Ebay Watch Scams

Watch Scams on EbayI recently bought a watch on Ebay. The seller had good feedback, the watch looked lovely and the seller claimed it had a RRP of 575. I won it for 35 including delivery. Soon after I checked through the seller's other items and saw that he was selling many of these watches and ones similar, all claiming to have Reccomended Retail Prices at the level one would expect of a luxury watch. I put two and two together quickly enough (if only I had done so before I bid) and realised that this seller must be making a profit from these and therefore there had to be a catch somewhere - 500 watches simply do not get sold in large quantities on ebay for less that a tenth of that price. I was, of course right and also upset and proceeded to do some careful research. Here is what I have found:There are many brands of watch on ebay posing as luxury brands and being sold to unsuspecting buyersExamples include Markus Ruby, Bernoulli, Eberle, Romilly, Louis Bolle, Balmer and many moreThe sellers of these watches claim that they have high Reccomended Retail PricesThey give links to very basic websites from which it is impossible to actually buy anythingThey use posh sounding names and language to trick buyersMany of the fake brand names can be all tracked to a single texas officeOther information on the brands is almost impossible to findNone of the brands are actually sold in high street storesWikipedia entries if they exist at all are short and often try to legitimise the brandsThere are several features on the watch I bought which reveal it to be an imposter. Clues to look out for are: Expensive watches normally have writing on the back that is embossed (raised) or quite deeply ingraved; The words 'water resistant' are often run together on the cheap watches; the second hand doesn't sit on the zero mark properly on the cheap watches; the 'crown' (knobbly bit on the side with which you adjust the time) is often stiff on the imposter watches.However, if you have bought one of these do not despair. The Jewler I went to reckoned that it wasn't a bad buy for under 50, and the watch does look and feel very nice. The three sub dails all work and it keeps time well enough. Similar reports of these scams elsewhere which examine other fake brands suggest the same resultAll in all, look out for these fakes and try hard not to fall for the scams. Spread the message as much as you can. However, if you do want a cheapish watch that looks nice and works well enough then you could certainly do worse.