I've had two extremely problematic purchases from @Dre last year, spent a really long time trying to work something out, but he's not responding to me anymore, so here we are.........

The first watch project I bought as a favor to help him cashflow a vintage Rolex GMT purchase, I was supposed to get my money back out or even a little profit, but he left me high and dry and out a ton of $$ due to (I later discovered) unrealistic pricing.

The second watch (purchased before the above deal went sideways) had undisclosed condition issues and (I later discovered) even more absurd pricing.

I'm out close to $20K in losses on these two watches, I feel like I've bent over backwards to try and work something out, including putting the balance on a 1 year zero interest CC to give us some breathing room to work something out, without any success.

This is partially my fault for trusting someone I thought was a friend, and that I had bought a ton of watches from before, so I did not fully research these two particular deals as I would normally otherwise.

I will own my part in this debacle, but I think it's only right there is accountability all the way around. Don't repeat my mistakes, do your research, and keep in mind, as much camaraderie as there is in this community, not everyone is your friend......

 

Hi Ben,

Apologies for the late reply, I was going to send you another DM, but thought I’d reply here since I was unaware of this thread when I sent you my last DM today.

If I may, as I’ve explained to you before going away, which was our last correspondence a few of weeks ago, I went to Japan for a bit more than a couple of weeks ago. I was mainly there for a summit in Fukushima, and had digital detox for the most of the summit. I obviously spent some time for myself too, but continued the digital detox most of the time, or at least very limiting myself to mobile phones used.

I unfortunately fell sick and got into the hospital towards the end of my trip in Tokyo. There was an important watch GTG that I actually missed out as well, one that I had been waiting for the whole trip for that GTG. Thanks for some of my watch buddies who sent me a DM to wish me well, I know that I still haven’t replied to some of you. There are only a handful of people that knows I’m sick, not even my family actually know this, as I don’t want them to worry (a lot of people were already worried for the fact that the summit location was in Fukushima, nuclear radiation and all that). I still posted a few stuff in social media just to let people know I’m okay though.

Long story short, I’m back in Sydney, and now still recovering. Went online for a bit to send you that DM. Thank you to those who alerted me of this thread, and my apologies again that I haven’t been able to reply to most of my DM’s, I still have more than a hundred unread emails and it’s killing me to see those notifications!

And Ben, I’m sorry that apart from all those watches that I have sold you, which then you managed to traded and sold all those watches again easily, there are a couple of watches that you are having trouble to pass on again. Hopefully there is something that we can work out.


Best

Andre

 

I'm all ears. I've been trying to work something out with you for over a year. The ball is in your court, and has been for some time.......

 

I've had several people write me recently asking if this matter was resolved. Unfortunately it has never been resolved, and actually has gotten worse.

Although publicly Dre wrote the above post stating he wanted to work something out, in his private messages to me he did not offer any solutions, other than to try and help broker a sale. No returns, credit, exchange, refund, etc. He said that he stood by the pricing that he charged on both watches.

Lacking any options, I asked Dre to broker a sale on either or both watches. He set up a sale for one of the watches at $8K USD, which is half what I paid him for this watch, so I took an $8K loss. After the sale, I found out that the sale price was actually $9K USD, so Dre had skimmed $1K USD off the deal without disclosing to me. Although it was yet another kick in the nuts to hear, I can't say I was surprised. (So in total, on that watch, Dre made $17K and I lost $8K).

Additionally, some time back I sold Dre a watch at very reasonable pricing, as incentive to help me sell these two watches in question, or resolve this whole situation somehow. I asked for first buy back option if he did not keep the watch. Not too long ago that watch turns up with someone else, and was also flipped at a profit. So he didn't help me resolve the situation, skimmed money on the brokered sale in which I lost 8K, and then flipped the watch I sold him at discounted pricing, which I did to try and foster a resolution.

