That seems well written and reasonable to me.
Good luck.
That seems well written and reasonable to me.
Good luck.
Loving this tread. I saw an old Western on telly the other day where John Wayne sold a load of rifles to a gang of baddies and when he asked for the money they shot him.
Except they didn't because he still had the firing pins.
"Half now, half when I come back with bit that will make them work."
Retaining cards, though. Have you BOUGHT the watch or not? Is it YOURS?
Ridiculous.
Last edited by prexelor; 16th November 2019 at 11:07.
If you like a dj41 then get a dj41?! Seems like a lot of folk buying watches purely in value rather that what they like
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Same as buyers going into AD and asking if they have any SS sports Rolex.
No, but the market is irrelevant to some people, I have a watch or 2 that I would never sell, so it makes no odds what it’s worth. I have it because I like it, not what someone else thinks it’s worth. The DJ might be a watch the op really wants. Correct me if I’m wrong ?
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This scenario was predicted when the warranty cards were first being retained a couple of years ago. The dealer has no option but to stump up and replace your card. The card you should have been issued at p.o.s. The card Rolex pressured dealers into keeping.
If the dealer is smart (and their loss of the card calls this into question anyway) they'll de-escalate this before it becomes a far bigger issue.
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Before I continue I would like to remind some here and introduce myself to the rest as to why this is of interest to me.
I am a Rolex & Tudor AD in Nantwich but don't let that annoy you!!!
I started my career, straight from school, at Pragnells, before probably many contributors were born, back in 1977. I was in Stratford when Pragnells' got the Rolex agency in 1980 which was when I sold my first Datejusts, Submariners and GMT's (you could get them in the good old pre-internet days!) My family were manufacturers of jewellery in Birmingham for 130 years so I grew up with the trade in my blood and in my heart. After 5 years I moved to Boodles and was AM in Manchester for 9 years before being dragged down to work with the family in Birmingham. During that time I was elected President of the Junior council of the British Jewellers Association for two of the four years I helped the family out before returning north back in to retail.
Enough about me.
The Jewellery trade is a wonderful industry and yet I am constantly reading so much vitriol aimed at Rolex and AD's in general that I have to respond now.
For it to be suggested that Pragnells' offer is based on making a profit of the situation is utterly ridiculous, as is the suggestion that they might not be around in 10 years to honour the suggested warranty. They are one of the richest and most successful Independent Jewellers in the country so they don't need to make a quick buck. Do a bit of research before kicking the cr*p out of them!
They have made a human error and lost or mislaid the Warranty card - that's all. It can be replaced by Rolex which is where Pragnells have got it wrong and that misinformation is careless on their part.
The situation can be easily resolved in my view - I'm sure that they will look at ways of easing the pain of this unfortunate situation that they and the watch owner find themselves in. They just need to talk to Rolex about it.
BTW, as a policy we do not retain the warranty here and I understand why people find it annoying, but as a retailer I don't find that as annoying as knowing that some around TZ and elsewhere buy purely to flip and profiteer at the expense of people who just want to buy their dream watch and enjoy many years hard wear out of one of the finest products on the planet.
But hey, maybe I think that way because I'm getting old and I dream of the days - not so long ago - when we had a full selection of Professional steel watches in the window for people to choose from before the internet messed it all up.
Thanks for the reply from the other side of the fence, it’s good to have your input 👍
Cheers..
Jase
I appreciate your response, but this is just your opinion on the profit angle, and your statement that Pragnell wind-up impossible in the next 10 years is also ridiculous.
I quite agree, folk should shut up and man up about the warranty card retention - if they don't like it, move on. Doesn't bother me in the slightest.
[QUOTE=jukeboxs;5249822]I appreciate your response, but this is just your opinion on the profit angle, and your statement that Pragnell wind-up impossible in the next 10 years is also ridiculous.
Thanks for your reply and I agree it is all about opinions. But my comment about their sustainability is based upon personal knowledge.
And if I'm wrong in 10 years time I might already have been buried with my Datejust in a very big Rolex box 6 feet under!!
Your experience is all well and good but clearly the salesperson/manager had time to formulate a plan to contact Rolex and solve this problem for the customer in the best way before offering the OP the options. At the very least it is very incompetent to tell the customer Rolex won’t replace a warranty card lost by the AD.
It doesn’t matter how rich and successful the AD is, any dealer will look to make money from this situation if there is a possibility the customer is unaware of the ‘true’ worth of their watch.
