First of all, my apologies if this issue is already well-known to everybody, I didn’t find anything with a quick search through the forum, but admittedly, I didn’t look through every single thread that mentioned “Chrono24”.

I recently bought a watch from a private seller on Chrono, received it today and since it doesn’t match the description (condition described as “very good”, yet the watch barely runs), I contacted the seller. He was cool about it, offered me a full refund for returning the watch, so all good. I involved Chrono24 to make sure they are aware of the process, they initiated the appropriate procedure and both the seller and me agreed to a full refund for the return of the watch. So far, so good.

Thing is: I’ve just received confirmation by Chrono that the money has been wired back to my account - yet I’m still in possession of the watch, haven’t made it to the post office yet. So, while I’m not the kind of guy who’d do anything stupid here, it looks like it’d be possible to scam a seller this way, in a similar way you can use PayPal to do so.

I’m not sure if this is the standard procedure by Chrono as I’ve never had to return a watch, I think, and I wouldn’t know what to do against it. Maybe ask Chrono specifically to not release the funds until the watch is back with the seller. Anyway, just wanted to get this information out there.

 

I have used Chrono24 a few times and I have returned a watch with Chrono24. Unless they have changed something in the past year it is possible to do what you described.

However, that requires that the seller has inadvertently clicked/confirmed that he/she has received the watch back. I can't fathom how this came to be, but I suspect that as you contacted their support they might have flagged it shipped, which prompts a nagging/constant popup "Have you received this watch" on the seller side. Inadvertently clicking that and confirming receipt, triggers the money transfer.

It has been over a year since I returned a watch or had a watch returned to me with Chrono24 so this might have changed. So take this with a grain of salt.

It did strike me at the time as an accident prone system.

 

Ah, that might be it. I’ll point it out to the seller (and assure him I’ve indeed shipped the watch).