More Troubling Info from the AD

[RobbieG]

Hi guys,

I have decided that each time I hear one of these stories I am going to post it just so that maybe the members will rally behind it and eventually the culprits will stop. I was visiting with my dear friend yesterday who is a major Rolex AD and among other things he was talking about a trip to the Rolex factory he had recently. Apparently, it is rare for AD's or anyone to ever get inside. In fact, they wouldn't even let his buyer in and would only allow the owners. They had a limited little tour of the factory which is a whole other story.

Anyway, while inside he said they were in a conference room and Rolex brought in a cardboard box and dumped its contents out on the table. It was full of reps of all varieties. He said there was a mixture of really trashy $10 watches and some really good ones "with serial numbers" that he said Rolex claimned it was devoting all of its time to. He said they said, "These are the ones that scare us because they are so good. We know how we make these watches and they had to have bought millions of dollars of CNC equipment to make these..."

Sure, we all know all that here but the reason for my post is this: In response to his comments about the factory I asked him if he continues to see a lot of fakes. The last time we talked about it he had told me that he had spotted a fake GMTIIc on a guy in his store. He is a real collector like us and not just because he sells watches. Anyway, he has a sharp eye and knows what to look for. He does not know that I am rep friendly though. So in response to my latest question he proceeds to tell me that he has AT LEAST 3 encounters a week regarding replicas. He said the most typical encounters are from three general camps - two of which could be people who have been here:

1. My buddy gave me this watch as payment for a debt and I want to know if it is real. He said these people are clearly undesireables who know nothing about watches. Probably just trying to pawn a known fake for a couple bucks. Not anyone here as he said these people bring in the $10 specials

2. WIS who come in and talk watches with him REGULARLY and when trying things on put their watch on a pad which he picks up and sees that it is fake on close inspection. And they are always very high quality fakes.

3. WIS who come in and hand him these same SUPER HIGH QUALITY replica watches and ask him if he thinks it is real. He then tries to engage them in conversation about where they got it after telling them he thinks it is fake and they say stuff like "I forget...or it was a gift...or I got it online". In other words it could be people here because he says they always seem to know alot about watches so he feels they actively seek out these reps and it is no accident.

Look these people are obviously specifically going into to this AD to see if the watch passes the AD test. Playing with fire. I guess it must be an ego thing for some people to have an AD tell them he thinks it is real or something. And of course most wouldn't know. But for every 10 of those there will always be one like my friend - and I'm sure he tells Rolex about it too.

But the amount of traffic he claims to be getting with stories like these is very disconcerting. Unless they ask for his opinion of authenticty he doesn't say a word and he says he has regular visits from guys he doesn't figure to be able to afford a lot of gens judgeing from the cars he sees them pull up in - and yet they have a different high quality rep on each time they come in. That is no accident. Someone from these forums - or many as the case may be is going into my AD not once, but many times with not one watch, but many. This really troubles me because it is one thing (which I don't codone either) to walk into an AD with a watch on your wrist which you don't take off or talk about, but to specifically interact with a known WIS Rolex AD of all things and discuss and hand your rep to him as a gen is just inexcusable.

[ironmarshal]

Stories like this are really disconcerting. If you want a rep that passes the AD test then go buy a gen! I dont understand what anybody would gain from trying to test the AD like this. The more focus we bring to this hobby, the more difficult we make it for ourselves.

[Shundi]

Ugh... PUT IT IN YOUR POCKET for Chrissakes...jeeze, I cannot understand the allure of this sort of thing... If a bunch of people online can figure out it's a rep just by looking at it, anyone who actually handles it will be able to tell even sooner (just shake a rep rolex and listen for the rotor).

[Dutchy]

Thanks for taking the time to write that Robbie. Very worrying indeed.

As Shundi said, PUT IT IN YOUR POCKET!!!!

[LordRasta]

Bottom line is you bought the watch, do what you like with it. I personally find it bad form to go into any AD with a rep on your wrist and EXTREMELY bad form to even take it off and hand it to them. I enjoy this hobby but at the end of the day they are still watches that are misrepresentations of the genuine article. In other words, a fake.

