After wearing a newly purchased $46,873 Rolex watch for a short period of time, a Chinese woman noticed that the watch did not go properly. She was then told by several Chinese watch repair shops that the watch was made 11 years ago.
The 300, 000 yuan Rolex watch has an error of 15 to 20 seconds a day
Lin bought a rose-gold women’s watch with a diamond log for 299,700 yuan ($46,873) in June 2020 at a Rolex counter at Chow Tai Fu Watch Store in Nanjing Golden Eagle Shopping Center, China. After wearing it for a while, Ms. Lin noticed that it clearly didn’t work correctly.
“I found the clock was sometimes fast and sometimes slow, about 20 to 30 minutes a month, a minute a day.” When she bought the watch, Ms. Lin said, the salesperson said it was out of stock and was later sent from the Shenzhen Chow Tai Fook Watch Company.
One important reason for Ms. Lin’s choice of Rolex was its Superior Observatory Precision Chronograph certification, which is stricter than the official Swiss Observatory certification and ensures an average error of plus or minus two seconds per day. Since it is such a precise certification, why her watch has a clear time error?
So Ms. Lin found a number of maintenance centers for testing, and the result of the verification was that the speed error of the watch was 15 to 20 seconds per day when the watch was stationary.
Why is there such a big error in a newly bought watch? Ms. Lin was puzzled and went to several well-known second-hand watch recycling agencies in Nanjing. “It is basically confirmed that my watch was produced in 2009. That is to say, I bought an 11-year-old stock watch at the original price.” Ms. Lin said.
For this kind of question, Ms. Lin felt a little unacceptable, she found the media to go to the shop where the Rolex watch was bought, but did not expect that the shop staff was not willing to be interviewed, but also did not want to tell Ms. Lin the production date of the watch. Regarding Ms. Lin’s question, the sales staff were plausible. They said: There is no need to provide the customer with the production date when selling, and the customer has no right to know when this Rolex watch was produced.
An appraiser from a pawn shop in Nanjing, China said that Rolex watches produced before 2010 are easy to identify, and there are corresponding codes on the case and warranty card. The English letters at the beginning of the code are closely related to the year of manufacture of the watch. The warranty card of the watch purchased by Ms. Lin has a series of codes: V414646. The appraiser said: “The first is the V prefix, and the second is the LT on the buckle. Both of these are features of the 2009 watch. ”
Jiangsu Consumer Protection Committee: Rolex store bullies the customer
The Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Committee commented on this incident on June 9th, stating that the consumer rights protection incident has exposed the problems existing in the Chinese watch industry, and the brand’s claim that “consumers have no right to know the production date of the watch” is even more so. Operators have a long-term attitude of arrogance, only fearing the market, not fearing consumers, and the shop is bullying customers.
China hasn’t made mandatory regulations on “watches marking the production date”. According to Article 27 of China’s “Product Quality Law”, products used within a limited period of time shall be clearly marked with the production date and the safe use period or expiration date in a conspicuous position. Watches are not limited-time products, so they are not subject to the above regulations. This has led many watch brands, especially the so-called “prestigious watches”, to deliberately create a sense of mystery, etc., and do not mark the production date.
The Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Committee believes that although the date of production at the time of sale is not a mandatory disclosure of information for watches, according to Article 8 of China’s Consumer Rights Protection Law, consumers’ right to know should extend from the sale to the after-sales process. After completion, especially when disputes occur, if consumers need to further understand basic information such as product production date and place of origin, merchants are obliged to actively disclose it.
The Committee stated that, as a watch manufacturer, the Rolex brand should have actively communicated with consumers, provided corresponding procedures, and properly handled disputes. However, the brand refused to provide relevant materials as “trade secrets”, and did not directly handle the customer complaint process. It was only willing to provide them after the relevant administrative departments intervened, and the Rolex party did not make any direct communication during the whole process, and only the dealer did it on its behalf. This kind of passive response, knowing the law and breaking the law, is complete “shop bullying”, ignoring and disrespecting consumers.
The Committee suggested that companies should respond to consumers’ reasonable demands and mark the production date of watches before the sale for consumers’ full choice. At the same time, it requires that all watch brand manufacturers, including Rolex, should establish a sense of service for Chinese consumers, improve complaint channels and mechanisms, and establish an after-sales service system.
At present, the seller Golden Eagle Group has come up with a solution and expressed its willingness to give the consumer a full refund.
The vice president of Golden Eagle International Group said that this Rolex watch matter has attracted great attention from the group. While solving the problem for Ms. Lin, the group has also initiated an internal accountability procedure and will seriously deal with employees who are not doing enough in the process of handling customer complaints.
Source: China Fund News