Bought Rolex but received Empty Box--HELP

[helo008]

Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for everyone who has helped in the process of this experience. I've refrained from posting for the last few months in light of the ongoing court proceedings, but now that everything has concluded I'd like to give everyone an update as to what has happened.

Given that the watch went missing in early June and I had no other forms of protection outside of UPS insurance, which did not seem promising, I reached out to several attorneys specializing in consumer protection law and ultimately decided upon their recommendation to pursue the case in Small Claims court. In California, small claims has a cap at $10,000 which fortunately covers the cost of the watch. I filed the case shortly after the watch was confirmed to be missing, given the backlog here in California for hearings, and scheduled a hearing on 10 October. I intended to dismiss the case beforehand if the refund was made, but after almost a month of waiting I decided to serve the seller. After emailing the seller, william21, a demand letter on 3 July, I did not hear back from him at all until seeing him in person on the day of the hearing. I had no idea if he was still reaching out to UPS, or if he was trying to walk away from the situation, so for the next several months until the date of the hearing I took matters with UPS into my own hands and was reaching out to staff at the UPS store where the package was shipped, the investigator who had come to check the package, and even the security department head every 2-3 days, going as far as to call for updates when traveling from the other side of the world.

In my opinion, UPS completely dropped the ball in the handling of the claim. I was initially told that processing would take around 10 days for the investigation and another 10 days to process the claim, but the payment was not made until late October. This was after repeated calls to check on the status of the claim, and at one point in August spending about a week to "un-freeze" the claim, which was frozen for unknown reasons in the Security department and was not being pushed to the Claims department. After the claim was finally approved, I received numerous calls from different people out of the Texas office to confirm the value of the item. When they finally did disburse the check, it took two tries before it even arrived to the UPS store, and it was only paid out the seller after our court hearing in October. While the individuals I was regularly in contact with at UPS were helpful, the whole claims process took at least 12 hours on the phone on hold and being declined information multiple times after being told they would only issue information to the seller.

At court, I presented the information that the members of this forum have helped me find, which included the weight discrepancies with the package when weighed at the UPS Store. These were elements I could not possibly have tampered with as they were taken when the watch was shipped, much before I received it. The judge noted that she was inclined to agree with the plaintiff, but wanted to schedule a continuance in case the UPS claim made the payment. During the hearing, the seller verbally confirmed he would direct the payment to me as soon as he received it from UPS, and this was noted by the stenographer in the minutes and was mailed to me several days later in writing. This continuance was scheduled for January but will no longer be taking place now that the case has been settled.

Several days ago, the seller, william21 mailed a check to me for the value of the watch originally purchased. He has stated that UPS has made the claims payment to him and he has now forwarded it to me. I have deposited the check and have made sure it has cleared, and have emailed him confirmation that I will be going ahead and dismissing the case.

As for the seller and several others who were skeptical, I can only say that the elements of doubt such as the inconsistencies in the weight of the package at the UPS Store took place far before I could ever handle the package itself. I'm not sure what I could possibly have done to tamper with the package at any point, but regardless I know for a fact what I did and did not do, and it seems clear that UPS and the court agrees. I've already discussed the matter of the watch I purchased in a prior post and with vinceb, and I'm sure that if anyone feels the need he will be happy to confirm the purchase made. With that said, for sellers, package security is definitely something to be concerned about, and as other members have mentioned, it is a good idea to pre-package the item and especially if shipping from a retail store, to keep the package anonymous and not to advertise the contents of your package.

I am extremely thankful once again for everyone's help and advice in this fiasco and have a few takeaways from this experience. For one, while UPS' insurance claim did eventually go through, it took in total almost 5 months to receive payment. This was an extremely harrowing experience that I would not recommend to anyone, and I definitely recommend that if purchasing, rely on more than just a shipping company's insurance. Credit card protection is definitely another avenue through which you can get additional protection, and a few hundred dollars in savings is not worth it if you are unfortunate enough to have a watch go missing and have to go through the claims process as I did. However, buying from businesses will always be easier if something does go wrong, but nothing beats the peace of mind of buying in person from an AD and that is the route I will be exclusively going down from this point on, especially given my experience over the last several months. I have recently just done so and despite the wait, it is worth it at least being able to sleep at night. Ultimately, I am just very glad that this situation is over and it has been resolved. Thanks again everyone for your diligence in following this thread and for all your help--it is all definitely appreciated. If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer either here or by PM.

P.S. Where should I report the serial of the missing watch? I'd be happy to post it here as well if that is an appropriate way to report it.