Hey folks
I’m after a little bit of guidance from the forum regarding an issue I’m having with Bremont UK at the moment.
On New Year’s Day I was wearing my four month-old Bremont Boeing 247 Chronograph when the strap separated from the watch. For those who may not be familiar with this watch, the strap is not secured by springbars but by hex screws either side of the strap. One of these screws (bottom lower left lug side) seems to have worked loose resulting in the strap not being secured. Unfortunately the watch slipped off my wrist and hit a tiled surface. Besides concern for damage to the movement, the watch also sustained some damage to the outer ring - see pics below. Pleasingly, the hardened case seems to have held up well and the bezel and rest of the case look unscathed. Up until this point the watch was truly in immaculate condition being worn sparingly and thus virtually brand new.
I can only assume the hex screws worked loose over time or were not sufficiently tightened on leaving Henley as I haven’t touched them and the spare strap that accompanied the watch is still in the pouch unworn. I’ve also owned the watch since new. I seem to recall reading on here some time back that these hex screws can be problematic but haven’t been able to locate the thread.
Regardless, the watch was shipped to the Melbourne service centre (I’m in Australia) and sent off to the UK. After some chasing up to see what the outcome of their assessment was, Bremont UK have advised the movement needs some repair and they will do this under warranty. They WILL NOT replace the outer ring as they view this as a “cosmetic” repair and “optional” outside of the terms of warranty.
Instead they have quoted me £200 for a new outer case.
I’m at a loss as to why they will acknowledge the movement needs repair under warranty but not the external damage since both were caused by the strap failure.
I’ve explained to them that a less than satisfactory outcome to this issue is likely to affect any further support of the brand from my side.
I’ve been liaising with Melbourne to resolve the issue and have now asked to speak with someone at Bremont UK directly and am waiting for a point of contact but I’m not optimistic.
So two things...
Does anybody have a contact in Bremont UK that I can escalate this issue to directly?
And secondly, am I being unreasonable in my expectation that Bremont needs to attend to both the movement and the external damage?
I must admit that I’m very surprised at their position having only heard good things about how attentive their customer service is in the majority of instances.
UPDATE: Pleasingly, Bremont UK have come back to say that they will perform the external repairs as part of the warranty and are going ahead with the work. It seems like they would have been prepared to do this from the get go. They were led to believe that the strap failed due to the tongue on the tang buckle being upside down
They had not been informed that the strap had separated at the lug due to the hex screw coming loose. Possibly a miscommunication between the local SC and HQ, despite me providing pictures and an account of what happened.
Sent from my iPhone using TZ-UK mobile app