Having bought and sold over a dozen watches over the internet over the last 5 years, I consider myself lucky that- to date- I have not had a single bad experience. More or less I’ve got what I paid for, it seems as though people buying my watches are happy and I haven’t opened a Fedex box to see a note attached to a housebrick.  For the vast majority of these transactions I’ve purchased insurance…but always with a fear that when I really need it, the cover won’t be worth the paper its written on.

The issue of being happy with what you’ve bought will always be subjective- but what happens to a watch that never arrives? Whose responsibility is it to chase around and pick up the pieces?

Whose responsibility?

Assuming that the buyer has not specifically asked for the watch to be shipped without insurance (e.g. to lower any import taxes), I think that the onus on ensuring the watch gets to its buyer in one piece rests with the seller. If I buy a book from Amazon, its their job to get to me what I have paid for. Can you imagine Amazon telling the customer that there will no refund, but that you are welcome to chase up an insurance claim with DHL?

I accept that these are private transactions- that there is no multinational standing behind the purchase and that two people are free to come up with whatever arrangements they want. But why should the seller walk away with the cash while  the buyer has to chase around to try and find what they’ve paid for? Its hardly going to make a jilted buyer feel good about the process.

I should also note here that sometimes when I’ve sold watches I’ve stated that I will only ship at the buyers risk, but have always done so thinking that it was a somewhat unreasonable ask.

Insurance: The solution

It would be nice to think that the easy answer is just to insure a watch and that the courier company will just write a cheque to pay out the buyer and life moves on. The reality I hear is very different. You often hear tales of insurance companies not paying out, capping payouts and then taking up to a year to settle- by which time both the buyer and seller in the original transaction will be at each others throats. Most couriers shipping from Hong Kong will only insure a watch up to USD500…but they don’t tell you that up front!

Fraud

One of the reasons that sellers will use to refuse to ship at their risk is the issue of fraud. How do I know that when you opened the box that there was no watch? How do I know that the package really didn’t arrive? Its hard to come up with an easy solution to this, other than to “buy the seller/ buyer, not the watch”- a phrase you’ll often read. If you as a seller decide that you will take the offer to sell your Autavia Siffert to Nigeria for $10,000, then in my mind you’ve decided that the fraud risk is acceptable and so I still believe that you have a responsibility.

Code of conduct?

I’ve often wondered why on-line forums don’t come up with a proposed “code of conduct”- which in the absence of an explicit agreement to vary from the terms, could act as a guideline as to how lost and misplaced items would be handled. Who should pay any excess to the insurance company? Who should spend frustrating hours on hold to a call centre to trace the watch and file a claim? Who should chase police reports? I understand it can sometimes take many months for a claim to be paid out- so what happens in the meantime? A code would at least set out some principles that both parties can rely upon.

Too onerous?

Maybe a code is too restrictive and formalised- after all, these are private transactions. You want my watch? Fine, but buy on my terms. That’s fine, but I’d like to think that there is some sense of community and trying to do the right thing by counter parties. At a minimum any buyer and seller should try and have an understanding ahead of time on how any issues will be dealt with should the worst happen. I’ve been guilty of not doing this in the past, but one day my luck will run out and I’ll be the guy with an empty box.

What do people think? Whose responsibility is it? Any horror stories out there? How do you protect yourself as a buyer or seller?