that_watch_guy

I've yet to come across a brand new panerai case that I couldn't open up with my two bare thumbs! Just press your two dry thumbs against the caseback and rotate counter clockwise. For some reason more manufaturer do not make them tight at all. I also used this same method on a Breitling Avenger.

I have two watches with the same movement. I'd like to swap the movement from the 111h into the 217. Is there anything that would prevent a successful swap? Also, how can I remove the 6497 from the case after I remove the crown and stem, along with the two movement screws? The movements don't seem to budge even with those things all removed.

thanks cwai02, you're the first and only person that has been able to somehow get that tracking number to work! I edited my post to remove "WTF" to make my post more friendly for the PG-13 audience with sensitive eyes and ears, thanks!

I got this tracking number from a well known dealer on this board about 9 days ago: RR017120116SG. I'm expecting a watch sent back to me because it was defective when I got it almost two months ago. I think it's one digit too long, but the dealer said it's correct. It is not trackable on the singapore post site, or the USPS site. Do packages from Singapore typically take more than 9 days to even show up in the system? Or did the dealer simply not ship it out.....how annoying.

I find it strange that these people are willing to bid several hundred dollars for a watch with no papers, from a seller with no feedback, who is located outside of the USA. Maybe they need to learn their lesson the hard way?

I've never had anyone ask me if any if my watches were authentic or not. I think it's actually fairly rude to ask, it's almost as if you are questioning a person's means to buy anything expensive. Then again, I stay away from flashy things like Jacob & Co. diamond encrusted waches and solid gold rolex watches. If someone is a true watch entheusiest, and they aren't a total snobby jackass, I'll fess up and let them inspect it. Mostly, I still think it's rude to ask someone if something they are wearing is "real" or not.

I find that I get tired of watches very quickly and end up buying and selling them all the time because I just can't make up my mind.

That's one of the reasons I stay away from Rolex replicas. The brand name is just too well known, even the lackeys working at customs know what a Rolex is. Buying and selling replicas is taken seriously at times. I remember back in 2002 I knew this guy who used to sell wallets and watches on the street and he served 8 months after getting pinched with some Rolex replicas. Now he just sells wallets haha!

I get packages weekly from China. To this day, only one has actually been opened, and that was the one where the dealer forgot to fill out the custom's paperwork. That box contained about 6 watches. I wrote a check to the postal service when the mail guy showed up simply because it would be an even larger pain in the ass to decline the shipment. You can't really blame a dealer if your package gets seized, it is afterall, illegal. You folks in California should be ok. This year thus far I've had around 40-50 packages go through San Francisco customs, and only one of them had a problem. No confiscations, just had to pay taxes on it!

I shipped a Panerai replica to Firenze Italy, no problem! Everyone has their own strategies. I'm shipping from the USA though, not China.

When I was like 21 years old, I bought a crappy Seanaster replica from one of my co-workers who was in the jewelry business. I then bought a crappy fantasy white panerai, because I didn't know any better. Next came a semi-decent 1950 replica. A few years later I have 46 watches and every authentic/replica book on the market. I recently found a couple pictures from like 4 years back of my first replica watches. Yes, they all suck, I know. But everyone starts somewhere!

From my experience, it shouldnt be there any longer than 2 days. The thing is that online tracking isn't always accurate. I've had watches show up at my doorstep when online tracking said that they were still in customs. I had one batch of watches held up for 3-4 days, they opened it up, appraised them as authentic and taxed me accordingly. I had to write a check for $120 to a mail man when he showed up at my door. I've never had one actually confiscated by customs. If your shipper didn't market it as a gift, you may have to get ready to pay taxes on however much customs thinks the package is worth. -TWG

May be selling this one soon, but for this week, it's on the wrist most of the time.

I've only seen one on a leather band, didn't look bad. I'm still a sucker for the titanium band. IF someone wants to trade a good leather band for my titanium band though, I'd be open to offers. I've had a few Avengers pass through my hands, and I finally settled on the asian 7750 version with working chronos. When I first got it, the seconds hand used to stop for no reason. $15 later and a trip to the watch shop had the movement fixed and serviced and now it works like a dream. I had been told about potential reliability issues by the manufacturer, and these watches are in fact becoming more difficult to get due to decreaed production. A quartz model would probably be good reliability-wise, but I'm a sucker for auto and hand winders.

well, at least they are selling "Genuine Replicas", I hate to think that I could have bought an un-genuine replica somewhere else!

