Be careful with Bob's Watches - My Recent Experience

[Watchfan8]

I apologize for the lengthy post, but it’s worth the read of you buy/sell watches from Bob’s. I recently agreed to sell my 126610ln Submariner to Bob’s watches for $12k and wanted to share my experience. I can’t believe the lack of professionalism and and sketchiness from one of the largest online dealers, so hopefully others can take caution with dealing with them in the future. I’ll detail a timeline below to try to keep things organized.

All times will be in PST (Bob’s local time)

3/8/23 - 12:48pm: Received an email from Rachel that my watch arrived at their office. Rachel stated that the watch would be opened under video and I would get a call by the end of the day.

3/8/23 - 4:21pm: I received a call from Rachel Hanna stating that my watch “failed service terribly”. I was surprised by this because my sub always kept time at -2 seconds per day. I thought something may have happened in shipping to damage the movement, but she said this was impossible. She then offered me $10,400 for my watch because it would need to be serviced (this is a 2020 126610ln still under warranty). I told her I would not be accepting the offer because this sounded strange and I could get the watch serviced for free.

3/8/23 - 4:30pm: I email Rachel asking for the video of the unboxing (to see if was damaged in shipping) and to reiterate I want my watch back the next day on 3/9.

3/8/23 - 4:51pm: I call Rachel because I haven’t received a response to my email - no answer.

3/8/23 - 4:55pm: I call Rachel again because she won’t respond and their store is about to close for the day - no response.

3/8/23 - 4:56pm: Rachel emails me that Fedex left for the day, and says there’s no way a watch can get messed up by being shipped in a box.

3/8/23 - 5:00pm: I email Rachel to ask again for the video of the unboxing, and to ask if they opened up the case to inspect the watch.

3/8/23 - 5:01pm: Rachel replies by email to say she’s unsure how to send the video of the unboxing and that they did not open the watch.

3/8/23 - 5:02pm: I email Rachel to ask if she can call me to discuss - no response.

3/9/23 - 10:21am: I email Rachel to ask for the tracking info for the watch and to let me know what they found to be wrong so I could take it to my AD.

3/9/23 - 10:25am: Rachel calls me - she said she “spoke with their CEO” who is “out of the country” and could now offer me $11,400 for the watch. I declined the offer and asked to speak with the watchmaker to find out what was wrong with the watch. She puts me on hold and eventually Rachel picks up and says it failed their timegrapher twice. She agrees to send the tracking info in 5 minutes. STILL, nobody has clarified what is “wrong” with the watch even though I have repeatedly asked.

3/9/23 - 2:25pm: I never received the tracking info, so I emailed Rachel again - no response.

3/9/23 - 2:56pm: I call Rachel at this point to make sure they are actually shipping the watch this day. Rachel picks up and says they can now offer me $11,900 for the watch. At this point I’m so frustrated I decline the offer and tell her to just ship the watch back. She also says she had sent the tracking earlier, and “checks” to see if the email sent (it’s 2023, emails don’t fail to send and we have been emailing each other for days now).

3/9/23 - 3:06pm: Rachel provides the tracking info.

3/10/23 - 9:28am: The watch is delivered to me and I notice there are noticeable scratches on the lugs that weren’t there before I sent it to them. I believe these were caused by putting the watch on their timegrapher. I emailed Rachel the before and after photos.

3/10/23 - 10:01am: Rachel responds that they video everything that comes in/out and they will review.

3/10/23 - 10:24am: Lauren (Rachel’s boss?) calls me and offers to have me send in the watch and they’ll polish it. I walk through this whole story with her and she finally comments that the amplitude of my Watch measured 170. I told her that I have no interest in sending a watch to them again, and a polish isn’t acceptable to me. I keep all my watches in unpolished condition so that’s the last thing I’d want. I told her to talk to her boss to come up with an actual resolution.

3/10/23 - 10:39am: Sharon, the director of operations at Bob’s watches calls me to get the story and I supply her the same photos as I did earlier. She said she would review all the videos/images and call me back.

3/10/23 - Afternoon - I spoke with Sharon multiple times and she admits they scratched the watch and can offer three solutions 1. Send the watch to them for a polish 2. They will buy the watch for $12k 3. They will give me $150 to get the watch polished at an AD. I ended up taking the $150 because I don’t want the watch polished.


I would strongly suggest NOT doing business with Bob’s in the future. This has been an extremely frustrating process and would hate to see anyone else go through something like this with such an expensive watch. I’m not sure if they play games to try and lower their offer (like they did in my case), but every time I asked for my watch back, they would increase their offer until we almost reached the original amount of $12k. As far as performance of the watch goes, I don’t own a timegrapher, but it hasn’t lost more than 2 seconds a day since I received it back. Below are the before and after pictures of it being at Bob’s watches. I would normally never bash a company online like this, but I feel like this needed to be shared as the lack of professionalism while dealing with collectable items is absolutely ridiculous.

Before 1:


Before 2:


After 1:


After 2:


After 3:


After 4: