I might have fallen for the most pathetic eBay scam

Hey folks,

this is a weird one, so I felt like sharing it. Quick backstory: I was looking for a cheap, vintage Omega. A friend of mine wanted to gift one to her boyfriend, so she approached me. Relatively small budget, but at least the dial didn’t matter much as it was supposed to be redialed in green (let’s not discuss this).

Anyway, there wasn’t much time, I found this one and won the auction. Classic Genéve, solid cal 601, and since the dial didn’t matter, I figured this might be a valid option for 300€. Case looked alright, movement ok. Here are the pictures from the auction:



That’s all there was on pictures.

In the description with the usual praise the watch only partly deserved, the seller stated that he’d only accept money transfer. Apparently, he forgot to delete PayPal as a payment option, though, so I simply used that. Why not, I figured, no reason to skip on the extra layer of security. Today, I received the watch, which was posted from a PO box. Here are my pictures. Notice any differences?



I went from initial disappointment to scepticism to giving the seller the benefit of a doubt - until I opened it, saw it has the same movement / serial, and then I just had to laugh.

For those of you who want the challenge of the quiz, don’t scroll down further yet.

.
.
.
.
.
.

Here’s what I mean:

It’s (mostly) a different watch.

1. The Genève I received isn’t waterproof. It’s only waterproo. 🙁 Which is also written in a different font/spacing.


2. I paid for “T - SWISS MADE - T”. All I received was “T SWISS MADE T” - no “-“. In exchange, I’m getting minute ticks that have an even length!


3. Despite the horrible eBay picture with nothing but reflections - it’s very apparent the one pictured doesn’t look like it was stored in a box with metal scrap and shaken regularly. Oh, and the crown is different.


4. Left picture is from eBay, right one is mine. Between me buying and me receiving it, it must’ve gotten serviced multiple times.


5. While the movement is the same, the underside of the lugs somehow got scratched / beaten up significantly.


So, yeah. I’m not sure what to make of this. When I wrote “benefit of a doubt” I meant that for a minute there, I was assuming the seller must’ve mixed up two similar watches and just have sent me the wrong example. That was until I opened it and saw it had the same movement / serial.

This means that he took the pictures of the nice case and the cal 601 in it, then transplanted the movement to a beaten up case and sold it with pictures from the former example. Or am I missing something? Is there any way this wasn’t intentional? And if it was, for what? To get 300€ instead of, I don’t know, 200-250€ he would’ve gotten for the actual one? This is pretty much bottom end of men’s vintage Omegas anyway, so what’s there to gain? I really don’t get it.

I sent the seller a message with a few pictures, asking if he sent me the wrong one by any chance. Let’s see what the response is. If there isn’t any by tomorrow I’ll just contact eBay and get my money back.

Right now, this feels like the most pathetic eBay scam I’ve ever come across.

Wow, what a curious situation! For sure the movement is in a different case than depicted in the auction photos. What's weird is the position of some of the screws: for a transplant, I'd expect the screw slots to be oriented differently for those that hold the movement to the case, and they are. But some of the screw slots on the movement itself are also oriented differently, suggesting that the movement was disassembled and re-assembled and/or that different bits were replaced.

For what it's worth, I prefer the dial and case of the watch you received -- they look more "un-molested" than those shown in the auction photos. But there's plenty of weirdness here, for sure!

Yep. Sorry, didn’t mention explicitly that the first one is a redial. That’s what I was referring to when I wrote “and since the dial didn’t matter anyway”. Thanks for pointing that out.

Fully agree though, it’s completely absurd. But as @perks713 said, the case of the eBay one looked nice to the eye of the friend of mine, originality wasn’t relevant anymore anyway. The beaten up case I ended up receiving might be more honest but won’t please her. And I’m gonna return this no matter what, simply because that’s fraud. Not worried about getting the money back though, this is way too obvious. I simply felt like it was a curious story to share. 😀

Sorry you have to deal with this, but what goes around comes around. He’ll get his eventually as did “Terry the Scammer” - probably my all time favorite OF thread:

https://omegaforums.net/threads/must-read-scammer-got-played.109568/

I hope you can resolve this through eBay, but I fear that if you went outside of their payment system, you may be screwed.

I had onc seller pull the bank transfer- forgot to pull PayPal off my options, and I reported them and cancelled the sale.

A cautionary tale for sure, if the seller tries to change the terms of an eBay sale- walk away.

Bummer. Best of luck

I'll keep you posted and great eye, thanks for the reply. That makes it even more absurd really. I might be a bit naive here but especially at this price point I somehow want to believe in the good in people, e.g. that it was some kind of honest mistake. It's just that I really, really struggle to see how this is anything but intentional fraud at this point.


No worries - I didnt comply to the seller's request and used PayPal, as it was shown to me as a payment option. He didnt complain about it by the way, there was no communication at all, until I asked for a tracking number 2 days after the auction, which he provided without any friendly fluff.