I was made aware of this post recently but unfortunately, I've only just read it, and I'm shocked. Why? Because I met this little p***k and he tried to scam me once!
This happened when I was first getting into watches and I spotted a PO on eBay. So probably the same or similar to that of Jon's experience here.
I didn't want to buy the watch without seeing it, so I arranged to meet the seller in Derby. I took my mate and around 20 mins before the arranged meeting time, I get a call from a softly spoken child basically. Words to the effect of... "Hi, you're supposed to be meeting my dad with a watch but he can't make it, so I'm meeting you instead". He called himself Aaron by the way. It seemed odd and made me very wary.
We arrived and a 15 year old at the most met us. Very odd with such an expensive watch but what the hey, let's have a look. It looked REAL. It was boxed, stamped from Ernest Jones in Derby, unworn, stickered, AR coating as with the genuine one etc. I called Omega at Trafford and asked them what to spot for a fake but every tip she gave me matched to this, so I was happy to hand over £1250.
The next morning, the watch was 20 seconds slow as I always used to time my watches. I don't so much these days but I wasn't happy. Needless today, I created a thread regarding the watch on TZ and within hours, Eddie got in touch with me to ask if it was genuine as some members had contacted him saying they didn't think it was real. I was horrified at the thought and totally shrugged off Eddie saying he must be wrong. Hoping, praying he was wrong!
So I decided to try and remove the case-back. Without much effort, it unscrewed and I showed some pics of the movement, which were confirmed to be incorrect. Then, the bracelet broke in half! One of the links came apart. With all this, plus the timekeeping, I knew I'd bought a bad egg. I then called the Ernest Jones on the stamped warranty card, and they'd stopped selling Omega a year or so before this watch was dated.
I was now totally gutted and my heart sank. So I contacted the muppet in discussion here via text, as he wasn't answering the phone. Nothing.
Luckily, several other members at the time had come across him and I managed to get his address and all sorts of details. I hopefully still have these somewhere. My mate and I decided to go and find him and get my money back. Believe me, this is NOT a place you would expect BMW M4s, AP's, Pateks and the like.
Cut a long story short. We caught up with him and in no short terms, we came away with some money that day. Approximately 60% of the value owed. He maxed out the cash machine with several cards and told us he could not withdraw any more money. We asked him to sign a piece of paper to confirm he would send the rest via bank transfer before the watch was handed back to him. I certainly didn't want it.
The next day and then he tried to put us off saying he won't be able to get the money. Well, we had several phone numbers and made use of those. I ended up speaking to a woman and in the end, a meet was arranged for us to hand the watch back over, and receive my money back. Obviously someone had sense in their household.
We all met at a McDonald's near Derby and "Aaron" was with his "cousin" (apparently... more likely the "dad" I'd been dealing with at the beginning). We had a discussion and in the end, he got his watch back, I got my money back, and I made him pay an extra £20 towards fuel.
The kid, Aaron as I knew him is the kid pictured in this thread. He hasn't changed a bit other than the moustache. Do not deal with him, do not believe his lies or stories, do not contemplate that he was innocent in any way with ANY of these deals. He knew from beginning to end, that the watch was a fake. A very good fake sure, but fake nonetheless. I do not believe it is JUST him involved. I think this is much larger and if anybody has evidence to prosecute, they should take it to the police.
He should also be banned from the forum.
I also remember at least one member in the USA losing a lot of money to this guy at the time. This is probably a worldwide scam, or at least that's the vibe I got at the time.
If this kid is soon to get an M4, which I highly doubt, we can all see how the money would have been attained. However, personally I would suggest he's more likely to be seen cycling
on the M4 wearing a fake Rolex.
EDIT: I can't find my thread where member's spotted it was fake, but here's a post I wrote about how I was scammed:
http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.ph...t=planet+ocean
I should have the pics somewhere so will try and find them.