I had an incoming package from overseas - a lot of 4 watches, the most valuable of which was the Rolex 1803 in WG that I was eagerly awaiting. Package came - box intact with no likely signs of tampering, but missing the Rolex!

I called the seller, and he said that he was certain he shipped everything (this is a seller that is trusted by me, so no reason to believe he is not telling the truth)

I am certain insurance will cover the damage, but man! This is the first time I was on the receiving end of a loss (the last one was a Railmaster I shipped that was lost in transit - insurance paid for that)

Sneaking suspicion that it happened as the watch went through customs. Avoid long transit times when possible people!

 

Looks like the only party who lost here is the insurance company. What city did this pass through in customs?

 

Customs workers keep track of what we bring in and out of the countries but who keeps track of what the customs workers do

Sorry for you lost watch(again) hopefully it all works itself out in the end.

 

That's awful!
Love the WG 1803 also. It's on my list.
Where was the shipment coming from?

 

Los Angeles. When I lived in NYC, I never had to pay customs duty, these guys were more worried about letting nukes pass through uninspected than watches. When I moved to San Diego, the LA guys are quite aggressive in collecting customs revenue. And when that happens, I need to pay the customs broker as well to handle it!

This one was coming from Italy

It doesn't happen a lot, maybe 1 in every 500 packages disappear. But when it does it stings!

 

Don't they watch everyone with cameras these days? Maybe the ones watching the cameras are in on it too...hopefully Karma will take care of the scumbag(s) looking to make a easy quick buck.

 

What is accurately insured/described on the insurance/customs form?

 

Heaps of camera,s. Innocent until proven guilty.

Italy.

 

Bit quick to judge. Do a bit of research on Italian post before you judge.

 

Well, WatchVaultNYC lost if he'd rather have the watch than a check...

Sympathies! Post about how the insurance investigation and reimbursement goes?

 

Yes of course, you can't insure properly if the customs declarations are wrong. You don't nickel-and-dime on insurance and customs. The potential losses are much greater than parcel insurance and customs duty. The missing watch was declared, but was not in the box when I got it.

Also, this seller customarily wraps the watches individually using a specific kind of box, before putting it in the shipping box. These inner boxes were not present - the watches were floating around the shipping box in bubble wrap, which leads me to suspect that the contents were ruffled through - even though the outer box looked intact. I'm sure there are techniques (such as using steam) that allows one to lift off packing tape without damaging the shipping box or otherwise leaving traces that can make someone suspicious.

Yeah, that 1803 was a beaut.. and a deal too. I'll make sure to update with the latest. At this point I'm pretty sure something nefarious happened during transit vs the seller forgetting to place the watch in the shipping box.

 

This, I always try to avoid shipping on Thursdays or Fridays. Really awful mate, hope you'll get compensated properly on it!

 

Bad luck bro, i lost an Omega that went through a forwarder in Portland Oregon. Everything else was in the package, they signed for it, just never forwarded it. When contacted, they just brushed it off & said it was sent.

 

Very smart modus operandi and I'm glad it'll pay off covering the theft/loss. Still, it has to be quite the kick in the pants to have it happen and then need to go through the process of recouping the loss. Sorry to hear it happened.

 

That's a scary low average...

 

Having used standard Italian Express Post, to import many watches from Italy, ( Many Omegas, inc Speedmasters 145.012, & UG ) I have never experienced a poblem - They all arrive swiftly & unmolested - Maybe, I am just lucky

As soon as a well known courier, ( Fedex, UPS, DHL ) become involved - Issues seem to occur, in my experience

I did a 'shoot' 20 years ago for Harrods, for their Jewellery & Watch Christmas catalogue, involving over £ 1/2 Million of watches, ( Platinum V.C. & Royal Oak etc ) - Their advice about transporting the products to Manchester, was to stay as low profile as possible, & simply collect the watches from Theo Fennell, using a cheap plastic flight bag, and return on the train to the Studios, in open sight. - Which is exactly what I did ( both ways )

Sometimes the simplest methods are the most effective.....Just my experience

 

Only issue I ever had with a disappearing watch (an SM300 morphed into 3 AAA batteries) was from Italy. PayPal covered it but it sucked.

 

Is that an accurate figure? I pay additional insurance at 1% of the value for anything that I'm concerned about. If the actual loss rate is 0.2% I'd be surprised and a lot more worried about using international post. From experience of shipping at work (thousands of items a year) using FedEx, DHL and Schenker, our loss rate is well below the second decimal place and that is for bespoke electronics which do have high resale values.

 

That's a great question:

If I break it down, international watch packages are 3-4x more likely to get lost or stolen than domestic. This sort of makes sense since there are at least 2 points where your international parcel is scrutinized for contents (1st when its accepted by the courier, 2nd when it goes through customs). So possible theft opportunities there.

Watches:
Losses from international packages: 0.5% (1 in 200)
Losses from domestic packages: 0.14% (1 in 700)
(sample set: thousands, insured express signature shipping)

For my non watch business, the combined loss rate is 0.08%. This is your standard non-signature UPS and USPS packages.

Non watches:
Combined losses 0.08% (1 in 1200)
(sample set: tens of thousands, uninsured normal ground parcels)

As for why your own loss rate is lower, it lines up better with my non-watch shipments. I would presume that bespoke electronics and custom roadster luggage are less prone to theft than Rolex and Omega?

Final caveat: I am not sure if thousands of watches and tens of thousands of widgets are a significant sample set to draw definitive conclusions

Update: when the post office opens, the seller has requested me to file a "damage report" with USPS. Lets see how that goes.