I think these actions speak for themselves, without adding my editorial opinion. Needless to say I'm not talking to Dre anymore. I understand that others here may have had good transactions with Dre, I did too for a long time, until I didn't. I have no idea what caused things to go so spectacularly off the rails. Before this I have had many smooth transactions with Dre and considered him a friend, so this whole episode has been a confusing, painful, and extremely expensive lesson. On the bright side, hopefully it has saved me from making even bigger and more expensive future mistakes

I've had people request that I move this up to the open discussion forum, instead of burying it down here, as they feel a dispute of this magnitude on OF should be common knowledge. Honestly I haven't wanted the drama, but I guess if people feels it's important enough, I will think about it.

 

Unfortunate indeed.

 

Hi,

I have been made aware of this thread again because someone is being very immature to have made a fake account in Instagram and start spamming my feed by saying that I have to pay my “debt”. First of all, there was a transaction occurred with me an OP, which an exchange took place with money and watches. At no point, the transaction was only one-sided.

Second of all, I helped OP to sell one of the watches that OP wasn’t able to sell due to whatever reason it is, without even trying, and not just for the price that he was asking, but I gave him MORE. Skim? Really? OP asked for less! Regardless the amount, I was still trying to make the most out of everything. This happened, even after the initial negative feedback thread that he posted on me.

And just to recap, I sold MORE than 2 watches to OP, ALL of the other watches were resold back at HIGHER price or at least breakeven, at NO LOSS. I always priced, and sells my watches at more or less around the market price. I did not force anyone to agree at my prices.

2 of the watches that OP was trying to sell (which I helped sold on one of them, technically I bought it back first), were advertised poorly. I have offered MULTIPLE times to send the watch back to me first to see if I might be able to do something with it, as I was not in a place where I can buy it back financially. These were rejected, and at one point, one of the watches was “exchanged” to another collector already in the other side of the world. This collector further advertised it for sale that might not have been in the best way, and makes everyone confused on who actually owns the watch ( I was still trying to help sell the watch at that time).

After all those poor advertising efforts, combined with the current market (Heuer collector would understand this), and how only stellar pieces with condition condition condition sells at higher price, and almost all regular condition pieces sells at much much lower price than say 2 years ago, suddenly all these still falls on me for the ONE watch that OP couldn’t sell out of I don’t know how many watches he bought off me.

At this point, OP bought a watch and he can't resell it, so are hundreds of other people including me with the current watch market that has peaked 2-3 years ago.

I won’t even bother to spend my time which I don’t already have much to spend on this, because OP has notified on this second thread before I can even reply because I didn’t reply to him soon enough, I think most people that knows me, knows how I haven’t been replying to everyone as quickly as I used to. Which now he has proceeded on the thread with no complaints from me.

I also have nothing to hide, hence my public account in Instagram and me still active in OF. It’s Instagram for a reason, ofcourse I would want to post quality or good stuff in my feed, why would I post something sad or something that I have problems with in it. Which one would you post in your social media, your beach vacation or your day work cubicle? I think we all know that social media doesn’t always show the truth at this point. Oh, and yes, the last post of my account which was a UG Compax which the fake account said I shouldn’t be posting in IG while I have “debt”, that’s not even my watch anymore and most people already knows it.


Andre

 

Not even counting the ones that weren't listed in OF,


https://omegaforums.net/search/6362157/?q=drechristian&o=date&c[title_only]=1
https://omegaforums.net/threads/dre-is-a-great-seller.50976/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/dre-is-a-great-seller.52185/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/third-watch-from-dre.52300/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/great-deal-from-dre.54070/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/dre-excellent-seller.54555/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/another-great-experience-buying-from-dre.54959/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/dre-great-seller.55504/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/dre-is-a-phenomenal-seller.55728/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/another-fine-watch-from-dre.55894/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/it-was-a-real-pleasure-with-dre.56387/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/dre-great-seller.56466/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/dre-is-a-fantastic-seller-would-highly-recommend.57047/#post-704564
https://omegaforums.net/threads/dre-is-a-great-seller.57512/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/smooth-transaction-with-dre.58516/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/dre-excellent-seller.60943/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/andre-aka-dre-is-an-excellent-seller-and-a-gentleman.70456/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/easy-deal-with-dre.73189/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/dre-is-top-class.73352/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/great-transaction-with-dre.80546/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/dre-is-a-great-seller.102898/
https://omegaforums.net/threads/a-for-dre-—-great-seller.102929/

I'm sure OP has definitely written me a positive one as well for the other purchase(s).

