Why we are happy when a watch stays in the OF family

I inadvertently sold to a dealer here on OF and it surely stung a bit seeing what he was asking for it. Same fellow has been using OF and the WTB as his culling grounds. Not much we can do about it unfortunately 🫨

Do you care to share, PM if you like.

If a dealer is posting WTB's here on OF and then flipping them elsewhere straight away I think it would be in the members best interests to know who that is.

I don't have an issue with dealers making a profit if they're doing the donkey work, sourcing watches from original owners, taking a punt on an eBay listing with bad pics, cleaning, servicing, describing a watch etc.

What grinds my gears is when people effectively use collectors (and collectors forums) as finders, making money off our hard work and adding little/no value themselves and in some instances pretty much cutting and pasting descriptions. That's happened to me in the past.

I sold an item once on ebay, cannot remember what it was, may have been a watch. Anyways the buyer copied my ebay auction and listed the item, including my pictures, before the item was even delivered to him. I informed ebay about his use of my pictures and they basically told me to pound sand. Turned out he sold it for less than I sold it to him for so I felt better about the whole thing.

Being “violated” like this always hurts, regardless of the hobby or circumstance- we enter into transactions on good faith thinking that we are dealing with like minded people- but there are always predators and opportunist waiting to take advantage of other’s goodwill- some are just more charming than others.
Back when I servicing audio gear for the local record shops (as a hobby and source of second income- It was more charity work in many circumstances to help the local record stores out and keep the kids in decent gear on the cheap), I had a person contact me asking to service a few pieces his father left him and he wanted to play his father’s record collection. We talked on the phone for a while, he seemed ernest and sweet, very nostalgic of his fathers love for hi-fi. When I got the gear it was decent stuff but all needed real work. I called with my estimates and he cried poor, he really wanted it all working, but just couldn’t afford to pay what I was charging (mind you my rates were a fraction of what most full service shops charged). I asked what he could afford and ended up doing the work for that amount- I basically lost money on the amount of time I had into them. I went so far as to refinish the oil stain and replace the grill cloth on his KEF speakers and hand polish the dust cover on the Linn Turntable and install a period correct used high end cartridge that I had in my stash that I thought was a perfect match to the table ). I felt good about getting this guys father’s gear back to almost like new condition- it was like I was giving the gift to the kid for his deceased father who clearly had excellent taste. Needless to say, the week after I serviced it all I saw the Linn up on eBay- I checked his other listing and there were all the other pieces I repaired- all with “freshly serviced” in the description and all going for serious money. I checked his previous sold listings and he had been selling audio gear for years. I felt totally taken advantage of and swore at that point that I wouldn’t do a sliding scale for service costs again unless I knew the person- nor would I throw in free parts and labor because I felt the piece justified it- I would offer the additional services and charge accordingly.
He called about a month later and said he found more gear in his father’s attic and would I service those pieces- I simply told him I was no longer offering discounted rates and would have to charge him full rate but would be happy to check it out for him- I never heard back.
I no longer service audio gear for money anymore- situations like that soured me from dealing with people because for every 10 happy customers, there was one that was an opportunist looking to get something for free or take advantage of me...it totally soured the joy of the experience for me.
My hobbies are about me now- I give watches away. I find friends who want to buy one- they get it for what I paid. If I were to sell any here, I think I would only sell to people with whom have a relationship thorough group dynamics.

This is not a dealer but it looks like it's a private seller who bought the watch here and put it on chrono. That's even worse. Some may disagree because of free market and all that other bullshit. But it's not ethical IMO when you're a member here and buy a watch on OF to sell it directly with profit somewhere else. That's low. I saw enough watches in the private sales section which I could have bought to make a quick profit. But why would you? Ebay and free market yes. OF no.

But would you buy a watch on OF to make a profit somewhere else?