Werner Mader is the owner. The store and it's location is: CLOCKWISE Uhrenhandel Judengasse 4 · 1010 Wien www.clockwise.at These guys are real scammers. Listing vintage watches for low prices. After you wire funds the lies start. Watch is broken; waiting for parts; refund has been wired back; mistake was made in wire instructions; no response for days, won't answer his phone, etc, etc. They are using customer’s money as short term, interest free loans. It took one month for me to get a refund and then I still lost fees and foreign transactions costs. A lesson well learned. Now, when Clockwise is searched, this caution flag will, hopefully, alert others. That being said, I have bought watches from other European Chrono24 dealers and this is the first time anything like this has happened.
This makes my Carribean adventure look like a stroll in the park. Sorry this happened and you are right to warn others. I hope the "logician" or metaphysician doesn't pop in and drop an insult as with me.
I'm not concerned. I have all the emails to backup my claims. It's all part of the hunt. The large majority of my transactions have been with responsible sellers.
Good question. The are an actual brick and mortar store so I don't think their main business is scamming customers. I also continually bestered them and threatened them with complaints to Chrono24, the Vienna/Austria consumer affairs offices and, of course, telling my story on social media. In the end, and I asked them if this was true, they probably got some money from another Internet sucker so they had the funds to repay me.
My experiences with Chrono 24 run the gamut from great to awful. I recently purchased a fantastic IWC 666 Ingenieur from a great seller in Hobart, Tasmania. I've also had the misfortune to have purchased several counterfeit dials from a dealer in Germany, and Chrono 24 was useless in helping me get a refund. So be cautious when buying from Chrono 24, and realize you don't have the limited protection that ebay provides.
Hello, my name is Werner Mader from Clockwise. I did read in this forum a few weeks ago and did realise this thread about the store. I wasthinking long time if I am writing a statement or not, but the I did decide to do so, because missunderstandings like this are killing our reputation. First I also would like to tell my point about the story. I don't want to use his real name thats why I will use "gemini4". He did purchase the watch on the 18/03/2014 and made a wire transfer to our account, the money did hit my account on the 24/03/2014, why it is taking so much time for this transaction I also didn't understand, but this time is something what I and gemini4 cannot change. When I did prepare the watch for shipping I did check everything again and I did realize that the chronograph was not resetting as it has to be. I did take the watch immediately to our watchmaker to fix this problem, because we are offering for our watches a 2-year-warranty starting from the date of purchase. Immediately after this I did write an email to gemini4 (picture1 in the attachment), where I did offer two possibilities.He did understand this and also told me by email that it is hard to find this parts for the 321 movement, nevertheless we did order it, because our watchmakter is certified by omega and gets the original parts. He did ask me on 26/03/2014 to wire back the money, but anyway he did decide, that he wants to keep the purchase and wanted that I ship the watch to him. We had a delay on the delivery of the expected parts and it also was another issue with the 321 calibre, thats why gemini4 did ask me to wire back his money on 06/04/2014, what we done immediately. Saturday 11/04/2014 he did write me, that he still din't receive the money, I did speak with my bank and got the information that the money is already in the pipeline of his bank, but they didn't accept the transaction yet. Because of this issue I did ask him to send me again his bank details for checking. After this we did find out, that it was a mistake by the numbers and we got the amount transacted back to our account, after this I did write him immediately an email to inform and made a fast transaction the same day (14/04/2014) and did send him the transaction confirmation. On the 17/04/14 he did receive the full amount of the watch back. We are speaking here about an amount of € 2.990.- the only thing what gemini4 didn't understand is that I did wire him back exactly this amount and not the costs of the transfer, because it was differnece currency. For my defense I have to tell, that I had the same costs, when I did wire back the money. Normally thinks like this are not happening, because all our watches get a service, before they are sold, but in this special case witht this vintage model and the problem that the delivery of omega took so long time it happened. I am really sorry for this, but I did keep him informed all the time. BR Werner Mader
I say put on your big boy pants. First, as a consumer, I always resolve doubt in favor of a consumer. Second, you knew the commercial risk, and it appears you were either slow to act, or were somewhat indifferent. A commercial reputation is a precious thing....