 

Look, it's really simple. You ripped me off on two watches with outrageous pricing. I was still learning the market, still a bit of a noob, and because of the other positive transactions we had up to that point, I just trusted your pricing and paid it. Part of that is my fault, I've acknowledged that from the beginning of this thread. No one twisted my arm to pay your outrageous rip off prices on these two watches.

All I'm saying is, you have a moral and ethical responsibility as a seller, and as far as I'm concerned, you abused and completely failed in that regard, and that's on you. It's bad enough to do that to anyone, particularly people far less experienced than yourself, but to do that to a supposed friend, that was trying to help you out? That is really messed up.

Being part of a community, this kind of behavior gets called out. You want to rip people off? You get negative feedback.

And just to take this out of the abstract, here's the GP Tri which you sold me for 16K USD, last year. (Aside from the insane price, the dial condition was not nearly as good as your pics, and there was undisclosed case damage).

You say that you always price your watches at more or less around the market price? I challenge you to find a single person on OF that will agree this was even remotely approaching fair market value, two years ago, one year ago, now, or ever......

 

And for the record, I wrote you over 2 months ago that I was going to close out this thread with additional negative feedback, because we never reached any resolution, and because I had multiple people asking me about it. I think that is extremely fair warning, and ample time for you to respond if you wished. If you don't check your email for two months, that's beyond my control.

And also for the record, I have no idea what is going on with your IG account. I do not follow you on IG, I've never made any attempts to contact you on IG, and I have never asked anyone else to do so either.

 

I didn’t have time to go check the references posted but I hope one of my older ones was not included. And if it was, please remove it.

 

So please list the watches and prices besides the UG for full disclosure

 

I have been advised it may be possible to pursue wire and mail fraud charges in this situation, and that the statute of limitations has not expired.....

 

Keep us updated please.

Do to this I will never deal with @Dre . The individual needs to make this RIGHT!

 

When you decided to do the negative feedback, well that is when what I thought that you decided to closed this, as you have stated below for your last PM to me.



But now it's obvious that you'd just going to continue to slander me here, also been telling people how you have LOST $25k from a wire and mail fraud. Did you not get your watches? Were you forced to do the transaction or hypnotised to just send money and not getting anything in return at all?

In regards to the UG Compur, you knew the steps since the very beginning as it was a project watch, and I did EVERYTHING for that watch until it's up and running, and you were updated in every second of that process. No point going into the details again anyway, but there's just so many things that went wrong from the way you wanted to sell that watch, and the only thing that I did was just to not re-purchase the watch back. Even at the very beginning, you knew you'd want to sell the watch and you went to try to sell the watch yourself anyway, the value of the watch is relative to everyone's perspectives.

You kept telling everyone I "scammed", it's a fraud, etc. So for example, with the GP Tri-Compax, tell me how come when you were trying to sell it, maybe desperately, you couldn't even sell it at $6,3k?

https://omegaforums.net/threads/girard-perregaux-universal-geneve-tri-compax-os-ss.78932/



When I finally online and we got in touch again, what did I do? I told you right away people was willing to pay more when I offered it to them, there was even a guy who was willing to pay a lot more than that until he saw your listing and got turned off by it, and even with much lower price listed by you, he didn't even end up contacting you right.



I could've told someone to purchase that watch from you for $6,3k if I really wanted to, or just offer to purchase at that price for myself?? But instead, I talked to you and I gave you more than what you wanted for it. If I had the funds myself at the time, I would've bought it for myself, not to sell it again! And you go around telling people that I scammed you on this deal?