All manner of long established traders have disappeared from the high street and it’s not ridiculous to wonder if this one will still be around in ten years, which is why it’s a more than valid point to bring up in this ‘what should I do?’ thread
You might be the only AD on this thread, but you aren't the only one to have worked in retail. Taking out shrinkage on an honest customer is an appalling way to do business.
Quite true. Thanks for offering such a tempered response (not always normal in these parts).
I hope this isn't the case and that you're still enjoying life and watches along with the rest of us (as is so apparent from this forum including this thread).
Two minutes searching on the internet gives you all you need to know.
Figures to year end May 2019
£5.2m nett profit
Shareholder funds of £27m
Yup , seems like a good chance they’ll not honour the warranty for ten years.....
Ps. If you know them personally I’d tip them off about this apparently strange bit of customer service being mentioned on here.
Be honest, Oracle, how many pieces are you punting out the back door straight to the Grays....?
So, I've been waiting for a pepsi since they were launched, and have spent quite a lot of money at the AD. Was in there this week with the missus buying some jewellery and asked if the end was in sight, perhaps another 18 months I was told. So given I've never flipped any of the Rolex I've bought there so far and genuinely want a pepsi, not the built in earner, I'm beginning to think I'll never see one.
Perhaps that's one reason you see "so much vitriol aimed at Rolex and AD's in general", because genuine collectors/enthusiasts seem to stand little chance, while ADs punt them out to anyone who chucks enough money around as a nice little earner kind of bonus.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Not one and I’m p’d off that you dare ask me.
If you didn’t live abroad (judging from how you spell grey) you could come and see why not.
If it’s said tongue in cheek try the other cheek.
I’ve given my honest opinion and was leaving it at that but obviously some people are more ignorant and cynical than others.
Surprising to see the passive aggression against an AD offering a perspective.
I have to say, that was a very informative and interesting post, thank you. I would like to point out that I have never doubted that what happened to my warranty card was just careless rather than nefarious and all my dealings with the dealer and their staff have been nothing but extremely pleasant (they gave me mince pies and coffee when I went near Christmas, and they sent me an extra link for free when I realised it was slightly too small). However, after the year expired they did not contact me to tell me the card was lost, It was only after I contacted them (after about 13 months) that this issue came to light (and then, their first response was that I had already claimed the card), so their system appears flawed. I did not start this thread as a means of criticising the dealer, but as a means of finding the best way to move forward. Now that you have definitively stated that the card can be replaced the problem is solved, that was my first option as suggested by several posters and I am sure that is what will now happen. I received an email from them today acknowledging my response to their offers and saying they would be in touch soon. Hypothetically, if they do not choose the option of replacing the card, what would you then think of the situation?
in response to other posts, I did send another email to the dealer saying I didn't want a datejust in exchange anymore (I felt like a t*t). The thing is I do like them, but I only want one as valuable as mine, not the cheap stainless one without the fluted bezel, that I didn't know existed.(I am shallow it seems)
Thanks for your comments. It is brave of you. :-)
I am certainly willing to believe that their offer of a RRP refund was not predicated on intending to make a profit but the fact remains that they would end up making a profit, wouldn't they, in such a scenario. One can hardly ignore this fact.
Oh come on, be realistic, there is no way whatsoever to guarantee that any business that is here today will be around in 10 years. No matter how successful Pragnells is or has been, that guarantees nothing whatsoever about the future that far ahead. Even two years ahead would be hard to predict, especially for B&M businesses.
Indeed, they did make a human mistake in losing the card. But you must surely appreciate that it is notable that they then made yet another mistake by saying that Rolex could not or would not replace the warranty card. This is a doubly odd mistake, given that (a) plenty of people, including you, are aware that Rolex can and will replace warranty cards in this sort of scenario and (b) that, as you say, Pragnells have a great deal of collective experience that should have meant that they would know this too.
Also, human error, understandable though it is to an extent, still doesn't actually excuse errors.
I am genuinely impressed that you have chosen not to retain warranty cards. Good for you and I genuinely commend you for it.
If I may play market-capitalist's advocate, I cannot help but note that you resell watches with a view to making a profit, i.e. you are explicitly profiting "at the expense of people who just want to buy their dream watch and enjoy many years hard wear out of one of the finest products on the planet". You'll note that I chose to use the word "profiting" rather than the emotive term "profiteering". Indeed, your use of the word "profiteering" begs the question of why your profit should be seen to be any more (or less) magically acceptable than someone else's profit. There seems to me to be no objectively concrete reason to differentiate one person's profit from another -- there seems to be only pure subjectivity or a kind of magical belief in some profits being more 'holy' than other profits. Furthermore, it surely seems entirely right and proper that anyone, both you and those who buy from you, should be able to resell their own stock or property.
