Chrono24 prices: Why cheaper prices from vendors in Asia? (EDIT: documented my + experience).

Davekaye90 said:

Importing watches is absolutely hit or miss, and the duties on said watches are completely random and arbitrary. The system is ridiculous.

My $3100 import from the UK had like a $98 duty on it. Absolutely no idea where that came from. My guess is the dealer I bought it from put like 90% plus value on the movement, which has a flat rate duty up to I think a certain number of jewels.

No one outside of Oris knows what a Caliber 400 actually costs, so you could make up anything about its value that you want.

Though honestly you could do that with a Sellita just as easily. Nobody at customs is going to balk at an SW200 with a listed value of $900. All of the numbers on the W&C sheet will be made up, and what you'll pay in import duties (if you pay anything at all) is entirely dependent on those made up numbers.

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jermyzy said:

I bought my VC overseas (discontinued model so had to go used) from Chrono24. I ended up buying from a HK vendor that was significantly cheaper than everyone else (about 5-6k cheaper than the next cheapest listing). Was full set and watch was in very good condition.

Watch came with escrow service and dealer was happy to take more photos/videos, so I felt confident.

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El Conde said:

Needing servicing isn’t unique to watches from Asian countries. Not sure I see the logic there. I’ve bought two Omegas from Asian countries on C24, and a couple other high end pieces too. Always been a very good experience and is, as you said, often a very good deal.

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wisith said:

Hi @Mediocre, I am not sure if you're in the USA, but figure to ask. Apparently if an item is over $2,500...US Customs require you to submit SSN/EIN and docs such as W2 and 1040. DHL asked me for the documents over the weekend while the item is being held at the airport. If you have experience with this, I'd greatly appreciate your input.

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wisith said:

Hey @Mohotter - I am not sure if you're in the USA, but figure to ask. Apparently if an item is over $2,500...US Customs require you to submit SSN/EIN and docs such as W2 and 1040. DHL asked me for the documents over the weekend while the item is being held at the airport. If you have experience with this, I'd greatly appreciate your input.

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rdslon01 said:

@wisith

I Googled the following:

us customs formal entry

and it seems that US Customs does not require a SSN or EIN, but they may require a bond.

Next, doing a quick dig at DHL turned up that they apparently require a SSN or EIN before they will let one of their customers have a bond through them. Also, apparently DHL will not just take your word for it that you are giving them your real information, so they require you to provide some document (1040, W-2, et cetera) with the number written on it.

The only way I think you might be able to get around this is to go off and find your own way to satisfy US Customs' bond requirements, at whatever cost, and fill out all of the appropriate forms. That could probably take weeks to get in place. Also, you might end up at some point in the process of having to give your SSN or EIN. That wouldn't surprise me one bit.

The easiest way is to just give DHL what they want to do all of the paperwork for you and let you have (undoubtedly pay for) a bond through them, where DHL probably will silently tack the cost of the purchase of the bond onto your customs duty bill, and just hit you up for the total without giving you an invoice with a breakdown of the individual components of the overall cost of the import.

If you don't like it (I would not like it either), then, next time, tell the seller that you want to use someone other than DHL, and, if the seller refuses, just walk away from the watch deal before agreeing to the sale (if it matters that much to you). Although I wouldn't like it either, if the seller insisted on using DHL, I can't see that being enough reason for me to stop negotiations on a purchase of a watch I wanted, unless I was feeling close to 50/50 anyway.

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wisith said:

Thanks. I did some digging on my own and saw that. I was tempted to open an EIN just for this.
I talked to DHL today. They have a customs dept. that deals with this. From my experience, sellers abroad usually opt for DHL when sending packages via 2-3day service. I provided the documents requested. They said that once the item has been received by me, the file is closed and everything gets erased. I doubt that, probably still stored on their server somewhere, but inaccessible to the workers.

While doing some digging, I saw this pop up on several forums, including someone buying a ~$3k mic abroad.

Thanks for your reply.

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rdslon01 said:

You are welcome. DHL probably will never do anything bad with the number. The question is who will take the number from DHL (hack, or something) and then do something nefarious?

Oh well, you know, if that ever happens, you will just have to deal with it then. Identity theft can be a headache, but you can work through it if it ever happens.

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jermyzy said:

Unfortunately, I'm located in Canada.

However, I recently exported a watch (~$3500) to the USA and the courier requested that I fill out a Watch Worksheet. Once this was completed, the watch cleared customs very quickly. I used this as my template.

Microsoft Word - Watch Worksheet (fedex.com)

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watchvaultnyc said:

Remember that when you buy from overseas, you will likely never get your duty back if you need to make a return. You always need to factor in the possibility that you don't like the watch, it's not as described, or some other reason where you need to make a return and factor in the costs that you need to pay if that ever happens.

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