And btw, people were willing to pay more had it not been you just desperately keep dropping the market price. A steel oversize GP Tri-Compax, definitely much much RARER than the UG counterparts. When I sold that GP for you at the end, that proved that. Same thing applied with the UG Compur in regards to the watches has been advertised, which was worse because it went to so many people and at the end you traded it with someone else who were offering the watch for sale as well, and I look like an idiot trying to sell the exact same watch for you.

And what about the other Spillman that I purchased back from you? It cost me more to purchase it back than what I sold it to you, I think it was around $9k, and it wasn't even a UG! And you want to tell me that the UG Compur 30 Spillman worth less? I've already told you that I always based my sales, including all the listing, especially publicly, based on the current market price. And at that time, you know in fact that those watches sold in much higher price.

https://www.bernardinimilano.com/products/universal-geneve-compur-31



Watch above? Sure it's from a dealer, but it has replacement pushers, possibly relumed hands, polished case, carried nearly $30k price tag and sold? And I'm sure you can find other examples. So again, I just based everything from the market research that I can find in the internet.

If there's anything, I have sold you watches for cheaper than my current listing prices. And you have purchases other watches from me, and you resold them all for higher than what you paid for.

I have given my permission to the mods to review our past conversations. I've been trying to avoid making this like a circus because I love this forum, it's the only forum I'm active in, and it where my passion for vintage watches started. I've gained so much knowledge, many mates, and I just didn't want to make this worse publicly. Having said that, if you want to play, I'll come fetch.

 

I assume you are posting because I wrote 5 mods here on OF yesterday requesting an investigation and banning for you. I would have preferred to never have any further contact with you, as you kindly posted above, but I was just speaking with someone else this week that you owe a huge amount of money to, and I realized this is not going to stop.
There are many forms of fraud, including false/inaccurate representation on valuations and condition, which was the case here.
As usual with the previous post you are just putting out a fog of complete BS, half of which doesn't even make sense, and the other half is demonstrably false.
I look forward to reviewing every single aspect on these two transactions, and doing so as publicly as possible. The longer this goes on, and the more facts come out, it will be completely clear to everyone how you operate, and that's the whole point. Hopefully this thread will stay at the top of the feedback section for a long, long time.

 

Nope not at all, I wasn’t even aware of you reaching out to the mods. I reached out to them first.

And there’s a person who I supposedly owe huge amount of money the watch world? Please kindly tell the person to send me a message because I’m completey unaware of this. And you are obviously ignoring my points.

 

more elaboration is needed imo

i have no horse in this race. but i will say that before dre gets thrown under the bus more, grisso all but admitted saying he paid more than he should have numerous times, and later decided to say he got ripped off because of it.

value and price is subjective. fraudulently misrepresenting isn't

those are two different things trying to be commingled together

 

I am suggesting that both of these issues are present and commingled together on these two transactions.....

1) there are major ethical problems with the watch purchases, as I've already described, and am happy to describe in much greater detail.

2) there is misrepresentation on condition and value, again which I'm happy to document in much greater detail.

I believe that both issues are equally important in the watch community. This feedback section is not only, or even primarily, to leave feedback regarding legally fraudulent transactions, it is also intended for ethical feedback. I first started this thread raising ethical issues, and clearly acknowledging my own partial responsibility in the purchases. I am now expanding on the ethical issues to get into the valuation and condition misrepresentation, and I have been advised, it meets the legal definition for fraud.

All that aside, if someone charges a noob $20K for a $2k watch, doesn't everyone want to know about it? Isn't that exactly what this section of the forum is about, accountability within the watch community? Or do you just say, who cares, that's the noobs fault, no one forced him to pay $20K ???

Anyhow I'm off to work, I'll get back to this when I have time, happy to post more documentation.

 

Please post all documentation so we can all see it. Better that way we can all make a judgement.

Cheers
Chad

 

that is needed.

gris is obv upset, but the only thing apparent to me (because we can only go by what was said by each party) is that grisso is pissed he paid "x" amount for said watch and is throwing around huge money lost in the deal and backing it up with nothing.

dre even said he bought, what, 7 watches from him and even bought one back?...that's not giving him a pass if he did get shifty with one, but gris has to elaborate much more.