is the website watches-well.co trustworthy?

[Gordo]

I plan on buying a knock off rolex yachtmaster for the production of a play that I agreed to help out financially. Since I do not want to spend $10,000 on a watch that is a prop for a play I found this website, unfortunately I am not sure if I can trust the site. I am wondering if these will be quality watches and the site will not steal my money and credit card info.

[calmlawyer483]

While there is no way to guarantee that you are dealing with a legit site, there are "red flags" to look for in a fake sites.

1) Payment options, do they include Western Union, moneygram, paypal and bank transfer? Some scam sites will accept credit cards but most prefer those 4 options which are anonymous for the scammer to pick up the cash and disappear.

Western Union and moneygram do not verify anything on the form the sender fills out, not the name, not the street address, not the country, not even the gender of the receiver, it all means absolutely nothing. The clerk will not bother to check ID and will simply hand off your cash to whomever walks in the door with the MTCN# and question/answer. Neither company will tell the sender who picked up the cash, at what store location or even in what country your money walked out the door. Neither company has any kind of refund policy, money sent is money gone forever.

Paypal can only get your money back if there is money left in the scammer's paypal-linked bank account. Scammers know this and will immediately withdrawal your money and disappear. No money in the scammer's paypal-linked bank account means absolutely no possibility of refund for you.

Your bank can only get your money back if there is money left in the scammer's bank account. Scammers know this and will immediately withdrawal the money you transferred. No money in the account means absolutely no possibility of you getting your hard-earned money back.

2) Contact options, is it a free email address such as gmail, hotmail or yahoo? Is it a chat box? Scam sites will rarely list a phone number or street address.

Scammers love to create free email addresses and rarely will use a paid server. Email is easy to ignore and block and free email addresses are easy to open and close completely anonymously. Chat requests are easy to block via ip address.

3) Shipping options, do you actually get to choose the option at check out? Fake sites will frequently say "free shipping" and "tracking numbers emailed" but, if they ship anything at all, will use the post office, cheap, slow and no account number needed.

Fake sites will frequently show icons for UPS, FedEx, DHL and TNT but then at check out will "ship" via EMS, the Chinese post office. If they send a "tracking number" good luck getting it to work on the EMS website. You will need even more luck trying to contact EMS when your tracking stops and your "package" is lost somewhere.

4) The icons at the bottom of the page, are they just copy/pasted pictures or links to actual sites?

Fake sites will often have icons for Verisign, McAfee, Paypal and other companies at the bottom of the home page. Those should be live links to that company's website. Fake sites can't risk linking to real sites so they just use badly copied pictures instead.

Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even partial sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.

There are scam busting sites with online lists of the names scammers use, their email addresses, stock copy/paste emails, paid-for-in-cash cell phone numbers, stolen pictures and fake websites they use. You could start your search at one of those sites.

[Linux Dog]

You are wanting to buy something illegal, and you want to know if the seller is trustworthy. Think about it. No seller of fake Rolex is trustworthy. Most are just phishing for credit cards. The rest are selling $10 watches for about $100-$900 or so (depending on your IQ). If they send you a watch it will fail after about two months.

It also appears that you do not know how to look up the site information, like how long the site has existed, were is it registered, and who owns it. If you do not know how, then you should not be buying stuff on the internet. You should spend the money on a class at your local community collage.

Look up the site information. I bet you will find out that the site has only existed for about a month or so, even if they say they have been selling on the internet for ten years. Why do said sites only last a few months? Simple, the Chinese government shuts them down, and they just start up again with a new web site.

Your fake Rolex will fool only the most causal observer, or someone who has never handled the real thing. I can spot a fake Rolex in 5 seconds. Just shake it, and listen for the scraping sound, or wear it in the dark. All fake Rolex have markers that glow green in the dark. Finally just wear it in the shower. Fake Rolex are not water resistant no matter what they tell you.

Quality fake watches are the stuff of TV, not reality. No matter what they say, the watch is made in China, not Japan, not Italy, and not Switzerland. The watch movement is made in China, and is not made by ETA in Switzerland.

If the site is a "sting" operation set up by US customs, then you will be fined $5000. Think about it.

Finally you have violated the user agreement with Y!A. The staff does not tolerate questions on the subject of buying illegal merchandise.