And FYI, the forum rules state that if you go into a AD and show off your fake watch....we don't care and we don't want to know about it. And you don't know us.

[freddy333]

Although there are currently more than 15,000 of us, the vast, vast majority of rep buyers/owners (even the high end stuff) know nothing about RWG & similar sites. When you have reps being hawked via spam on a daily basis, it would be even more newsworthy if alot of buyers did not walk into their local AD with their latest purchase. And as has been discussed numerous times previously, Rolex & the other gen makers are well aware of the state of the art in reps/frankens & will eventually get around to taking action against buyers/owners & sites like RWG. It all depends on their bottom line - when it starts to drop, they look for leaks in the profit dam & a quick google search takes their lawyers right here.

[RobbieG]

Yeah. I fear that day may be sooner than we think. There are just too many rep buyers and the damn things are so good it is easier and easier for more and more serious watch buyers to rule out buying gens completely. Sooner or later it has got to start hurting them more. The clothing and music industries are already there...

Although there are currently more than 15,000 of us, the vast, vast majority of rep buyers/owners (even the high end stuff) know nothing about RWG & similar sites. When you have reps being hawked via spam on a daily basis, it would be even more newsworthy if alot of buyers did not walk into their local AD with their latest purchase. And as has been discussed numerous times previously, Rolex & the other gen makers are well aware of the state of the art in reps/frankens & will eventually get around to taking action against buyers/owners & sites like RWG. It all depends on their bottom line - when it starts to drop, they look for leaks in the profit dam & a quick google search takes their lawyers right here.

[freddy333]

Yes, elsewhere I once compared the coming apocalypse to the RIAA's attack on mp3 downloading. mp3 downloading was once so prevalent that it virtually put Tower Records (and other major retailers) out of the retail CD business. Within a few months, the RIAA's lawyers had virtually turned the tables on the mp3 downloading sites & downloaders, which effectively put a stop to the majority of (illegal) mp3 downloads. So a highly effective precedent (and legal blueprint for action) has been set & the clock is ticking.

[Corgi]

Yes, elsewhere I once compared the coming apocalypse to the RIAA's attack on mp3 downloading. mp3 downloading was once so prevalent that it virtually put Tower Records (and other major retailers) out of the retail CD business. Within a few months, the RIAA's lawyers had virtually turned the tables on the mp3 downloading sites & downloaders, which effectively put a stop to the majority of (illegal) mp3 downloads. So a highly effective precedent (and legal blueprint for action) has been set & the clock is ticking.

Unless they outlaw "the internet" and/or physically prevent you from using a computer, mp3 downloading is still very very prevalent. Not only, but now thanks to high speed connections film, television, software, etc can all be downloaded with ease. Peerguardian takes care of security.

Back to topic:

The fault is just as much that of the AD than of the person going in with a rep. Why do people walk into the watch store wearing a fake watch? Because they get better treatment. They get a catalogue... and timely assistance. People like to be treated nice and unfortunately store personnel are clearly told "pay more attention to customers who look like they are more willing to buy" which means "be nicer to rich people".

[ExtraExtra]

Interesting that the AD does size up the rep collector based on how the rep collector looks or carries itself. This is one of the most important 'tell' If it just doesn't fit the overall picture then there is a possibility that it maybe a rep.

Back to the rep collector playing with fire, the AD should really call it everytime he is presented with a rep.

[RobbieG]

The problem is that you can't though. You always run the risk of the guy not knowing his watch is a rep. What if he got it as a gift from his dead Brother - or he bought it on ebay for 4 grand. The AD can't risk losing these otherwise good customers. He has nothing to gain and everything to lose by calling out a watch.

And yes, Corgi, it is a sad state of affairs and very shallow but unfortunately if anyone thinks you have a lot of money - or if you do have a lot of money, either one, the simple fact is that you WILL get better treatment EVERYWHERE and from everybody. Cash is king and has been for as long as I care to remember in this little free market society we call a democracy. Some people call it America too. LOL. Maybe the rest of the world is not so bad. AD's, restaurants, car dealers, you name it. If you have cash you get treated like a God. Sucks, but it is the way it is...