For the record, I stand by my original thread from April. I have purchased many vintage watches and my experience with Clockwise was, hands down, my worst buying experience ever. After this disaster, I've never wired funds to a dealer.
Another, much more positive story about Clockwise, Mr. Werner Mader Some months ago, I bought a used PP Calatrava (ultra-tin, manual winding) at Clockwise, Vienna. The watch is in top- condition (time error not more than + 3 seconds/day), guarantee 2 years. (In Switzerland I get 6 or 12 months guartantee for used watches...). I got very competent information from Mr. Mader about this watch. The watch arrived in Wetzikon / Zurich 24 hours after Mr. Mader had my payment on his account. Quality, price, info and despatch were top, even compared with standards of the Bahnhofstrasse in Zürich! Chrono24 has rated Clockwise as "Trusted Seller", and I think they are right. I made some worse experiences than "Gemini4", several years ago, when I bought used wrist- and pocket watches in Bern or Zurich, although I'm convinced, that most of our watch-shops are very reliable. As you all know, a watch is a very small and complex high-tech-motor. But if something has to be repaired, I don't make a drama out of it. I had other, much more serious dramas in my life... Markus
Marvelous. Certainly changes my opinion when an OF member of such long standing and high regard has a nice Clockwise experience, 14 months later. Welcome to the forum, Markus.
Not marvelous, but rather arrogant. No idea, why you think that I want to change your mind. No way ! I live in an old democracy, where we accept different minds. My answer is ment for other forum readers, which are probably a bit more open-minded. You don’t seem to like reading my first forum article. It’s simple. You made a bad experience with Clockwise, and I made a very good one. For you it’s black or white, I see it a bit different. I don’t think Mr. Mader made everything wrong and you made everything right. It would be a good idea, if you would talk with experienced Swiss watchmakers and visit several „Manufactures horlogères“ (not easy to get in some of them). Then you would probably better understand, what huge efforts, know-how and patience it takes, to produce a good watch, and what can go wrong with it. With you comment „an OF member of such long standing and high regard“, you show some missing respect. If someone doesn’t write regularly for the OF, he has no competence regarding watches. It seems that this is your idea. Then I’m very sorry, that I didn’t ask your advice, before I started writing my experience with Clockwise….! In Switzer- land, like in most other places, everyone has the free decision what he wants to buy and when he wants to buy it. I guess that you are quite young, as you consider 14 months a long time. Then in German language, (I’m sure that as an Omega-expert, you certainly speak fluently German and French, the 2 main-languages they speak at Omega SA in Biel/ Bienne), another comment which can’t be well translated into English language: „Bevor du ein Geschäft oder eine Person in die Pfanne haust, wäre es wohl angebracht, dass du dich über dieses Geschäft oder Person besser informierst. Keine Fehler geschehen bekanntlich nur dort, wo man gar nichts tut, wobei das schlussendlich auch ein Fehler ist.“ My grandfather was a professor at the „watchmakers technicum“ in Biel/Bienne, and he had a fine watch-collection. The other side of my familly owned a business of technical textiles. These products were made for the steel, glas and also for the watch industry (small articles for manual polishing). This gave me the possibility, to visit in several „manufactures horlogères“ parts of their production, which are normally not shown to visitors. So if you believe it or not, I'm able to see the difference between an Omega Speedmaster Prof. X-33 and a Russian Sturmanskie.... My apology for the length of my forum article, and from my side everything is said. Keep on Omega-watching ! ___________________________________ N.B. Maybe this info is already somewhere in your forum: Omega turnover in 2015: 2060 millions CHF (nearly the same amount in US $), 512‘000 movements have been certified by Cosc (Contrôle officiel suisse des chronomètres). Rolex turnover in 2015: 4900 millions CHF, 796‘000 movements certified by Cosc. Cartier had a slightly lower turnover than Omega. Then follows Patek Philippe with 1320 millions CHF and all the other producers.