You are correct Richard Tracy, TimeSwiss.com is for the general public, however Silix does not own timeswiss.com, they are merely "borrowing" some pictures from that site for lack of their own. The owner of TimeSwiss.com is an active member of both this board and TRC

I swear that sellers get scammed AT LEAST as much as buyers. I wish everyone would switch over to Western Union. If pp actually gives this animal his money back, what's to stop everyone from just going on pp, receiving their merchandise and then claiming "oh it was just an empty box"...? For Christ's sake dealers, stop using pp!

cwai02: I am in the computer biz, I have a site that sells flat screen monitors, one that sells printers, one that sells computers and one that sells scanners etc. I 've had over $1million pass through merchant accounts in 12 months, so $18,000 isn't that bad I'd say. The most common type of fraud is the credit card owner buying up a full system, recieving it, and then claiming they never got it and filing a dispute. You have to keep in mind that creidt card companies don't do a criminal background check when they issue cards to people, anyone can get one! I've always been honest and sent out product to customers with no delay, but unfortunately there are shady people out there. I reversed about 50% of the chargebacks using solid proof, but I've found that whether or not it gets reversed depends on who is examining the chargeback on the other end. Some banks fall under the "merchant is always wrong" policy, and even if you have a bulletproof rebuttal, you will still lose a chargeback. I don't want to use my merchant account to accept payments for replica watches because I feel like it would just be asking for trouble, so I stick with suckpal, and I withdraw money as soon as it hits my account. Dirk Pitt: There is absolutely no reason for higher fees using western union, just send the money using the standard money transfer. It's available for pickup within 15 minutes, and yes, I literally pay ~$14 in fees for $900 (sending cash no via credit card), I have many receipts showing it and I wired $865 today for a fee of $14. There is no need to use quick collect , direct to bank or any other crap, if the dealer wants the sale, they can go to a western union location and collect it. Plus since most of our dealers are in China, they can pick up WU transfers at the post office or at any Agricultural Bank of China location, it's not too inconvinient.

I've been doing transactions on the internet using Merchant Accounts for 6 years, I think I've experienced about $18,000 in chargebacks from customers over the years through Wells Fargo and Bank of America. These were for high dollar transactions where the buyer basically recieved the product that I sent them, to their billing address, and then told the bank that they never got it. I provided the Banks with tracking info and signature proofs and they reversed only 50% of these chargebacks despite overwhelming evidence that they were fraudulent, and that the CC owners were the ones commiting the fraud. Merchant Accounts Suck I've had 3 pp accounts over the course of 6 years. I've been burned twice on pp totaling $1200, as both a buyer and a seller. I once sent a guy $600 worth of product, to his pp verified address, two days later he got impatient and told pp that he never got anything (two days after making payment!), They took all of the money from my account, AFTER I had shipped this guy's product. Despite providing tracking information, I never got the money back. I once bought $600 worth fo merchandise from some guy who turned out to be a fraud, he never sent anything and I never heard from him again. pp "tried" to get themoney back but could not because the dude withdrew it all. I used my bank to force the money back from pp, and as a result they closed my pp account. pp sucks too You know what? Every type of merchant processing has one form of suck or another. I currently use pp for watch payments because no one on this board or any others seems willing to use anything else. For merchants, you guys are out of luck because even if you switch your payment processor, it won't matter if customers are not willing to use your new system. I've dealt with it a million times in my other business, people don't trust processors that are not popular. e-gold is a hassle and doesn't have a solid reputation or popularity. If you guys want to stop losing money from idiot buyers, you need to organize all dealers on this and other boards, and as a group all switch to western union only. Stop taking pp all at once, and force customers to use W.U. I use W.U. to send thousands of dollars to my supplier because I trust them. I would suggest that all dealers on this board boycott pp all at once if they want to see any change. FYI for every $900 or so that I send my supplier, I get charged about $14. My local western union agent has a $2500 per day sending limit, butnot limit to how much cash I can send per month.

