Fake dial on Sea dweller offered by Hess?

[onkyo]

The lesson to be learned for TRF members is always do your due diligence with any watch you are considering purchasing. Do not let your guard down based on a sellers history or reputation. Read every word, ask questions, and make sure a return policy is stated in case you don't get what you paid for.

[jeff hess]

TO recap: Our "Act" is extremely clean. Katrina noted clearly the dial was not original on this watch and on the tudor as well. no attempt to deceive whatsoever. Quite the contrary. We sell to scores of trf members. Katrina is generally in the top 3 to 10 percent of Rolex sellers worldwide on ebay and 99 percent of them are sold without incident. The simple fact that a trf member does not like the "manner" or "semantics" of her disclosure is nothing for anyone anywhere to worry about. Calling the dial 100 percent counterfeit as has been done on this thread is, indeed, troubling however.

If you look back on TRF over the years you will see that we love TRF in general and you will also note that the main instigator of alleged problems on here is Mr. Springer. His agenda is clear.

cheers and best to all.

[powerfunk]

Originally Posted by jeff hess

TO recap: Our "Act" is extremely clean. Katrina noted clearly the dial was not original on this watch and on the tudor as well. no attempt to deceive whatsoever. Quite the contrary. We sell to scores of trf members. Katrina is generally in the top 3 to 10 percent of Rolex sellers worldwide on ebay and 99 percent of them are sold without incident. The simple fact that a trf member does not like the "manner" or "semantics" of her disclosure is nothing for anyone anywhere to worry about. Calling the dial 100 percent counterfeit as has been done on this thread is, indeed, troubling however.

If you look back on TRF over the years you will see that we love TRF in general and you will also note that the main instigator of alleged problems on here is Mr. Springer. His agenda is clear.

cheers and best to all.

Let it go, Hess. You're only making yourself look even worse. Every single one of your posts is infuriating to me.

"Used or replaced" does not CLEARLY denote that the dial was refinished. What do you think the word "clearly" means?

Customer service management is my area of professional expertise. Pro tip: Convincing customers (or potential customers) that they are wrong never does any good, ever. Even if you're right, which you're not. If you are truly 100% in the right, the community will have your back -- TRF "lynchings" rarely occur without a counterpoint being strongly presented.

If you had immediately EARNESTLY apologized, fixed your listing, thanked TRF for bringing up this issue, and not accused Mr. Springer of ulterior motives, then it never would've been a big problem. If you're selling refinished stuff and not clearly denoting it, it's ludicrous for you to act all butthurt when one of us says it's POSSIBLY counterfeit.

You have yet to display one ounce of genuine humility.

[chicfarmer1]

nm

[77T]

First off, I have no dog in this hunt. But I have a stake in the work we do here in WatchOut!!! After reading the many threads about this eBayer, I felt it worth expressing an opinion.

I always wonder when people point to some stats saying look how good we are "the rest of the time".

Big sales volume can make screw-ups look small - like 4/10th's of a percent. But to the guy or gal who is an unlucky victim, it is a 100% problem.

Regarding a 99.6% eBay rating - if the airlines around the World had such a track record, 372 planes would crash to earth each and every day of the year with no survivors. (93,000 x 00.4%)

If one spent as much time being careful then it would be a fraction of the time spent defending problems.

And then none of the many threads here about problems would be possible.

[77T]

Originally Posted by onkyo

The lesson to be learned for TRF members is always do your due diligence with any watch you are considering purchasing. Do not let your guard down based on a sellers history or reputation. Read every word, ask questions, and make sure a return policy is stated in case you don't get what you paid for.

Sage advice - should be engraved above the screen of each PC/Laptop, etc

[Wacker23]

For a person that doesn't have anything to do with the web business, this guy always seem to post on defending these rolexes that if anyone of us would have listed ebay would have the listing pulled and you would have been banned from eBay. I was looking at the 1665 and you can see that the crystal was intentionally scuffed there is no mention of the redone dial until you get to the part were no person actually reads that says the dial is refinished. Then his relative gets on and say yeah we had our tech look at it and the dial is refinished. Come on are u people kidding? The minute the seller showed you guys the watch that was probably the first thing you saw. More people need to see your nonsense. I bought a few items from you guys which i will never do again. Im sorry if this gets me in trouble but for my opinion i think your a bunch of scammers. I also think that if more Ebayers were educated by people you say have a agenda here they would feel the same way I do.

[springer]

Originally Posted by Wacker23

For a person that doesn't have anything to do with the web business, this guy always seem to post on defending these rolexes that if anyone of us would have listed ebay would have the listing pulled and you would have been banned from eBay. I was looking at the 1665 and you can see that the crystal was intentionally scuffed there is no mention of the redone dial until you get to the part were no person actually reads that says the dial is refinished. Then his daughter gets on and say yeah we had our tech look at it and the dial is refinished. Come on are u people kidding? The minute the seller showed you guys the watch that was probably the first thing you saw. More people need to see your nonsense. I bought a few items from you guys but really I think your a bunch of scammers.

