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I read many interesting posts, let me comment and add some facts: @2005SUBMARINER You're writing that you see no sense in spending so much money for moddings - nowadays I agree with you because I can do many things myself. But here is an interesting point: you also say, like others too, that most reps are just fine how they are. YES ! Absolutely correct ! Here some Rep facts: - Most Submariners are waterresistant enough to easily withstand a shower - so you pay Joe for watertesting but he doesn't has anything to do. Mine was clearly never in water before. After receiving it (he is always repeatedly telling you "no guarantee for watertesting results") you take a shower with your watch - the watch is fine and you think Joe greased it and changed the o-rings. - Most inserts nowadays are fitting the bezels fine. Some of them even snap in like genuine. The time is over when you had to sand them down and do more work to make them fit. And NO these inserts are definetely NOT expensive. Joe tells something different - but these inserts are mostly the same you can get in ebay for example. - realignement of crystal, yes makes sense. This is something that is done within 1 minute of time. - polishing. Polishing ? Oh, come on guys ! There is nothing to say about polishing and oiling. We had 1 billion posting how-to's about that. You know it's easy. You know it takes not more than 20 minutes. - click spring adjustement. This is something that makes sense - and it's done within 2 minutes. We have how-to's for that too. There are just 2 things which aren't that easy: CG milling and mirror-finish polishing.

@Chronus Yes, that's right - everybody is responsible for his wallet. But all this here in RWG ? This is like you are in an professional Car-Forum discussing about complicated engine issues - and then taking your car to a guy who takes money for testing the pressure in your wheels...

Yes, I feel very bad for that and I'm really sorry ! It's true, all this had to be said earlier - now it IS said. So everybody is warned.

You're absolutely right - but when other reputable, longtime members are talking about issues too - it's not important anymore whether the poster is a newbie or not...

@veni @tallguy83 Yes you both are right - but that would really be more than stupid. Almost everybody who has dealt with him also talked to him on the phone. Phone-Number, Mails, Real Name and Address. Impossible for him to get out of this trouble without getting some serious trouble...

@veni12 The reason I did not post this earlier is clearly stated in my post. All this happened last summer - I don't expect to get a refund or anything similar. Only Intention is to show this scam to all our members. As you see - there are others as well who has issues with joe. Why should I wait any longer ? You can believe me, there is nothing to clear up here. Nothing to make good anymore (I really don't believe that Joe would even think about giving a refund - but hey ! Surprise me !). He can write what he wants to - this watch and his mails are both here in front of me, I say it again: there is absolutely no excuse and/or explanations for all this. But in one point I'm 100% with you: I should have wrote all that earlier, immediately after receiving this joke of a Submariner !

@vmena I'm glad to read that you didn't got me wrong. I stated that I'm not afraid of being flaming anymore because I built some strong friendships here - but that doesn't mean that getting more friends isn't even better !

@vmena: under normal circumstances you are absolutely right - but (please don't get offended) you didn't seem to have understood all of this trouble. 1) If you are doing this job and are not willing to do all your best for EVERYONE - who would you mess with ? Would you deliver poor quality to an "old and trusted board member" ? Or would you do this to someone nobody knows ??? 2) Talking about MY watch - there simply is NO room for ANY explanations. It's just a POS. If you get this from any of our dealers they would change it immediately. 3) You give an example about being in hospital or something like that. So please think about it: there are members waiting for their watches FOR MONTHS - and some others post a review about sending a watch to joe and receiving it 2 weeks later. So this whole illness stories are just BS imho. Everytime someone is complaining or he looses control about all the sent watches totally there is some illness. Children is ill, he is ill, this and that. Someone who is presenting himself so professional should make a stop at this place. If you are ill then you are ill. Stop accepting watches you can't work on. It's your responsibility for your customers. There is nothing to slow down here. All that happened last summer and I'm over it. I saved money, bought other watches and went my way. Only reason I haven't brought this earlier is that I thought nobody would believe me. But now some of you know me, some of you even personally - I am not scared anymore of being flamed. I have my friends here and this post will not mess existing friendships. I also realized that there are many, many others who had an similar experience with Joe and this has to stop !

