at least buyer and seller have been made whole, it's only a watch. bad juju catches up

 

Yup. Both of us have our money (although eBay took a percentage of the original sale, come to think of it!) but someone else has the watch. EBay handled it pretty well overall, although it would have been nice if the buyer had been kept better informed of what was happening during the investigation And we didn,t have to chase them for information. He got several notifications that the case was ‘on hold’ until a new date, but not why or what that meant.

 

I had a similar situation buying an inexpensive watch on eBay shipped by Fedex. It was shipped 2nd day air service with a signature requirement. Tracking said 'Out for Delivery' for three days. I saw the Fedex guy pass my place but no package delivered. I contacted the seller and after another 3 days, the tracking changed to 'Delivered-Signature not required'. eBay closed the case but I disputed it and got a refund.

 

no one is "hurt" but i do feel for the other guy not getting his watch. as hard as these things are to get and how hard it is to trust it may be problematic for him to replace it in the end. but at least he is not "out" and you still sold your watch in the end. so all well that ends well.

 

all's well that doesn't swell

 

An unusual satisfactory outcome on an eBay sale.

 

Sorry to hear this. Good luck getting this resolved for both parties.

I avoid that site like the plague when it comes to watches........

 

I always overnight my watches to the authenticator. It is a shame eBay doesn't do the same to the buyer. The less amount of time spent in transit, the better.

 

While it sucks, as least everyone involved has their money and nobody is out (well, beyond your fees apparently, which is ridiculous).

 

These stories make me sick. I am glad it had a mostly happy ending.

 

Doing a large transaction like that on line would scare me, glad to hear it wasn’t a total loss for you. Still, it’s a cautionary tale to say the least.

 

UPS inside job.

 

I once ordered an iPhone through Apple's site so it came directly from Apple. From their warehouse, to a UPS truck to me. When I opened the box, the cellophane had been removed and the box was empty. So, it was either an Apple employee, or a UPS employee. Thankfully, Apple replaced it immediately. But inside jobs definitely DO happen.

 

Thank goodness everyone got made whole, but it does leave a bad taste. Related to this topic, I send many high value packages for work (not my money but the company's so I have no skin in it) and found that regular UPS loses a lot more packages than Parcel Pro. It is weird because they use the same UPS infastructure to deliver packages yet Parcel Pro loses far less packages. Go figure.

 

This is not intended as a cautionary tale, as ebay have handled the situation as well as could reasonably be expected - but I feel like it‘s something that may interest others here.

I sold a Rolex OP39 on ebay almost a month ago. I sent it to authentication and it was received and duly authenticated, and then handed over to UPS to travel a relatively short distance to the buyer, but it did not arrive. For three days the tracking said it was out for delivery, but the buyer has asserted that there was no attempt to deliver, and that they have cameras at the door that would show an attempted delivery. After a while the tracking changed to say they would advise a delivery date when possible and after another week or so that was escalated to a case through eBay by the buyer (who remained stoical and reasonable throughout, despite having neither the watch or his money for the better part of a month, in the end). UPS apparently are meant to have strict and thorough checks at each step with higher value items but as of today held their hands up and said they did not know where it had gone and ebay have therefore closed the case and refunded the buyer.

It‘s frustrating that the internal checks and investigations have not produced the watch, and I fear that could only embolden a thief, if it has (as seems likely) been stolen by someone .

I spoke to an eBay representative today and they said the watch would be listed as lost/stolen on the relevant watch register, but it is highly unlikely that I’ll ever know what became of it.

Because every thread needs pictures, here is the last shot I have of wearing the watch before it was sold.

View attachment 17682276

Nice Redwing Iron Rangers.

 

Thanks (and well spotted) - I had only just got them. Great boots.

 

Keep in mind that these risks are not just in the
buy-sell area.
A quality upper level Rolex or Patek requires regular service intervals.
At least every 8-10 years, or caliber internal wear may take place.
If a trusted CW-21 is out-of-state, the risk is the same . Overnight and insured-same on return.

Go big or go home...

 

Be thankful it got swiped after eBay's authenticator shipped it out, not when you shipped it out to the authenticator.

 

Wouldn't be surprised if it was an inside job by the delivery driver.

 

As someone who did an Ebay buy just recently: it isn't really clear what is in the box, "shipped from" name is pretty opaque. I doubt the driver would have 'known' based on looking at the box.

More likely, it is one of the millions of packages each year that get misplaced/tag gets damaged/etc, and forgotten in some warehouse somewhere. It'll show up in some lot of 'lost packages' at an auction some day, and someone will luck into a nice watch.

 

Note that as UPS was approaching a possible strike deadline, lots of QOS issues popped up all of the sudden.

Regardless, buying on eBay has always been pretty safe... it's selling that carries greater risks.

As mentioned above, thank your lucky stars it was lost after authenticated!

PS: As a seller, USPS Registered is the very safest method. It's slow, but losses are few an far between as a chain of custody is maintained throughout the delivery process.

 

Thieves suck!

 

Some light fingered people think that as insurance covers losses then they don't hurt the victim, or is this case a seller as well, and if they can get away with it they will. Unfortunately insurers are not Santa Claus and everyone’s premiums go up with thefts. A moment’s inattention, a package placed in an unsecured spot during the steps in the delivery process and a main chancer will scoop it up. The more people involved then the “it could be anybody” defence comes up, all you can be glad for is the money gets repaid.

