normally pass without taxes

Rest of the World: Many countries have a duty free limit of ca. USD 80 to 125

As a rule, we will declare ca. 75% of the PMWC price. We will not declare lower, if the parcel gets confiscated by customs, the penalties can be considerable. Thank you for understanding!

Please also be aware that a parcel containing two or more watches is more likely to be inspected by customs and it might surpass the taxfree threshold set for each country (use Tax Free Allowance is USD 200). Also the combined value might exceed the included base insurance of USD 170 (shipping from BKK) or USD 128 (shipping from Hong Kong). If the customs sees that there is an insurance on the parcel, they will most likely check it's content. Thus from our experience, we do not really recommend to ship multiple watches in one parcel. You might end up paying the savings to the customs and besides that, the delivery process might take longer. But of course, you are the customer and you can tell me what you want and we will follow your instructions.
However, there is a third option: we can issue a 3rd party transport insurance to ship multiple watches in one parcel to save you shipping cost. For second hand watches we can then declare a lower value on the mailing label. For new watches, we will declare ca. 75% of our published prices in order to avoid confiscating of your multi watch parcel due to wrongful content declaration.

What do you do if you are wrongfully taxed in the USA?
With the help of Larry K. from the "Poor Man's" Watch Forum we have created this Customs Help page that might help, if you were already wrongfully charged with US Customs fees.

What do you do if EU customs inspects your parcel?
The EU customs have a higher inspection rate (4%) then the US customs (2%). If EU customs intercepts the parcel, you will have to pay a writing fee of ca. EUR 15 and ca. 17% VAT on the value the customs will assume. They may or may not believe the declare value we put on the parcel. we normally underdeclare like everybody else, but of course the customs officers know that too. But to my experience, the evaluation of EUR customs is fair. They know their business and will treat you fairly. They will not overprice or overvalue your parcel. But, you will have to pay the writing fee (actually this is a customs collection fee) plus the VAT.

Italy - "War against terrorism"
Andrea from Italy just informed me that Italian customs claim to make more stringent checks right now. However still most of the parcels will be delivered in normal time!

Base Insurance, included and free - Watches ($) up to USD 200
For watches below USD 200 we suggest to go with the included base insurance. The limits are different for each originating shipping location in case the parcel gets lost. However going with the base insurance has one great advantage. There will be no print regarding insurance on the mailing label and thus the parcel has a much better chance of passing without being held back by customs. The maximum insurance pay outs for parcels shipped with base insurance are USD 128

Additional Insurance with EMS/Speedpost - Watches ($$) USD 200 - 1280 (visible on mailing label, not recommended for EU)
For this range of watches, we will indicate in the quote whether to insure for an additional USD 6 or USD 15. It depends also whether we are shipping the last one of a vintage NOS watch or a new model. Please see the Optional Insurance column in our quote sent to you.

Tracking and Delivery:
Shipping with EMS/Speedpost on the next working day or as agreed in email. On the evening of the shipping day you will receive your tracking number per email. You can check your parcel at the links below: In general you will have to use your country's tracking system to check on the Inbound parcel after about 3 days. In the US EMS, parcels will be delivered by USPS most of the times. In most countries, the delivery will be made by your country's postal service: State Post, Royal Mail, etc.

Track the OUTBOUND parcel depending on the shipping origin TH (Bangkok), HK (Hong Kong)

Tracking Outbound Bangkok:
EE123456789TH
ENTER exactly like this, NO SPACES

Tracking Outbound Hong Kong:
EE 123456789 HK

Track your INBOUND parcel 1 to 3 days after having received the tracking number!

Tracking Inbound USA:
Click here for ALL tracking numbers

Tracking Inbound all other countries, ca. 2 - 3 days after you received the tracking number:
Go to www.postoffice.com, click on your country, then look for "Trace and Track" or "Tracking" on your country's postal website!

Italy now offers online inbound tracking at:
http://www.poste.it/online/dovequando/paccocelere1.shtml Thank you Andrea P. from Italy for updating us on this!