Interesting that the AD does size up the rep collector based on how the rep collector looks or carries itself. This is one of the most important 'tell' If it just doesn't fit the overall picture then there is a possibility that it maybe a rep.

Back to the rep collector playing with fire, the AD should really call it everytime he is presented with a rep.

[lanikai]

Sadly .. there will always be members or people that think they are smarter and slicker than the advice and rules that govern our hobby.. customs in the last year has gotten more rigid..

I went to the Rolex AD when the GMTIIc came out.. no brochures anymore.. they stated due to counterfiets.. they are suspicious .. you read post of members comparing the rep and genuine at the AD.. sheesh...

We can post warnings until your fingers cramp.. and members who don't care will keep doing what they do.. usually members IMo that don't give a crap about us to begin with..

I really think this is why the makers don't make the "perfect" replication.. if that ever happened .. shit will hit the preverbial fan fo sure..

[highoeyazmuhudee]

i dont think the rep will ever fully emulate the experience of owning a gen, ive purcahsed two 16610 subs, and i find my self pining for the real deal more and more everyday. yes our reps are good and i dont feel as bad banging them around in the real world, but there is a legacy behind owning a rolex (over priced as it is) its truly owning a piece of watch making history for real, and being able to pass some thing along within your family that is worth something for the next generation to appreciate. i really dont understand the point in trying to see if an AUTHORIZED DEALER can tell your watch is a fake. It's their business and their livelyhood to know, what's what, so the obvious answer is, OF COURSE THEY KNOW. i take solace in knowing that the majority of people who are idiots when it comes to reps flash the $10 stuff (theyre not true hobbyists anyways) and the majority of hobbyists are educated enough to know better. it may be getting out of control tho. for the first time in ever ive found a local shop (in my semi-small town)that has an MBK style catologue for ordering (and they operate in the wide open in Canada) i assume business is going well for them since before they only had a few crappy omega models, so people are buying. what does and doesnt bother me about this; He only sells crap and knows nothing about his product. every watch is a straight forward 21jewel auto, no complications function. so what bothers me is he charges $200 for any model when i know its value is really $50-80$ but people pay this, at least theyre leaving with real garbage, but these people probably fall into the categorey of people who will visit the AD and flash a chrono with day-date registers....

[RobbieG]

Yeah what a coincidence. And yet as you know, I was called a liar for relaying what my AD told me about suspicions confirmed to him by Rolex themselves. Through all of that, none of my critics stopped to think what I could possibly gain by making it up. Anyone who thinks that the heat will not rise as the quality of reps does is delusional. That watch in particular has cause the whole battle to kick up a major notch. That rep has crossed over to the gen world at full steam. It is the most famous rep right now. And NO one rep had ever been famous until the Big Bang. Switzerland has its "eye" fixed on reps again. You can feel it in the air. The heat has been dormant for a while but it is back again.

Rolex dumping out dozens of recent countefeits from a box on a conference room table in front of dealers during a factory tour at the home turf is pretty good evidence of that heat if we continue to discount all the rest of the recent stories...

I went to the Rolex AD when the GMTIIc came out.. no brochures anymore.. they stated due to counterfiets.. they are suspicious .. you read post of members comparing the rep and genuine at the AD.. sheesh...

[RobbieG]

Well that is just the point though. I wouldn't be relaying information about canal street reps. Rolex hasn't cared much about those for years and neither do many of the other brands from what I am told. Sure, they litigate and seize and destroy but the point being that they don't see them as a threat to the brand. My AD told me that his "contact" at headquarters when he was there recently (who dumped the fakes on the table) said, and I quote, "These are the ones that scare us..."

