In parts one and two I looked at setting a price and finding a buyer, now I?ll get on to the fun stuff?how not to get fleeced by a criminal while selling your watch and other helpful tidbits of information. First of all, try to remember what I said in part two about meeting strangers to sell your Rolex: don?t do it. It?s just too risky. I don?t care how much hard, cold cash they promise to bring, it?s just not worth it. As someone who spent more years than I?d like to recall as a sworn law enforcement officer dealing with some of the more unsavory elements in our society, take my word for it when I say pass on the risky face-to-face meetings with strangers, ? la Craigs List. Save those dealings for when you sell the futon from college or something like that?and have a friend with you even then. Like Sergeant Esterhaus used to say on the hit 1980s TV series Hill Street Blues, ?Let?s be careful out there.?
So you may be thinking, ?I?m the one selling, what do I have to be careful about, the risk is all with the buyer, right?? Ahh, I wish it were so simple. Life would be so much easier.
Let?s say you decide to sell your watch on Ebay. You receive the payment from the buyer like clockwork right after the auction closes along with a nice chipper message from them saying how delighted they are to have won the auction and how much they are looking forward to getting it, etc. Like a good seller you ship the watch off to the buyer?s address only to get a rude surprise some days later when Paypal notifies you the buyer has requested a refund because the package never arrived. If you failed to get a tracking number, Paypal will not stand behind you and you?ll just be out of luck?with no way of knowing if you were scammed or if the package really did get lost. Always get insurance on big tickets items like watches, and always, always get a tracking number to verify the package was at least delivered.
In fact, on the watch forums I frequent direct bank wire transfer has largely supplanted Paypal and other means of payments?and to be sure, Postal Money Orders, Cashiers Checks, and any other type of document including cash can be and has been counterfeited?due to the ease with which frauds are committed with them. Bank wire transfer is a fairly safe way for the seller to receive funds. Nothing in this world is one hundred percent secure, but right now it seems to be the preferred method of payment with the online watch collecting crowd I run with. Of course, the bank wire transfer is also a great way for a scammer to get money that is virtually impossible to have refunded, so keep that in mind when you?re buying as well. When it comes time to buy, do so only from trusted sources.
Another small thing to keep in mind if you are outside the United States is that Rolex USA zealously guards the right to sell Rolex watches in the US and if you ship one to a buyer in the US it can be seized by US Customs as illegally imported merchandise! This may seem incredible, but unfortunately it is true. Rolex watches are shipped every day to the US from private sellers via watch auctions on Ebay and sales from watch forums and other sites, but like Cuban cigars they are subject to seizure at the border if found out by authorities. Needless to say, this can create an awkward situation for an honest buyer and seller alike. Be forewarned.
I?ve just scratched the surface here with pitfalls and scams to avoid on the internet. Do the research; there?s no substitute for having done your own homework. Selling a watch doesn?t have to be scary, but you do need to be careful and that?s why so many people opt to sell their watch to a trusted dealer and avoid all the con artists and scams out there.
Sergeant Esterhaus was right; we can have a lot of fun selling our watches and upgrading to something else, as long as we remember to use some common sense and to be? careful out there.
Picture from ivanpw via htt://.flickr.com
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