Swiss Watch Websites

Hi guys, 1st time post.

I am interested in Swiss Watches. I spend a bit of time on some Swiss Watch forums and quite often fake websites pop up offering expensive watches for unbelievable prices. Normally 1 or 2 brave souls get caught up in the enthusiasm and lose a lot of $$.

Often the 'give-away' is the price of the watch being so much cheaper, the website registration details and, obviously the use of Western Union as a payment mechanism. Often the same criminals either rip off an existing genuine website or they keep reusing the same scam website just changing the names etc. Often the give-away is that in their enthusiasm they often miss changing names and details in the FAQ or the 'About Us' section etc

I have come across a website offering very cheap watches that looks OK ish. There a few red flags and an uneasy feeling and I am torn whether I am clutching at straws and justifying them or being too suspicious. I checked their domain registration etc on whois and it said the site was registered in Feb this year, a bit of a worry for a company that is supposed to have been in business since 2003 from their contact info, but understandable if they have just set up a web prescence etc. I e-mailed them with a question about how their prices were so low and they responded with:

"Dear Costumer,

We are a company based in an offshore county with no taxes and this is the reason why we have so big discounts.
All are watches are Brand New, and comes it its original packaging, warranty card and papers. If you are not completely satisfied with a purchased item, you may return it within 30 days of shipment for a full refund.

Even more as you probably saw we are using Paypall as payment method as a guaranty for you as long as for you.

As an official dealer of Zenith watches we can deliver almost every model. We already up-dated on the web the model that you ask along with the gold plated version."

Aside from the fact that I rarely wear costumes, I am a little concerned about the broken english, particularly when the name on the sig block was particularly anglo saxon, but there's no accounting for schools these days I guess!

I went through their shopping cart to the point of entering payment info for paypal (without using my real details of course) and the site opened up Paypal for payment. Looked like if I put in my details it would pay them several thousand for my watch.

The website is http://www.discounted-watches.com are there any good tests or checks that I can follow up on to see if these guys are legit? I have asked on the watch forum but as yet nobody has gotten back to me. If I payed via Paypal to these guys would I be covered in any way if they are in fact thieves? If you pay via a credit card through Paypal and get scammed, can you claim back via Mastercard etc?

I have just checked and the email originated in the Seychelles.

Any advice appreciated.

[AlanJones]

One of the tests that I do when deciding whether a site is a fake or not is to do a search on key phrases on the website to see if they appear on other sites. In this case I did a search for "There are many online outlets selling fake/replica watches and or grey imported watches which are usually sourced from the Far East, this is often reflected in the 'To good to be true' pricing model they use;" and it turns up on the legitimate site watches2u.com.

The fact that they are copying content from other sites, together with the short time the site has been in existence would make me think twice about ordering from them. Add in the fact that there is no means of contact on the site with the exception of a form to email them, makes them look more shady.

Finally, there is the fact that the site is registered to an individual in the states and is therefore not offshore as they claim.