The fact is - and the point of this post, is that the stuff being flashed at dealers and shows and on the internet these days IS teh good stuff and it is going to be the death of the industry one day you mark my words. Someday soon, Rolex in particular is going to make news by delivering a crippling blow to this industry. I don't know in what capacity, but it will be something big like some huge joint cooperative thing with the Chinese government or something and all these sites, etc. all at once or something crazy. Conspiracy theory? Maybe. But how long do you think they are going to sit back and see these watches being rubbed in their faces? And in the case of Rolex in particular, these great new reps ARE majorly hurting the sales numbers. The numbers are staggering. They are everywhere. Even I see them on the street. I see more fake Subs here in Florida than real ones. And they aren't Canal Street specials. They are first rate reps. And the people I see wearing them are professionals with above average and in some cases high incomes.

Look, the members here arent the only reasonable consumers on the planet. A HUGE number of potential genuine Rolex buyers would never buy another Submariner from them if they had knowledge and easy access to a Noob factory Sub for $200. And Rolex KNOWS it trust me. A guy like me who buys only gens because of an appreciation of all the stupid little anal quality differences and is willing to pay a 1000% premium for them is the MINORITY these days. Everyone with any sense at all loves to save money and sacrifice 1% of a quality difference for a 500% or more decrease in price. If any of us needed a new washing machine and we knew where to get a 99% accurate rep of a Maytag for $70, Maytag would be in deep sh*t.

i dont think the rep will ever fully emulate the experience of owning a gen, ive purcahsed two 16610 subs, and i find my self pining for the real deal more and more everyday. yes our reps are good and i dont feel as bad banging them around in the real world, but there is a legacy behind owning a rolex (over priced as it is) its truly owning a piece of watch making history for real, and being able to pass some thing along within your family that is worth something for the next generation to appreciate. i really dont understand the point in trying to see if an AUTHORIZED DEALER can tell your watch is a fake. It's their business and their livelyhood to know, what's what, so the obvious answer is, OF COURSE THEY KNOW. i take solace in knowing that the majority of people who are idiots when it comes to reps flash the $10 stuff (theyre not true hobbyists anyways) and the majority of hobbyists are educated enough to know better. it may be getting out of control tho. for the first time in ever ive found a local shop (in my semi-small town)that has an MBK style catologue for ordering (and they operate in the wide open in Canada) i assume business is going well for them since before they only had a few crappy omega models, so people are buying. what does and doesnt bother me about this; He only sells crap and knows nothing about his product. every watch is a straight forward 21jewel auto, no complications function. so what bothers me is he charges $200 for any model when i know its value is really $50-80$ but people pay this, at least theyre leaving with real garbage, but these people probably fall into the categorey of people who will visit the AD and flash a chrono with day-date registers....

[freddy333]

My AD told me that his "contact" at headquarters when he was there recently (who dumped the fakes on the table) said, and I quote, "These are the ones that scare us..."

Not to take anything away from the weight of your comments, which I agree with, but I have been hearing about the fabled 'box of reps' that scares Rolex for several years. In fact, the last time I heard this from a reliable source was about 2 years ago & Rolex, to my ongoing surprise, has yet to launch any type of concerted campaign against the rep community.

Look, the members here arent the only reasonable consumers on the planet. A HUGE number of potential genuine Rolex buyers would never buy another Submariner from them if they had knowledge and easy access to a Noob factory Sub for $200. And Rolex KNOWS it trust me.

The really sad thing about all this is that we (RWG & similar sites) are literally nailing our own coffins shut by allowing the content of our site to be routinely indexed by google, which makes most of the contents of the site (including this very thread) available to be used against every rep factory & seller on earth. It is great that we are hosted offshore, making it difficult to locate or affect RWG directly, but by having this virtual encyclopedia of the rep world as accessible as google to every busy-body lawyer & ambulance chaser is just plain insane.

[fakemaster]

An AD would not have referred to it as a GMTIIc.

I doubt rolex has a box 'o' reps. It's more like a vault. And they're not afeared of anything. People are going to do what they want and you can't stop them. I don't understand why peole don't keep their watches where they will never be called out at...on their wrist.

[RobbieG]

No he doesn't call it that - I do though. But Rolex does have a box of reps. Why would he lie to me about it? I've known the guy 20 years. Yes, I'm sure they have them in a vault, but they obviously transfer them to a box before showing them to the dealers.

