fraggle42

That's the word I was trying to think of! Escrow! Clearing house my [censored]

One view point I can contribute as a fairly new member. When I first found some rep sellers sites and started to google and found lots more, luckily one of the sites I found had videos of the owner "reviewing" other sites, saying they sell cheap rubbish or just don't send anything, and that convinced my suspicions that how could I know which was genuine and which was real? Comparing product pictures, well, some are obviously crap watches, and so actual pictures of reps, but they're crap so you'd never buy them, you're looking for the best quality reps, but still there be something there to let you know they're genuine, catch 22! Also I found some rep dealer review sites, and the first one looked genuine, and a lot mentioned the same dealer as a good dealer. Then I found another one (certainly not hard to find them!) and read that, and realised that the reviews were identical. Same content, different "review" site. And a third, and a fourth... Obviously copies, and obviously the dealer they recommended was a scammer. When I first found this place my first thought was "Ah, interesting, a forum set up by a scammer!" Well, why not? Fake websites, fake review sites, fake forums is just another con, and I didn't believe this site was genuine for a couple of weeks. If I'd been asked for $100 to be able to see and use the Trade forums I'd have been 100000% convinced it was a scam and just stuck with gens, figuring the whole rep market was totally scamming, there were no "decent" reps, they were all $35 trash. So asking for $100 or any amount to use the trading forums, it'll probably drive the scammers away, but it'll totally drive away any "new to reps" people as well I think. There's another potential problem, by adding in measures in an effort to make the trading forums safe, that may cause people to drop their defences, assuming the steps taken are 100% effective. Knowing that, I bet a scammer will happily pay $100 and then scam away with people assuming they are legit? I suppose one way of stopping it is to have a forum representative in every country who acts as a clearing house. A bit over the top and it would add postage costs to every deal.

Another idea for you to consider. I've just received one of Mikes hand made pens, a lovely acrylic pen with ostritch feathers inside the acrylic. The clip on the pen has a diamond set in the end of it, and with the chrome and gold mechanism it looks great. I'm sure a jeweller could mount your diamond securely into a pen clip.

I can register with any old username and any real name, so a list based on those will only be of very little use. Same for emails really, yahoo.com, gmail, etc, we can create hundreds of email accounts easily. Emails linked to PayPal accounts, I don't know how easy it is to change the registered email on your PP account? If it's not allowed, then those email addresses would be good to use. If it's easy to change them, they wouldn't be much use either. Addresses registered with PayPal would be useful, but wouldn't you get into problems with data protection and publishing people personal details? I know no one here would care if we listed scammers addresses, but outside bodies could be concerned and get the forum into trouble

> the issue of the purchase and its cost and ownership £20 or so for a year, per URL. One purchase to a scam site can be 10 times that. > and the potential ramifications of that ownership... None as far as I can see. You wouldn't put "this site is an old one, if you want XYZ's current site, click here!", you'd just put up a simple holding page "This website is not in use." kind if thing - nothing at all to link you the rep business. > It is and always has been the responsibility of the TDs to update and maintain there sections Yes, but we can see that they aren't doing that. The way I see it is that someone new coming along sees the "forum" as an entity, and anything within that is a "part of the forum" (the TDs sections) and is essentially endorsed by the forum (owners), so if the information is out of date and someone gets scammed because of that, it's the forums fault. I know in an ideal world everyone would do their own investigations until they're completely satisfied, but in the real world people will see this "forum" and the things that have been created and are part of the forums, i.e. the TD sections, as endorsed and 100% reliable. They would never think that the URLs might be out of date, especially if they click on them and get something that looks genuine. I understand where you're coming from, that you don't think we should nanny new members, but I ask myself "how much extra effort is it?" - very little really, "cost?" - not a lot, "benefit" - if one person avoids being scammed I'll feel happy about that, and I know they will. I'll make a point of saying that I'm not saying that you don't want to help new members, absolutely not! It's a healthy attitude to get people to take responsibility for their own actions and research first, I'm just a bit more forgiving and think that learning those lessons when you're talking about $300 or so is a hard lesson to learn, and I'd be grateful if someone helped prevent me from doing that. (luckily I wasn't fleeced before I found this place) > I am not sure what non contributing members see in the TD section so its difficlut to say I don't believe there is any difference, and I know all the TDs I've seen express an opinion it say they do not want their TD sections to be restricted to VIP members and above. > maybe having a specific member/crew person/s responsible for administrating the section might help.. This is my favourite option. It'd just need one of the regulars to keep an eye out on all 4 forums for any announcements by the TDs or by other members of changes to the TDs sites and then update the TD sections. I'm going to set things up so I'll be notified when any of the TDs sites come up for renewal. The costs per year for me in the UK are cheap for UK and generic domains, reasonable for the US ".com" domains, but expensive for most EU specific ones, no idea about ".cn", etc.

Anyone have an address for this member?

Only have one rep? What a horrible thought!