Awesome pics for the Breguet, that watch was mentioned in the book "The New English Dandy" and I think that's where the first pic came from.

I don't have a particular person you can go to, but when I had this problem, I bought a panerai caseback opener (http://cgi.ebay.com/WATCH-CASE-REPAIR-TOOL-BACK-KEY-OPENER-FOR-44MM-WATCH_W0QQitemZ8932304245QQcategoryZ10363QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem) and used a q-tip to clean the dust off the inside of the crystal very carefully.

As someone who buys and sells a lot of watches, I'd really like to be able to bypass pp. I just don't know what it would take to convince the majority of buyers that I am a trustworthy person, if we have never done business before. People are just too darn aprehensive to wire money. This is understandable, as once you wire it, it's gone for good, but if people used common sense to verify the dealer's reputation, they would worry less. A guy who bought a PAM196 off of me had been scammed when he tried to purchase the same watch from someone else earlier. When I looked at the link to the ad he sent me, it just screamed "FRAUD!" to me, but I guess inexperienced buyers still fall for those types of things.

I hate pp with a passion, the only problem is that everyone I sell things to on the internet wants to use pp to pay for the goods. As for buying watches, I buy from two dealers, I don't pp either one of them, I wire money using western union or bank transfers, I've never had any problems with the dealers that I trust. In all honesty, when selling items on here and elsewhere, I really wouldn't mind receiveing a money order, or even driving to western union to pick up a wire transfer because it puts the money in my hand, no waiting time and no fees, plus it protects me as a seller more than pp does. I can tell you guys from experience that merchant accounts have all of the same risks that pp does, plus more. I had merchant accounts at Wells Fargo and Bank of America, and believe me, any way that you can be ripped off through pp can also occur with a merchant account. As mentioned above, banks don't exactly hand out merchant accounts to people who are selling contraband either. Merchant accounts are freaking great for legitimate merchandise, but for this type of merchandise, I think it would just be asking for trouble. If a customer brought up a dispute, the merchant would most certainly lose all of their money and never recieve their product back. Dealers are in business to make money, and when making money becomes to troublesome, many dealers switch to Western Union as it is the only way they can be protected against idiot buyers. If you buy and sell enough watches, you will have pp problems sooner or later, I guess we all just hope it's later and not sooner. All I can say is: -Ship your merchandise using UPS or FEDEX with online tracking and keep all of the tracking numbers in case a buyer files a dispute -As soon as money hits your pp account, withdraw it. -Don't ship to unverified addresses -Don't ship to countries known for fraud -Don't buy from people who cannot provide you with feedback from others -If you are buying from a new dealer, ask them for some tracking numbers of watches they have recently mailed out to customers, or ask them for references. -Don't buy watches from people who seem to know nothing about what they are selling. Just common sense stuff. I've had both pp accounts and merchant accounts long enough to know every way you can get frauded. I've had million of dollars pass through my merchant account in a year's time, and have been frauded on a few occasions as the seller. When you are dealing with faceless people on the internet, it's a risk you take I suppose.

The same happened to me! I lost $1200 and they froze MY account! I sold something to a guy through eBay, sent it out USPS confirmed, he received it, and then told pp that he did not get it. I went to the post office to see if maybe it was delivered to the wrong place, but sure enough they had a copy of the same guy's signature on file! I submitted this information to pp, and they did not do anything. I was out $1200, so they basically closed my account. I was also frauded as the buyer on one transaction. The goods simply never came, the guy stopped answering calls/emails. I had to call my credit card company, who yanked the money back from pp. This time I filed a report with the FBI, and about 3 years later, I finally got a letter in the mail telling me that they had arrested the idiot who ripped me off and that he was serving 18 months. I made a post about it some time ago on TRC. Something that most people do not know is that despite that fact that your account may have been closed, it is fairly easy to setup another. In fact, I have one up and running right now. Simply use a different credit card with a different billing address. It doesn't even matter if the name is the same as your prior account. Use a different email address and you should be able to setup another one with minimal problems.

After seeing all of the 196's I decided to retire my 196 with stainless band and go for something different today. 195 PVD on blood red leather strap, white stitching, Swiss ETA movement. This is my Sunday watch, but I'll wear it today instead.