 

I have had various items with various parcel services get identified as “in transit”, then not show up. Invariably, they have all shown up days or weeks later, including a not inexpensive Honda power washer… showed up 2 weeks after “out for delivery”.

 

The very last watch I bought on ebay (Cartier Tank Louis 18kt) was "lost in transit" Tracking showed it "received by shipper" for several days but that was as far as it went. I got my money back but never bought another high end watch on ebay and never will. This was before everything over $1500 went to authentication. That's my experience buying high end watches on ebay. You just never know when something will be "lost in transit"

 

You just never know when something will be "lost in transit"

Wish that would have happened to a few watches I now regret purchasing in the past.........

 

Sorry to hear if the experience. Shame ebay still charged you the entire listing fee (is it 10-15% these days?). To some extent, I understand why, but getting it to its intended buyer is part of the cost.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

One big problem with eBay is they have tried to make the system as automatic as possible, which means you are usually talking to robot responses which they figure can deal with every possible contingency. The problem is they don’t and while the money rolls in they don’t think too much about it and thus you can end up on a merry-go-round. Same with the shipping, the system generates responses which are not always in accord with what is actually happening on the ground. Basically eBay would like it to be set and forget and then sit back and count the money.

 

This is not intended as a cautionary tale, as ebay have handled the situation as well as could reasonably be expected - but I feel like it‘s something that may interest others here.

I sold a Rolex OP39 on ebay almost a month ago. I sent it to authentication and it was received and duly authenticated, and then handed over to UPS to travel a relatively short distance to the buyer, but it did not arrive. For three days the tracking said it was out for delivery, but the buyer has asserted that there was no attempt to deliver, and that they have cameras at the door that would show an attempted delivery. After a while the tracking changed to say they would advise a delivery date when possible and after another week or so that was escalated to a case through eBay by the buyer (who remained stoical and reasonable throughout, despite having neither the watch or his money for the better part of a month, in the end). UPS apparently are meant to have strict and thorough checks at each step with higher value items but as of today held their hands up and said they did not know where it had gone and ebay have therefore closed the case and refunded the buyer.

It‘s frustrating that the internal checks and investigations have not produced the watch, and I fear that could only embolden a thief, if it has (as seems likely) been stolen by someone .

I spoke to an eBay representative today and they said the watch would be listed as lost/stolen on the relevant watch register, but it is highly unlikely that I’ll ever know what became of it.

Because every thread needs pictures, here is the last shot I have of wearing the watch before it was sold.

View attachment 17682276

I have seen similar posts on other forums / fora whatever, and feel lucky that the two authenticated purchases I made both arrived safely - it is easy for the delivery company's colleagues to identify the high value cargo coming out of the authenticator, and I have to say that after I received my Rolex it went straight off for a service, and arrived back from there without any fanfare whatsoever, or inkling that the contents of the package were an 'affordable' watch. Even if tmy watches had not arrived from eBay, and I had been reimbursed, although I would strictly speaking have been even, I would not, in either case, have felt recompensed for losing a specific watch that I had spent a long time researching, looking for, and been delighted to find and to haggle for. FWIW, Rolex may be a massive volume producer, but there are model reference and dial combinations that you don't come across every day. I would have hated to have lost 'mine'.

 

I absolutely agree. I feel terrible that the buyer didn‘t get the watch that he paid for, and had to wait almost a month to have his money refunded; and I also feel a sense of loss myself, whether that is justified or not. it Is hard not to lose trust in the system that is in place, and personally I have serious suspicions about the authenticators role in this disappearance. How would the courier know that this specific package was worth ‘disappearing’?

 

I worked in IT for UPS many years ago, and while on a work trip went out to dinner with one of the old-time managers, who had seen it all.

His favorite theft story happened in the middle of winter. He said he was pulling into the employee parking lot of a UPS hub in the middle of a shift, when there would normally be no one outside. A snowball hit his windshield with a thud, and he thought maybe someone was throwing rocks at his car.

He got out to check, and the snowball contained an expensive watch wrapped in a piece of cloth.

Certain employees had come to recognize packages from jewelers, and would wear a knife taped to the underside of their arm. When a likely-looking package passed through their hands, they would use the knife to slice it open and let the contents drop up their sleeve. Next step was to step outside for a smoke break, make a snowball containing the jewelry, and toss it into the parking lot where they could find it before anyone drove over it.

 

All the eBay nay-sayers here have got it wrong. Ebay covered the transaction appropriately. The carrier is where this went bad. Signature required often gets ignored during delivery, and many packages are stolen after being left. It's a constant issue in my NYC apartment building without a doorman. The game is, that the thief will claim to have a delivery (amazon, food, etc), ring all the apartments, then clean up what ever is in the lobby!
I ship valuable packages via UPS frequently, $5000 - $15,000 worth of jewelry to a wholesale distributor. These require extra documentation with the value added insurance, and a UPS employee is required to sign off on receipt for us, and another copy traveling with the package for the delivering driver. They've never gone missing (knock wood). But my last WUS purchase, sent via USPS priority with tracking, was marked as delivered. I was in my lobby within an hour from when I got a delivery notice, but it wasn't there and it took 3 more days to turn-up, only due to my diligence - they'd delivered it to a neighbor who was away...
Lesson is to always make sure insurance covers your shipments - it's part of the cost of doing business.

 

So some guy in Fedex stole it? As it was never delivered to be stolen

 

Officially it is just ‘lost in transit’, but you can‘t help but wonder.