Also, I incorrectly mentioned in a previous post that hessfineauctions has "a watchmaker at his disposal" when in actuality, the auction site reads that they have a watchmaker on staff at the company. I wonder why the watchmaker does not catch these discrepancies? I bet the watchmaker would be a great person to interview!

Quoted from hessfineauctions: We have in-house watchmakers. Any warranty given in the auction will be voided if another watchmaker or individual opens the watch. No returns will be accepted if an unauthorized individual opens or modifies the watch in any manner.

[springer]

Originally Posted by kooltzar

We have heard of description problems before on this forum re. watches offered by the ebay seller hessfineauctions. Hess is a reputable Rolex expert and according to his own words in this forum his daughter runs the online business.

In the auction below nothing is said in the general description re. the dial and only if someone is reading very attentively further below it says under dial condition "used maybe replacement". I don't think any normal potential buyer would read this as "the dial may be fake".

Look at the dial and make your own conclusions. All I can say is that I have never seen such a Sea Dweller dial before, but maybe I am wrong here.

If you come to the same conclusion as I do then we face a big problem: the so far legit reputable sellers who are experts would knowingly offer non authentic watches. But again, maybe I am wrong and the seller should have the benefit of the doubt.

The link:

http://www.ebay.ch/itm/1978-Vintage-...ht_4006wt_1344

SeaDweller Ebay link in English:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1978-Vintage...item4d0a29e500

[Wacker23]

That dial is a fing joke. I'm gonna go get a 1000 dollar sea dweller franken rep and bring it to their shop maybe ill get 7-8 k for it because they will have no problem buying it they worry about it after they list it. Some one that has real power on here needs to call these outright scammers out. Enough is enough.

[mastermixer]

If it is on consignment from a local jeweler maybe you should take out the part about it being purchased from the original owner

"Description: You are bidding on an as found Rolex Sea Dweller from 1978. This watch was purchased from the original owner and is in as found condition."

Originally Posted by jeff hess

update: Katrina is up now and has responded. The watch was a consignment from a local jeweler and she will have the watchmakers take it apart this AM. Cheers!

[Knappo 1307]

Lies, Lies, and more Lies.....Hess auctions...

[blaine mattison]

Hello everyone

This has been interesting thread. I believe i seen something
like this before?? maybe??

I would like to share a few of my thoughts

1) Geniune, to me is 100% ( example: 100% geniune leather )
NOT>> a dial plate maybe worth 50-70 dollars that is repainted

(not attacking, just don't see the meaning of geniune the same as you)

2) Replacement, replace with another with like qualities.
( example, the football popped, go get the replacement one)
as stated" Used may be a replacement "

3) Counterfeit, an imitation of a geniune good with the intent to deceive.
( is the dial plate original to the watch or is it a sub or gmt plate. we'll never know)

conclusion

4) Call it what it is. THIS DIAL IS A RE-PAINTED DIAL (ALSO know as a repop)

5) i am personally troubled on how the picture of the dial is displayed.
and what i mean is the first picture of the minute hand covering the cornet
and the L. granted it may of been an unintentional mistake. maybe, but all
your 70 plus watch listing and 100 plus completed listing, i find a few (very
at that) that hide the brand name of the watch. and this isn't a 8.95 BIN
nascar watch. so back to what i said, this could of be a oversight on the
picture taker. as a smaller scale operator ( you sell thousands a year, i sell
around a thousand. ( rolex and other brands and some times in bags of 10,
20 and so on) and for the record this isn't a self promotion post. i do ZERO
internet sales and it's been like this for a few years. and thats the way it's
gonna be, period....... i subscribe to the school of thought, DISCLOSE. OR
another way i view my personally dealing with fellow collectors is nawcc rule
on membership responsibilities, under business transaction B, 1, i just use the
key words, Open, Honest and Tranparent.

Jeff, i'll use a term that's been attached to you from the nawcc " unsung hero"
you know better. your not a gun slinger that's thrown stuff out there and has
no interest in watches. you too are a collector and well as most of use here.
you and Mr Dowling wrote a wonderful book ( that i have a copy of). In your
own book (pg 269) you have wonderful picture of a red and white 1665 for an
example. the dial in this post, isn't a replacement type, it's not geniune, it's a
imitation of a great white 1665. and a poor one at that.

with pride
member nawcc, wwt, and the iwjg

[RolexWatcher]

The lesson to learn from this thread - don't buy from Hess Auctions as they play word games with you!

If you want to play word games, play Word Association in TRF! :)

And thank God for TRF WatchOut section!