What Would You Do?

redrubies

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Besides selling jewelry, I also work with antiques. I get antique jewelry by the box load. I go through it and have a list of clients looking for specific things. I built up a long list over the years. Anyway, I take some of the antique jewelry and sell it to a local jeweler who is one of my clients. I do not do watches. I hate working with watches, and the local jeweler loves it, so the watches go to him. What I don't sell to the clients, I put on one of my websites for antiques. In yesterday's box load, there was a $3800 watch in it. I called the jeweler and told him I had it and asked him if he wanted it. He said yes and would give me $1,000 for it. I sent my son to the jeweler. He inspected the watch and gave my son the money in check form. I told him on the phone to write the check out to my son. I told my son to cash the check and go to the store for me. I gave him a grocery list. lol I also told my son to keep $100 and put it towards his college money because he is going to college in the spring. A couple of hours later, the jeweler calls me. He opened the watch and it had swiss movement. This watch was not supposed to have swiss movement. Everything, down to the serial number, was a $3800 watch. The inside told that it was really a replica. Like I said, I hate working with watches and did not open it up. The jeweler called and told me to tell my son not to cash the check. I told him my son already did, went grocery shopping, and came home. He told me to pay him back the next time I came in. I just mentioned the story to family and friends who told me not to pay him back because it is up to the buyer to inspect what he is buying. I even asked the jeweler why he did not inspect it before he gave my son the money. He said because I always come in and he trusted me. Would you give him the money back?
 
Paying $1k for a $3.8k watch and not inspecting for a fake? He wanted to screw you, but when he gets screwed he gets pissy? Find someone else to sell to. Though you do have to be careful as even selling fakes/replicas unintentionally is illegal.
 
Paying $1k for a $3.8k watch and not inspecting for a fake? He wanted to screw you, but when he gets screwed he gets pissy? Find someone else to sell to. Though you do have to be careful as even selling fakes/replicas unintentionally is illegal.
Geez you sound just like my sister. LOL She said the same thing you did and she said it loudly. LOL
 
Sound like line of BS on his part, beacuse he is a professional jeweler and would know a fake at a glance. Is the jeweler new to the business or something like that? fakes are eazy to spot without looking in the back panel in most cases.
 
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Shouldn't he have inspected it first before purchasing? If he decided to buy the watch right then and there at a quarter of the price, isn't that his problem anyway for not making sure it's real?
 
Sound like line of BS on his part, beacuse he is a professional jeweler and would know a fake at a glance. Is the jeweler new to the business or something like that? fakes are eazy to spot without looking in the back panel in most cases.

He has had a jewelry store for over 20 years. That is another reason why my sister said he was trying to scam me and he got what he deserved. The watch was identical to the real one except for the inside.
 
Shouldn't he have inspected it first before purchasing? If he decided to buy the watch right then and there at a quarter of the price, isn't that his problem anyway for not making sure it's real?

That's seems to be the popular response. Everyone is saying that he should have inspected it. Even I asked him on the phone why he didn't open it up.
 
I think you should pay him back. Do you think it's fair for him to bear the money just because he didn't inspect it right there before giving the check?
And as well you knew beforehand that you are gonna get only $1000 for $3800 worth product. So you can't blame him for not inspecting it at the time of buying it.

You can decide not to pay it back, but only thing you'd lose is the trust which is hard to earn.
 
I think you should pay him back. Do you think it's fair for him to bear the money just because he didn't inspect it right there before giving the check?
And as well you knew beforehand that you are gonna get only $1000 for $3800 worth product. So you can't blame him for not inspecting it at the time of buying it.

You can decide not to pay it back, but only thing you'd lose is the trust which is hard to earn.

He inspected it while on the phone with me. He just didn't open it up until some time in that couple of hours span.
 
You have to be practical here. How valuable is his business? Do you have anyone else of his caliber to pass the watches to?

He obviously thinks you are a stand up guy, so much though he tells you to drop the grand next time you see him. Just as obvious is that he would speak highly of you in conversation with other people. How much damage does that do toyour reputation if he speaks negatively about you?

My gut feeling is you have a valuable business relationship that you are going to throw away over this one transaction. If you stiff him, all future business with him is poisoned, and he will get the money back many times over one transaction at a time. At the very least, he will not trust you anymore, and I bet his offers will be generally lower in the future.

This may mean nothing to you, he may be one of many people you go to for watches.

The right thing to do long term is the what makes you the most money with the least effort.

Why don't you call him up and offer to meet him halfway, because after all he was fooled by a replica, give him $500,take him to dinner and buy him a steak?

The real question is what do you think is the right thing to do? You and I both know the answer, you posted this to get justification for not doing it.

BYW, how much do you have invested in the watch, if I may ask?
 
You have to be practical here. How valuable is his business? Do you have anyone else of his caliber to pass the watches to?

He obviously thinks you are a stand up guy, so much though he tells you to drop the grand next time you see him. Just as obvious is that he would speak highly of you in conversation with other people. How much damage does that do toyour reputation if he speaks negatively about you?

