I hope you will find this guide useful. representations made here are my opinion, but are based on the last three years of research and observation. I cannot publicly list the "brands" that are sold as scams, nor can I point out where they are sold, but I can describe the strategies that scammers use to advertise them.
If anyone would like further advice about an item they suspect is a scam brand, please feel free to contact me.
If you've been scammed and want to share your story, drop me an email!
"This watch has an RRP of USD$2500 (NZD$4800)!"
(And you're selling NEW it for just $200 fixed price???) YEAH RIGHT.
Scam brands often have "manufacturer's websites" to back up this information, but this does not make it true. The best test is to have the watch valued by a watch-maker or registered valuer experienced with watches.
What's wrong with quoting an "RRP" that's given on a manufacturer's website? Well, in NZ it's fraudulent to quote an NZ RRP when they do not retail here. In fact, watches designed for scam selling don't retail ANYWHERE! They generally only sell on auction sites. So did someone mention "Recommended Retail"?
I recently bought one of the scammers watches as a check (to reassure myself that I was right). Guess what? Advertised RRP of $2500, valuation is about $250 at full price, based on the quality of build, materials, functions and design.
Don't confuse this selling strategy with genuine sellers who run $1 reserve auctions (like me). "Hypocrite" I hear you say, but $1 reserve auctions are run for marketing reasons. They are called "loss leaders". A seller does this to bring attention to their other stock. But a scammer might do this even if they have only one item for sale, which makes no sense at all if it's a loss leader.
"This is a unique opportunity to own one of the world's leading brands"
Brand names of scam watches are often especially designed so that you are tricked into associating it with some other well known and top quality products.
Either the name sounds similar or even the same, or it sounds foreign and exotic enough to make you think it must truly be very exclusive.
Recently a new brand appearing on the NZ market uses a very elegant set of initial letters as their logo, designed to look just like the Jacob & Co label which is a genuine label for VERY expensive watches. If you weren't careful, you'd be tricked into thinking it was the same label! Gotcha!
Please note that most scam brands are in fact genuine brands in their own right, but simply NOT the kind of brand that the scammer wants you to think it is.
"Swiss movement" "18ct" "Surgical steel"
The scammer uses associative text to fool you into thinking it is something that it isn't.
"Swiss movement", means that the working of the watch was made in Switzerland, but NOT the watch. You might be tricked into thinking this means "Swiss made", when in fact in may very well be Chinese made, Korean made, Indonesian made etc. Swiss movements can range in quality from low-end (production line type) to very high end. Low-end ones can be bought as spare parts for as little as US$25 Check out the prices of some low-end genuine "Swiss parts" movements here!
"18ct" what? Solid?, Plated? This implication is that this is solid gold. But gold ion plating can be done quite cheaply and is available on watches that retail for as little as $100. Solid 18ct gold in a watch could make the watch's value around $10,000-$20,000. 18ct gold plate of just 0.5~1.0 micron thick is cheap!
"Surgical steel". So what. Just how valuable do you think stainless steel really is? ________________________________________________________________
CHECK MY TRADEME FEEDBACK RATING! (Click on "Kevin the Kiwi") ________________________________________________________________
Does the watch have a warranty?
The Consumer Guarantees Act requires that an importer of an item provide local warranty support for the item for a "reasonable" duration - a time that most consumers would think was OK for the product. Often this is 1 year for watches. Some manufacturers offer longer periods but build in the cost of the longer warranty into the retail price of course!
Scammers seldom offer a warranty, even when the law requires it.
Scammers often cannot tell you where to send the watch for repair or service, and cannot tell you where to get parts later on.
Scammers may say that the watch has to return to the manufacturer for warranty service and that it's not their problem.
Any service centre for any product should be accessible. Meaning, they should provide an address, a phone number, and email address etc etc for making any warranty claims. Scammers often make it very difficult for a claim to be lodged and hope that you give up in frustration.
Credentials.
This is a serious problem with scam brands. Most of the time, scam brands come with all sorts of things: A warranty card. A "certificate of authenticity" A box. A valuation written by some foreign company. A diamond certificate.
The only credential worth anything here is the assessment of a local (New Zealand) registered valuer or watchmaker under the umbrella of any one of the national horological societies, or registered jewellers etc.
Certificates of authenticity are seldom issued on items with value less than $2000. The scammer uses this fact to convince you that the item must indeed be worth $2000 or more. But let's be real. A certificate can be made for about 5 cents. A foil sticker for 10 cents, a fancy box for about $5-15 (in China) and a valuation from another country can be by any bogus company.
Ok. You bought a watch from a scammer thinking it's the real thing of course. Have you ever had a $3000 watch in your hands? If not, would you know what to look for? What features make it worth the $3000?
Possibly not.
People don't want to feel foolish. Plain and simple. So even if they suspect they have been scammed, they will often NOT admit it and still say "thanks" to the scammer. Scammers rely on this so that the word does not spread. Most people don't want their embarrassment exposed to the world.
It is a total fallacy to say that "Chinese made" = "fake". This is simply WRONG! Many western manufacturers now have assembly and manufacturing in China, using cheaper man-power to make top quality items.
Why are they manufacturing there and not on their "home turf"? It's because consumers everywhere are demanding that the prices come down. Competition forces manufacturers to seek lower cost of labour. They find it in China.
China is now becoming a seriously massive industrial superpower, consuming an ever growing percentage of the world's fuel resources. This is a direct result of the consumer wanting more and more for less and less cost.
I mention this because I will NOT trash scam brand watches because they may be made in China. They can in fact be quite good watches (ok, bad in some cases). They are simply misrepresented by the seller in order to get more money off you as the buyer.
Even some famous and well trusted New Zealand brands are now manufactured in China.
Why are Chinese made products so much cheaper? It's not because they are necessarily lower quality. It's more likely because very many highly skilled Chinese watchmakers will work hard long hours for perhaps only 1/10th of a Swiss watchmaker's salary! It's as simple as that.