Last edited by markrlondon; 16th November 2019 at 23:46.
That deserves an apology.
This forum greatly benefits from the expertise of David (Oracle) and Haywood and they really don’t need the aggravation that sometimes comes as responses to their generosity.
Btw as has been said, the Rolex papers hold a lot of value, and I would never give that up
David
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[QUOTE=Oracle;5249815
For it to be suggested that Pragnells' offer is based on making a profit of the situation is utterly ridiculous, [/QUOTE]
Being a terribly paranoid,cautious,hard bitten individual, the above statement immediately suggests to me the possibility of a rogue individual.
This thread reminded me to collect the warranty card for my Pepsi yesterday.
I did mention to them they said they’d post it out when the anniversary was up.
They couldn’t send it out because they didn’t have my permission ,but saying that they’d never been in contact to gain the permission.
You couldn’t make it up.
Stick your ground, keep the watch and demand a replacement warranty card and something else for all the extra hassle and having to tell them that they can in fact order a replacement.
wow just had a read through that my head hurts
When Ernest Jones in the Birmingham Bullring sold me a Rolex before they lost the dealership, I had a replacement card as the assistant spelt my address wrongly then crossed it out. No problem getting that sorted out but that was some years ago.
If I buy another high end watch, I would go to Pragnells as my AD of choice. Never bought a watch there before but spent a decent amount on jewellery for my wife and the service has always been excellent.
Hi.
My personal method is to look at the region that we cover on behalf of rolex.
If you look at a map of where Nantwich is we cover Cheshire obviously as it's our home county and also we cover Staffordshire, Shropshire, North and Mid-Wales as we border all of those and there is very limited or no AD coverage.
The difficulty is determining who is enquiring from where online which we try to discover in replying as we don't want to tread on the toes of other AD's in other parts of the country.
We receive many more enquiries per week than we get watches per year and we receive a number of enquiries from abroad (particularly the States and also Scandinavia for some reason!!) which needless to say we rebuff.
My policy is to share the watches around those who have enquired, but nowadays we are having to turn away enquiries as there are so many names against the steel Professionals that we probably would never be in a position to supply within the next 10 years at the current rate of supply.
Without going into a breakdown of individual models but in the last 2 years we have sold 49 "Hot" steel Professionals (Sub Date, Non-Date, Hulk, Pepsi, Batman old and new, Black GMT and Daytona.)
Those 49 watches have been sold to 48 different customers I am pleased to say.
I spend 1-2 hours per day answering Rolex enquiries either online or over the phone but it doesn't give me any satisfaction to be unable to help people wanting a wonderful watch.
If there was an AD about which to make insinuations regarding the allocation of desirable models or the supply to "grey market" dealers, the business David works for was not it.
H
Hi Mark
Thanks for your comments both kind and painful!!
I agree that we do make a profit on Rolex, and should do to be in business, however please bear in mind the following excuses I'm about to make
Since 2012 the AD's profit margin has been cut 3 times in the UK by Rolex primarily to stop the discounting which actually has worked well in principle. Then there is the obligation to buy replacement stock out of that reduced profit, pay for high security to protect the staff and stock that is so often targeted with the consequential high cost of insuring them. Throw in the fact that I and the rest of my staff do need paying at the end of each month (no commission BTW).
Then factor in the cost to us of fitting or refitting dedicated Rolex sales rooms and windows together with an increase in core stock from around 65 watches in 2012 to 110 for our size business which altogether came to £300K and now needs updating in the New Year. Then there's the cost of organised Customer events to showcase the latest Basel collection and also the Rolex gifts that we buy from Rolex to give to our customers and suddenly that profit hasn't gone far....
Going back to the warranty card issue it is again my personal belief that the warranty goes with the watch and that ultimately what the customer does with the watch is up to them. Luckily because of where we are and the way we try to look after our customers the watches go out of the shop on the wrist, links out and happy days. If they then decide to flip the watch there's nothing I can "flipping" do about it but it can score against you as an AD if Rolex find one of your watches up for sale straight after the AD has sold it.
As I said it's up to the watch owner whether they flip or not but it doesn't mean I think it's fair and that to me is profiteering.