My gut feeling is you have a valuable business relationship that you are going to throw away over this one transaction. If you stiff him, all future business with him is poisoned, and he will get the money back many times over one transaction at a time. At the very least, he will not trust you anymore, and I bet his offers will be generally lower in the future.

This may mean nothing to you, he may be one of many people you go to for watches.

The right thing to do long term is the what makes you the most money with the least effort.

Why don't you call him up and offer to meet him halfway, because after all he was fooled by a replica, give him $500,take him to dinner and buy him a steak?

The real question is what do you think is the right thing to do? You and I both know the answer, you posted this to get justification for not doing it.

BYW, how much do you have invested in the watch, if I may ask?
I'm a stand up woman, not a guy. lol The big box of jewelry cost $100. My first thought was to pay him back until everyone told me not to. My sister said he is not the type of person I want as a client anyway. Now I'm stumped.
 
The real question is what do you think is the right thing to do? You and I both know the answer, you posted this to get justification for not doing it.

I don't think I want justification. I think what I really want to know (besides if people would pay him back) is if I should keep him. While he was looking at the watch and was on the phone with me, he said that he was going to put sapphires in it and that would be a lot of labor which brought the price down. He knew the watch before my son went because I told him which one it was and he looked it up (the first time he said he would give me 1k for it) The sapphires in the watch were crystals and they were small. I told him not to change it because the watch by that designer had crystals and not real sapphires. I didn't think anything of it until after my sister got riled up. Then I wondered why he would change a designer watch to something different. That's just odd.
 
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If I were you I would trust his words that he trusted you and he didn't examined it before paying. Later when he found out that it was a replica, he did the right thing in calling you and asking you to not encash his cheque. What would I do in the same situation?

I would value the trust more. I would pay back his money. The business can carry on another day, more smoothly and with more trust. What is $1,000 against the invaluable Trust that someone has in me?

And I would keep working with him for a lot more time, unless he begins to show me that he doesn't mean business... I guess this is only the first such incident with him.

Just my 2 cents there!

P.S.: In business you cannot chose the clients as much as you'd like to. You should be more careful with certain people but the business needs to go on. With more care. It's not an 100% ideal world out there. On second thought, I would still give back his money... or as someone said, we would sit together and discuss a new price but only after repaying his money. It would be a good foundation for a better new deal for that same item.
 
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If I were you I would trust his words that he trusted you and he didn't examined it before paying. Later when he found out that it was a replica, he did the right thing in calling you and asking you to not encash his cheque. What would I do in the same situation?

I would value the trust more. I would pay back his money. The business can carry on another day, more smoothly and with more trust. What is $1,000 against the invaluable Trust that someone has in me?

And I would keep working with him for a lot more time, unless he begins to show me that he doesn't mean business... I guess this is only the first such incident with him.

Just my 2 cents there!

I'm not sure any more if there is trust. I am stumped. It's like taking a vintage Chanel purse and altering it. Why would anyone want to do that? The value of the purse would go to zero. Is he stupid or was he trying to put one over on me? Even if I do pay him back, I don't know what to do about keeping him as a client.
 
Is $1000 worth the slander he 'll give your business and person for "scamming" him?
 
I remember a similar incident. My son had earlier purchased a watch using his own money. He is tall and handsome, and that watch looked great on him. One day while waiting at a railway gate, another car brushed him and his bike from the wrong side (overtaking from the left side is the wrong side in my country)... anyway... that impact broke his strongly built imported watch.

Of course the part couldn't be found here. He really missed it. He wanted no other watch... long after that, I found a similar watch on eBay. I ordered it, and presented it to my son.I saw him happy to have a watch that was similar. But came the rains, and the watch stopped working. The water had easily seeped inside that fake. Again he was heartbroken.... more this time and we both didn't make out that it was only a fake.

This is the real difference between a real and a fake. A fake simply isn't worth because it breaks a lot more than itself, especially for those who aren't really aware.:D

Sorry to have drifted this thread away a bit. lol.

I am presenting you the real value for some customers which cannot be counted in mere $$$.
 
I am also of the opinion that the long standing good relationship was most likely why he didn't check the watch first and called you as soon as he did. I would return the money if it were me. I wouldn't consider it worth losing the future business or the relationship if there isn't any reason or history to think he is trying to be shady all of the sudden. It just wasn't what you both thought it was at first.
 
I'm not sure any more if there is trust. I am stumped. It's like taking a vintage Chanel purse and altering it. Why would anyone want to do that? The value of the purse would go to zero. Is he stupid or was he trying to put one over on me? Even if I do pay him back, I don't know what to do about keeping him as a client.

From your posts it looks you've already decided not to pay him back. Then why this thread? lollll
 
From your posts it looks you've already decided not to pay him back. Then why this thread? lollll

I probably will go with my first thought and pay him back. I may not keep him as a client though.
 
I probably will go with my first thought and pay him back. I may not keep him as a client though.

I really don't think there's anything wrong in his part for you to ignore him as a client.
 
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