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I fully agree that the “buy the seller” mantra should not be blindly followed. I once bought an OP with box and papers from what otherwise seemed to be an established seller on Chrono24, with an excellent reputation. Although the watch itself was legit (at least I hoped), and also the Rolex warranty card it came with, upon closer inspection the card turned out to be reused! It was the previous card design that was discontinued around 2020. Upon shining light on the card from an angle, you could see over the “serial number” and “reference number” what seemed to be letters and numbers that were no longer there! Indeed, somebody had managed to erase away the original characters and retype a fake serial number using the same exact font. And the original (erased) reference number happened to correspond to that of a Sea-Dweller (and remember, I had bought an OP!).
But what really made it clear that this was a reused card was when I called the AD listed on card to inquire about the warranty and serial number, which they were kind enough to answer for me….and the answer was a terse “NO” (it was NOT found in their records!), after telling them serial number and date of purchase shown on card. I still remember the goosebumps I got when hearing that and realizing I was a victim of a scam (at least a partial one since it only involved the card).
That immediately spoiled my confidence in the purchase, as well as served as a good school about “buying the seller”. To the seller’s credit, they did offer to either return the watch back, no questions asked, or keep the watch at an appropriate discount. Of course, the seller denied having any knowledge that this card was a “recycled” warranty card and that they would confront the original owner. But who knows if they themselves were behind this in order to add an easy $1k to the purchase price (because let’s face it, box was probably fake as well). At that point, I realized that you cannot really trust anybody 100% when it comes to buying grey. It’s a scary jungle out there.
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