Note! For almost all tracking sites, this format will work: EE 123456789 HK (sample for watch shipped from Hong Kong, HK)
If the number does not track, try this format EE123456789HK (no spaces between EE and the digits)

Prices are firm, no additional discounts
We are trying to get the best possible supplier prices. And we have many times lowered the prices for e.g. the "Black Monster" and the "Orange Monster" because we got a better price from our supplier. Online shops operate on a fraction of the margins from real world shops. That is why we are not able to give additional discounts. The prices published on this site are best prices.

Problems with shipping address
In case of a delivery problem - please make sure you give us a verified postal address and phone number - we will attempt to send out the watch a second time after having received your additional payment for the second delivery attempt.

Shipping watches back to us from other countries then the original shipping destination
We will refund shipping costs back to us from the country where the watch was first delivered.

If you supply a phone number with your order...
the delivery is more reliable and will not be delayed. Of course if you do not want to do that because of privacy concerns, that is OK too. However, if the watch is returned due to being not deliverable we would have to charge you the shipping and handling cost again when sending it out for a second time. An exception is CANADA, Canada Post requires a phone number for all inbound Express Mail parcels by law.

Descriptions about Watch Conditions:
Most of our watches are NOS or BNIB (brand new in box). We try to adhere to the terminology as used in the Time Zone Grading system (copy used with permission) when talking about Mint, Near Mint, Excellent, BNIB, LNIB, NOS etc. And we try to describe the watches as accurately and detailed as possible. In addition several large picture for each single watch offered including a wrist shot of most, will give you a good idea about what you are going to buy. As an business ethics principle, we do not hide defects or scratches. And, due to our experience, if our customers receive a watch that is better then its description, then the buying experience is a much better one. And feeling happy while pursuing this beautiful hobby of watch collecting is what we all want!

Watch Photos, Wrist shots and Copyright
Reto's wrist is rather thin at 6.5 inches or 16.5 cm, please note that if you have a big wrist, the watch might actually look smaller on your wrist. Most watches have long enough bracelets to easily fit an 8 inch or 20 cm wrist. If not, it is indicated in the watch description. The female wrist shots are from Helen and here wrist has 5.25 inch or 13.5 cm circumference.
Please respect our copyright notice as stated at the bottom of the main page, thank you!

Quality Control
All watches are carefully packed. A double layer of bubble plastic, an additional wrapping of the watch inside the box or pouch were necessary and the thick EMS/Speedpost bag or box will make sure your watch arrives in the good condition you deserve. Vintage and NOS watches undergo additional checking before being shipped.

Return Policy
In the unlikely case that a watch or a watch accessory arrives in defect condition or a wrong watch or watch accessory was sent out, we will send out a replacement watch or watch accessory free of cost and will also pay for your shipping cost of the defect or wrongly sent watch back to me. However if we do not know you from previous transactions, we will wait for your returned watch to arrive before sending a replacement.
Please make a sound decision before you order. We provide a lot of pictures and information to help you decide and help with answers to your questions. We will not accept returns just because you changed your mind. We know those "whims of the day" very well ourselves and our favorite watches also changes on a daily basis. Only in the case you are really unhappy with the watch, then we will take the watch back and charge a flat restocking fee of USD 30.
Additional deduction: If the watch is not in original condition (protective factory stickers, bracelet resized, signs of wear etc.) and if the watch is not returned with all the original packaging in original condition: hanging tags, manuals, jubilee brochures (special editions) or other certificates (limited editions, C.O.S.C. certificates) and any other part of the original shipment, then we will have to make an additional deduction from your payment when refunding.
Please do understand that watch accessories are excluded from this policy and cannot be returned. Thank you!

Payment Method	Estimated Turn-Around Time for US and European customers
PayPal, Western Union	3 to 6 days
International Money Wire (Telegraphic Money Transfer)	5 to 10 days
International Money Order and Check or Cash	7 to 14 days*


New! PMWC Quote Assistant	How to Order!	PMWC Currency Converter


If you inquire for a watch that is low on stock, please reply quickly to our quote mail. We do hold watches if you choose a surface mail based payment method, you just need to tell us to do so. we accept Credit Cards via PayPal World Wide or for US and Canadian Customers via Western Union