I've seen too many people lately getting scammed by going to the URL that a TD used to use before it was closed down. I know the process usually is A TD trades from a known website. B The powers that be get the site closed down, and a page is put up telling people why it was closed down C (I'm guessing) After a while, the "site has been closed down" page is removed and the website URL is put up for sale D A scammer buys the website URL, sets up a scam website E Members here and in other forums, read the old URL, go to the scammers site and get scammed. I know that people are quick in posting the new URLs, but normal members don't have permission to update the TD forums and the TD members info, so those can lie around for a while, misguiding people. Why don't we buy these old URLs ourselves as soon as they are available? It costs maybe $25 a year to register a URL, and that's all we'd need it for really, plenty of time for all pages to get updated. You can register interest so that when a URL that is currently in use becomes available we'll get notified. I would like to think that the forum itself could finance this idea, I know it's been having problems with the payment system at the mo, but once that's sorted is there any way the forum can do this? If not, anyone else want to contribute to doing this? Anyone think its a good idea, or bad, or have a different idea? Maybe an alternative is to make an active member a moderator who has responsibility to keep these TD links upto date?

Get a refund from PayPal ASAP.

You can improve the problem by highly polishing the 6 oclock gear and the metal surface it slides over - that is the source of the problem. The conversion to move the seconds to the 6 o clock position was done on the cheap, they didn't bother to use a jewel bearing, it's metal rubbing over metal. Polish the surfaces right up, and recess as much of the gears surface as possible in a lathe and it will make it as good as it can get. You will need to give the whole movement a good service as well to make sure it's all working as efficiently as it can be. Alternatively I suppose you could get someone to modify the movement and put a jewel where they should have put one in the first place, but you'll be talking many hundreds of $ to do that.

I just got my black, green and blue ostrich feather pen from Mike - love it Photos tomorrow when there's some daylight around.

Cardboard box? You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

Hehehe, life is too short to proof read the internet Only pulling your leg mate I take part in a newsgroup for bikers where a load of them are really anal about spelling and grammar, but in a good way, It wears off after a few years

Hah, hadn't even considered just using a thin plastic bag over the top of everything to remove the hands. Looks easier than fiddling around with a dial protector!

Ah! Duh! It's a Smiths 27-CS movement. And the bridge moves the small seconds hand to a centre seconds hand. Doesn't it help when you type the right things into google? Now I just would like to know what the little clock case is, as I can't find it anywhere.

I've had this lovely little travel / bedside minature Smiths clock for decades, I got it when we were clearing out my grandad and grandmas house after they passed on, my "thing" to remember them by, I've just found it again and had the idea of getting AJ to do his magic and put it into a watch case, and I'm trying to find any information on it. And come up with absolutely nothing. Nada. It's not even on the websites that have Smiths clocks and watches. Does anyone know which Smiths movement it is, and which clock it is? I think it's a travel clock, maybe. It comes in a little tiny leather box, silk lined, to keep it in. And the bridge on the movement adds the second hand (I think). The movement and dial are 27mm, and they are encased in a clear plastic / perspex cube that is in two halves. Loosen off four screws on the bottom and the halves of the cube fall out. There aren't any hallmarks on the metal stand and band encircliing the cube, but I think it's gold plated.

Very nice 436NR, Steinhart make some lovely homages. And it makes a nice change to get a watch that's actually waterproof and doesn't need servicing the second you get it!

<waits for Mike to see spelling mistake >

Mike, I just want to that you for all your hard work in all these raffles you have organised and run, and thats for everything else you've helped with. I know it must be a thatless task at times, and I know it's far too easy to grumble and hard to that someone, and I for one, just want to say that you, you really do deserve a lifetime gold coated, platinum mounted diamond membership!

Do two U1s make W2?

Thank you Admins! And I do appreciate the reason behind the OP posting the first post in this thread, but I think if all the people in this thread that cared for fellow members, just kept an eye out for any newbies looking for a watchsmith and if you see one just send a polite PM saying that at this time we could not recommend MD2020 and we advise them to look for someone else. And if they reply asking why, then point them to the first thread (if it still exists?). P.S. I know some have said that if newbies can't be bothered to do their research then it's their problem, but, really, we all started somewhere with very little or no knowledge. Isn't part of the forum to welcome newbies and help them out? Especially if there is a known problem we can help them avoid? We do it with scamming websites, help newbies to use the right one, this is just the same kind of thing. And by newbies I mean members who haven't used a watchsmith before. I'm sure there are lots of members who've been here years who've never had cause to need one, and who exclusively use the brand name forums.

+1 for Freddys advice, G S Cement comes in an applicator that is designed for applying tiny amounts very precisely - so much easier to use than normal adhesive dispensers.

Manually wind it, give it 30 or so turns of the manual wind [censored] (after releasing the crown guard of course) and that should set it off running.

I guess I'm a sucker for Seikos New arrival.

What do people want? For the problem to continue, maybe even flourish? Or temporarily forget the differences of opinion and together tackle the problem head on? http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/divide+and+conquer