Hmm, so what is more unethic - criticize someone who is absent, or let more people get into trouble and being scammed ? I've had nearly a year to think over and made my decision now. Last year in summer I found RWG/TRC. I did my homework, even dug into the first postings reaching back years ago. I've never been a great poster - but I'm nearly everyday on the fora and reading reading reading... Learned many friends here and having a great time - NOW. Last summer I was "only" a poor newbie - who would believe my story if I told it then ? I was in "who has the best Sub"-Hype, loving Submariners since I know watches. So I decided to get one from Joe. The myth, the legend. I read a lot about the reviews - and decided to order one from him, with FULL FULL modifications. This is what I got: I was shocked - I even thought he accidentally sent me the unrepaired watch of another customer !!! But - no Problem ! Hey ! Calm down ! It's Joe ! THE Joe ! He will sort it out - he would never send you a watch like this FOR OVER 600 BUCKS !!! Indeed - after paying he is no more interested in you. I NEVER SAW A CENT BACK ! No refund, no help. He just said "send it back, I'll see". Knowing well that I'm extremely aware about customs (I paid him extra money for secure shipping firstly to someone else in EU - than to me). Do you see the scratch at the Crown ? He commented like this: "sometimes it's extremely hard to pop these bezels off..." Oh, come on ! Included in the whole package was a water test. He clearly stated it's no guarantee for real water-resistance but good for simple things like having a shower or things like that. Now read this: I washed my hands with the watch on - and it immediately sucked the waterdrops into the watch ! I opened it and dried the watch to avoid damage - then showed it to my watchsmith, he measured and told me that the crystal is too small in diameter. So combine this please - the watch having this fundamental problem, will never get waterresistant until you change the crystal or fix it with glue. So it's impossible that he did a watertest with my watch - cause it would have been flooded immediately ! By the way - do you see the crystal of this Sub ? This is how a realigned crystal should look like !!! Another point: The famous CGs. Please do your Homework and search 1) for a reference pic of a gen and 2) for posted watches modified by Joe. They are not even close to a gen. I gave it a try and modded one for myself - it's possible to get them nearly exact like genuine. (This is no advertisement - I do NOT offer mods.) But I saw also the Sub-LV from repaustria (cerberus2002) for example - great results !!! This is clearly showing that these mods ARE possible to do - and that the ones from RBJ aren't that good. Also many other members do their stuff on their own - and getting comments from Joe: "oh my friend lol i love you all lol very good work lol but i had 1532 gen ones through my hands lol and modded 127399 watches lol your cgs are a little off lol dont get offended please lol i just want to help you all my friends lol cause i love watches and all of you and the board lol i just want to help lol" Really interesting friends - this words from someone you have to pay replicacenter-prices for work that is 1) don't even done (in my case watertesting for example) or 2) could have been done much better. Result of all this: - I am scammed for more than 600 bucks. (And YES friends ! SCAMMED definetely IS the right expression for this !!!) - I have learned important lessons ( I was clever enough to not get scammed from replicacenter - and got into the same kind of trouble with Joe) - I have an Sub sitting here which is slightly more worth than an asian version from silix. - I learned to do all the mods for myself. Why I waited so long ? I thought nobody would believe me. Perhaps you still not do not after reading all this - but this is the truth. You know what ? I have ALL the original emails with Joe. Emails in which he is stating that the watch was perfect when he sent it and I messed it (Yeah ! I turned the aligned crystal back...) ! I don't want to copy and paste here (but I can if you all are interested) - cause Joe would just say that it's not true. I TELL YOU SOMETHING: There are some members I built friendships with that you ALL know. Reputable, and been in rwg since the early beginnings - I invite them to see this emails unedited in their original order in my postbox. What more you need to believe ? I shut my mouth too long - this is my biggest fault here - perhaps I could have get some money back if I made some trouble right after receiving this POS-watch. But as I stated before: I just was afraid nobody would believe my story. All of you ! Get your watches back you are waiting for - some of you for many months and don't get into the same trouble ! THIS SCAM HAS TO END ! This is the most important idea why we all are here. -edited to correct some spelling-