I too have heard the box-o-reps story for years myself from different sources. When I hear the same story over and over from reputable people I tend to go the other way and start believeing it might be true. Maybe Rolex likes to show fakes to dealers on every factory visit? Makes sense to me.

But hey, if anyone wants to refute what I say just for the sake of a debate, be my guest. This is after all the internet so I expect nothing less. I just try to report the news as I'm hearing it and I wll continue to do so whenever my Rolex friend has one...

An AD would not have referred to it as a GMTIIc.

I doubt rolex has a box 'o' reps.

[RobbieG]

Hey did anyone ever think of switching to password protection or something. I mean I know the community wants to stay fresh with new members and all and I don't want to open a can of worms, but I'm just wondering if it was ever talked about for security reasons. Anyone know? I mean, RWG is the place for the most experts and is clearly the leader of the forums in my eyes with all the old school members (like you Freddy!...and Bytor and Pug and Ubi and even me I guess even though I can't hold a post candle to any of you). Anyway, just wondering if anyone ever disucussed taking it underground?

It is great that we are hosted offshore, making it difficult to locate or affect RWG directly, but by having this virtual encyclopedia of the rep world as accessible as google to every busy-body lawyer & ambulance chaser is just plain insane.

[supermanx]

Hey did anyone ever think of switching to password protection or something. I mean I know the community wants to stay fresh with new members and all and I don't want to open a can of worms, but I'm just wondering if it was ever talked about for security reasons.

Yeah its brought up everytime someone brings around a story of the rep world coming trembling down at a gen lawyers feet, or with every store of bragging to an AD.

Hublot was the first manufacturer to really go all out against the rep dealers that we see here, and yet you can still buy hublot from any of them. Now even more models, and easier access to ceramic.

[dsgb30043]

Not trying to be a smartass in any way, but does anyone think that because it will be so difficult to really take on/out the rep world (dealers, manufacturers, buyers, websites, etc), that the genuine brands will begin to reduce their pricing?

I know this is more of a pipedream, but just a thought.

[RobbieG]

It all comes down to volume and how much reps affect the balance sheet. But it of course would never happen because due to fixed and variable costs such as advertising there is no way they could ever really compete with rep pricing. That is why they try and squash them if they can. It is a very real threat and it gets worse as the quality continues to increase though. Rolex in particular loses a TON of sales to reps - and not here either. Sites like Idealwatches and Bestswiss and the like do a HUGE business selling Subs for $1000. And a lot of what they sell are the same highest quality Sub reps we see here. Those sites are proof that there are legions of consumers who think it is a fair deal to buy a watch which is 99% accurate with a good movement in it for less than 20% of the cost of the real deal. That business is really big. I forget what I heard once, but Tom at Idealwatches sells a staggering number of watches.

Not trying to be a smartass in any way, but does anyone think that because it will be so difficult to really take on/out the rep world (dealers, manufacturers, buyers, websites, etc), that the genuine brands will begin to reduce their pricing?

I know this is more of a pipedream, but just a thought.

[TagShmag]

I am not sure if this is a cause for concern. I enjoyed reading an older post by a member who went to the Chinese rep watch capital. The market with millions of reps. I am pretty sure that the swiss boys know all about it and probably have an "agent" there who regularly buys samples and ships them over to the swiss manufacturers. Heck they probably even know the names and locations of the factories.

So, it's not like this high quality rep business a BIG secret.

If some dork walks into the AD and hands over his rep for inspection, well thats his problem.

Last week I went to the AD and bought a gen Tag (alas as a gift to a relative), I was asking them how they know a gen from a rep. They said it is easy - the weight and the serial numbers on the back give it away. lol.

[Chronus]

if i had the cash for a genuine Big Bang, I'd buy an AP.

if i had the cash for a genuine rolex, I'd buy Breitling or Omega.

A lot of reps people buy are as test drives, or watches that they'd have never bought as a genuine, even if they had the cash.

We'll see how things change, but not many get me too excited nowadays...

[ubiquitous]

I dunno what the big fuss is all about? I've strolled in with these on with no problems