Okay, we all know the obvious scams where a man shouts “looky looky” in a Spanish holiday resort before offering you a “genuine” TAG Heuer for a few Euros. These sorts of sales have been around since the start of package tours and we all know that what we are looking at is a fake. If we buy cheap men’s watches from these people we understand that they are not going to be genuine and are, in fact, fake.
That said not all cheap men’s watches are bad ones and many of these fake brands do last for a few years before they give up the ghost. However, they don’t look like the real thing and anybody with any sense can tell that they are cheap imitations. Then a few years back a new trick came on to the horizon.
You would visit a motorway service station for a quick bite to eat or a rest from driving only to be approached by a well dressed person in the car park who wanted to know if you had a couple of minutes. They would then tell you a long drawn out story about how they had been at a trade fair all day and were on their way home. Only some of the products that they were selling didn’t sell out and a few were left over. The manufacturers didn’t want them back so they could let you have them at a ridiculously low price. Then they would produce a handful of badly made fake Rolex and ask what you would pay for one.
Now these cheap men’s watches (in Danish billige herreure) were usually terribly made and nothing like the real thing and, again, any halfwit could tell that something wasn’t right. Still many people fell for these fraudsters and bought a worthless piece of junk.
Now times have changed and the internet has made it a lot easier for shady types to punt out their cheap men’s watches by promising us they are genuine. Auction sites are incredibly popular and almost all sorts of replica watches can be found without much effort. The pictures that the sellers offer might not be of the product that they are selling and you know nothing of the scam until you open your post.
So when you are looking online for cheap men’s watches make sure you arm yourself against fraud by doing a couple of very easy things.
The photos of all genuine branded watches (the term in Danish is mærke ure), such as Omega and Rolex, will show the time as 10:10, anything else is a picture of a fake. If the picture looks correct then send an email to the retailer and ask if it is the same as the actual product you are buying. Inform them that, if the product arrives and it isn’t exactly the same as the photo you will contact your credit card for a refund and report them.
Always look for retailers that offer a money back guarantee and only ever use a credit card that has 100% fraud protection. All in all it boils down to the age old saying; “if it looks too good to be true, it probably is”. Remember this and you can’t go wrong and if you want a well made quality named wrist watch then visit a website that sells them at the right price.