Hmm, so what is more unethic - criticize someone who is absent, or let more people get into trouble and being scammed ? I've had nearly a year to think over and made my decision now. Last year in summer I found RWG/TRC. I did my homework, even dug into the first postings reaching back years ago. I've never been a great poster - but I'm nearly everyday on the fora and reading reading reading... Learned many friends here and having a great time - NOW. Last summer I was "only" a poor newbie - who would believe my story if I told it then ? I was in "who has the best Sub"-Hype, loving Submariners since I know watches. So I decided to get one from Joe. The myth, the legend. I read a lot about the reviews - and decided to order one from him, with FULL FULL modifications. This is what I got: I was shocked - I even thought he accidentally sent me the unrepaired watch of another customer !!! But - no Problem ! Hey ! Calm down ! It's Joe ! THE Joe ! He will sort it out - he would never send you a watch like this FOR OVER 600 BUCKS !!! Indeed - after paying he is no more interested in you. I NEVER SAW A CENT BACK ! No refund, no help. He just said "send it back, I'll see". Knowing well that I'm extremely aware about customs (I paid him extra money for secure shipping firstly to someone else in EU - than to me). Do you see the scratch at the Crown ? He commented like this: "sometimes it's extremely hard to pop these bezels off..." Oh, come on ! Included in the whole package was a water test. He clearly stated it's no guarantee for real water-resistance but good for simple things like having a shower or things like that. Now read this: I washed my hands with the watch on - and it immediately sucked the waterdrops into the watch ! I opened it and dried the watch to avoid damage - then showed it to my watchsmith, he measured and told me that the crystal is too small in diameter. So combine this please - the watch having this fundamental problem, will never get waterresistant until you change the crystal or fix it with glue. So it's impossible that he did a watertest with my watch - cause it would have been flooded immediately ! By the way - do you see the crystal of this Sub ? This is how a realigned crystal should look like !!! Another point: The famous CGs. Please do your Homework and search 1) for a reference pic of a gen and 2) for posted watches modified by Joe. They are not even close to a gen. I gave it a try and modded one for myself - it's possible to get them nearly exact like genuine. (This is no advertisement - I do NOT offer mods.) But I saw also the Sub-LV from repaustria (cerberus2002) for example - great results !!! This is clearly showing that these mods ARE possible to do - and that the ones from RBJ aren't that good. Also many other members do their stuff on their own - and getting comments from Joe: "oh my friend lol i love you all lol very good work lol but i had 1532 gen ones through my hands lol and modded 127399 watches lol your cgs are a little off lol dont get offended please lol i just want to help you all my friends lol cause i love watches and all of you and the board lol i just want to help lol" Really interesting friends - this words from someone you have to pay replicacenter-prices for work that is 1) don't even done (in my case watertesting for example) or 2) could have been done much better. Result of all this: - I am scammed for more than 600 bucks. (And YES friends ! SCAMMED definetely IS the right expression for this !!!) - I have learned important lessons ( I was clever enough to not get scammed from replicacenter - and got into the same kind of trouble with Joe) - I have an Sub sitting here which is slightly more worth than an asian version from silix. - I learned to do all the mods for myself. Why I waited so long ? I thought nobody would believe me. Perhaps you still not do not after reading all this - but this is the truth. You know what ? I have ALL the original emails with Joe. Emails in which he is stating that the watch was perfect when he sent it and I messed it (Yeah ! I turned the aligned crystal back...) ! I don't want to copy and paste here (but I can if you all are interested) - cause Joe would just say that it's not true. I TELL YOU SOMETHING: There are some members I built friendships with that you ALL know. Reputable, and been in rwg since the early beginnings - I invite them to see this emails unedited in their original order in my postbox. What more you need to believe ? I shut my mouth too long - this is my biggest fault here - perhaps I could have get some money back if I made some trouble right after receiving this POS-watch. But as I stated before: I just was afraid nobody would believe my story. All of you ! Get your watches back you are waiting for - some of you for many months and don't get into the same trouble ! THIS SCAM HAS TO END ! This is the most important idea why we all are here. I will copy this to a new independent Thread - sorry for hijacking your initial post jdmdohcpower ! -edited to correct some spelling-

If you own a Dremel use a cotton-wheel in combination with fine polishing compound - you'll get a mirror-finish easily.

I really hope these chinese guys will develop some kind of Quality Control in the near future...

Is she fired now ?

@slay Thanks for your PM ! Then I would say count me in - at least for one. Can you give us some more details ? Is the seller trustworthy ? Especially when placing a group order - we can reach dangerous sums... Most important at all: are the crystals genuine ? If not this whole thing makes no sense - it's really easy to get a generic Tropic 21 for 15,- Eur + shipping.

Do we have a DIY-Guide for this Topic in our fora ? My search was not successful... I have a cheap asian case to try, but with a standard HSS-Drill it's impossible to come through - the steel is too hard. I tried different speeds and pressures (never mind if I screw up this one) but I just couldn't get deeper than a few nanometers...

Hi, after getting a heavy scratch on my plexi I want to exchange it with a gen Tropic 21. Any suggestions where I can get one ? Preferably in EU... Many thanks in advance !

Beeeautiful collection ! Vintage Rolex models are getting more and more of my attention - the 6263 has it's own incredible charme. Will a VJ23 fit the DW-Case without modifications ?