ADVICE NEEDED - FRAUD THROUGH CHRONO 24 and NB TIMES

[smartshoes]

Hi there,
I have found myself in the unfortunate situation where we have be defrauded out of a lot of money (for us) for a vintage Rolex watch while trying to use two sites that this forum recommends (Chrono24 and NBTimes). I would love to hear any advice that you may have or results from similar situations.

The situation arose when my wife tried to but me a vintage watch from my birth year. I have been a collector of vintage watches for a while, I have some Russian pieces, a Universal Uni-compax and a Vulcain Cricket. Nice looking pieces but nothing in the value of a Rolex.

Bless my wife she has saved up for almost a year, and asked me a few questions about how I would go about buying a vintage piece, and if there were any that I liked. After looking at various threads on who were trusted sellers on this forum, and a few others I came to a short list. One of which was NB Times (nbtimes.co). To be double sure my wife contacted NB Times through Chrono 24 where they are rated as a trusted 'pro' seller.

My wife contacted 'Ben' through the contact seller link on Chrono 24. A deal was done for the watch in question, a 1977 Rolex Submariner 1680 - still for sale mind you on the nbtimes.co website for $7500. (http://www.nbtimes.co/portfolio/role...submariner-77/)

As noted on this forum 'Ben' only deals with bank transfers, so my wife transferred a substantial amount of money to the bank account listed, and heard nothing further... The contact she had was 23/3/14.

After a week passed, and my wife was told the watch was in the post, we tried to look up the nbtimes.co website and it was down. We started to worry now, and my wife let me in on the kind gift she was trying to buy me and how it may have gone wrong.

Finally the nbtimes website was back online and we contacted Ben through his nbtimes.co website and he told us that he would call the police on us and he had never heard of us... We were starting to feel sick about the whole situation now.

My wife called Chrono 24 and spoke to a man named Fabio who was very rude on the phone and at first took no responsibility for any of the transaction. My wife persisted with emailing Fabio constantly and he eventually began to understand our situation. Through an email dialogue he confessed to us that nbtimes had their account hacked and that they had now cancelled the account with nbtimes - although I notice that nbtimes watches are still on their website. Fabio suggested we contact nbtimes to being talking about how to rectify the situation.

Problem with this is that Ben at NBTimes has refused to reply to any of our emails after the first one. And now Fabio at Chrono 24 is now also refusing to reply to any emails. Their actions are appalling - they are hoping that we will give up and go away by ignoring us.

We have obviously been in contact with the bank who are investigating the bank transfer. But I am about to be forced to launch fraud investigation into these two companies - and I warn any of you who my think about this that they are unsafe and take no responsibility for anything that goes wrong - even when they are at fault.

Has anyone out there been through a similar situation and can recommend a path of action? Any legal representation which may be able to call NB Times and Chrono 24 accountable....? Anyone out there who could help personally?

It seems that nbtimes must hold some responsibility as it was the security on their website/email that was hacked which allowed this fraud to take place. For all we know he may have scammed us out of the money himself? If you claim to offer a safe place to do business and cannot uphold that them you are responsible. We tried to buy a watch through as safe a route as you possibly can when buying a vintage watch over the internet - yet Chrono 24 and nbtimes refuse to take any responsibility for being unable to protect the method of sales they encourage.

If anyone out there can contact Ben and get him to help that would be great.
If anyone can recommend a course of action that would be great.

It is hard enough worrying about fakes and scams, let alone being taken advantage of by a trusted watch market in Chrono24 and a watch dealer in nbtimes.

I am happy to publish all correspondence with Chrono24, and nbtimes backing up this message if there is any doubt.

Fellow watch lovers I ask for your help and advice.

Thanks in advance, Ben.

[AbsolutelyROLEX!]

Man so sorry about your dilemma, unfortunately you will never see the money again and I feel sick for you, I am the victim of a large scam also so I can feel for you guys....

As far as I know no one has ever supported Chrono24 here on the forum, any feedback has always been negative.
Chrono24 is a big un-regulated Ebay, and is full of scammers, and no way to get anything back once your money is taken.
What you can try is contact Interpol, they have a website and through the right channels you may get lucky, wish you luck guys

[Mosco]

I believe the actual site is www.NBTimes.com, not .co.... Sounds like a copycat site, those pop up quite often.

EDIT: My mistake, the site is correct. Who specifically did you deal with?

[jjnd08]

Wow, sorry for your loss. There are others on this site who can tell you the best paths to take, but my guess is that your recovery chances are slim.

Best of luck.

[Wesley Crusher]

I am really sorry. Stories like this make me sick to my stomach.

This is why I will always use paypal. If anything goes wrong, no matter how unlikely, I know that I will be covered.

Best of luck to you. I sincerely hope that you're able to recover your money. Please keep us posted.

[Foxy1]

Hi

Sorry this has happened, yes there is Paypal but a lot of dealers will not use that as they have been scammed, so what is the answer, stay away from dealers that dont use Paypal ? its very hard to know the best way at times, I know dealers and I know customers that have both been scammed.

[crowncollection]

Sounds like a terrible situational. I wish you all the best.

[Tridor]

Sounds like a job for the criminal authorities.

[BaliBryan]

I've done business with Ben at nbtimes. I find it very hard to believe that he would run with your $7500, also as far as I know, he only uses feed-ex.

[BaliBryan]

Fed-Ex.

[adiorandomhero93]

Sorry to hear about that, I hope you work everything out and please keep us updated. I wish I could be of more assistance

[TC (Houston)]

Keep after it with the bank and the police in that jurisdiction. Hopefully you can find out the owner of the account and then seek recourse against them.

[Old Expat Beast]

I noticed NBtimes website was down a couple of weeks ago. I was going to mention it here but it then was back up again. Be good to have Ben give us an outline of what went wrong, as he is a regular seller on TRF.

[SohAIS]

Sorry for your loss

[unclesallie]

Depressing. I hope you recover your funds.
I was contemplating a deal through Chrono24.
No more.
Anyway, best of luck to you!

[Tridor]

Originally Posted by unclesallie

Depressing. I hope you recover your funds.
I was contemplating a deal through Chrono24.
No more.
Anyway, best of luck to you!

This shows that this section of the forum is an invaluable resource. It has saved a lot of folks from making costly mistakes. Sorry that the OP couldn't benefit in time.

[southtexas]

I gathered from OP story that a clone website of nb times was created, and then registered a watch for sale on chrono 24. The OP purchased the watch through wire transfer, sending money to an account the clone company set up?

Seems like a job for the banks and Interpol. I presume the money is long gone from that account and the account was likely opened using fake ID.

I feel for the OP. Seems that no good deed goes unpunished in this day and age. However, if my assumptions above are correct, then NB times did nothing wrong (he is the victim of identity theft in this case). I don't know Chrono 24's policies, but good luck with them. Interpol and the banks are probably your only hope.

What country do you live in? To where was the money wired?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Old Expat Beast]

Presumably there was a name & address supplied with the account number to which your wife wired the funds?

[77T]

Ben
I'm sorry about your situation, but please remember TRF doesn't recommend other sites to buy watches - it seems you have that impression.

In fact one of the standing rules here is to resolve disputes on the site where the deal was hosted.

[coralfarmer84]

Wow, hope you somehow get this resolved.

[mike]

Originally Posted by 77T

Ben
I'm sorry about your situation, but please remember TRF doesn't recommend other sites to buy watches - it seems you have that impression.

In fact one of the standing rules here is to resolve disputes on the site where the deal was hosted.

That is correct. Please check the rules.