N.B. THIS POST IS NOT A PAID PROMOTION OR IN ANY WAY 'IN AGREEMENT' WITH WATCHFINDER!
A few weeks ago, completely out of the blue, I received an email from Watchfinder offering me a free service and polish. It wasn't, as you might imagine, a 'personal' email for services to the watch community (...) it was a 'commercial' email that I assumed had been sent to all their customers at once, but after speaking to people at the THF Forum it seems not. To be honest I didn't really pay that much attention to it, because like most people I imagine, when you get an unsolicited email promising something for nothing... well, consider me somewhat skeptical.
So I kind of scrolled past it, but then a few days later I got another email reminding me that time was running out to book my free service and this time for whatever reason I decided to look into it a bit deeper. Naturally I assumed that if they were offering a free service it would have to be on a watch that I had bought from them, which, since all the watches I had bought from them (and still owned) were quartz, seemed a bit unnecessary. Plus I assumed I would have to pay the carriage and then there was the worry about it getting lost, and so on and so on.
But then it turned out that no, in fact it didn't have to be a watch purchased from them. You could send any watch, although if you didn't buy it from them you were responsible for sending the watch to them initially - for watches purchased from them they send you a box and a carrier to collect it (fair enough). Which of course opened things up considerably and suddenly I was more enthusiastic about the offer. It did say that there were certain restrictions, which I took to mean perhaps not in-house movements (though I didn't check) so while it might have made more sense to enquire if I could have my Heuer 01 or my Aquagraph serviced, both of those are still running perfectly well I was already eyeing up my recently purchased and slightly beat up Grand Carrera WV511J.
Actually the Grand Carrera was running well anyway, but it was easily in the worst condition of any of my watches (save perhaps my slightly scruffy 2000 Multigraph). Indeed, if it wasn't so hard to get with the blue dial I probably wouldn't have kept it. Now I don't know if it had ever been serviced before I got it, but if it did I didn't have any knowledge of it and so I figured it might not be a bad idea. But really, I was more interested in the free refurb, the service was just a cherry on top.
And so I booked the watch in for a service and sent it off, praying that it got there and back safely since it had taken me 18 months to find one to buy and I really didn't want a black dial 'substitute' if it got lost along the way. I also asked Watchfinder if they could quote to replace the bezel as it had some fairly gnarly scuffs at the 5 position and I had my doubts that they could be polished out.
They sent me several emails confirming receipt, that it had been passed to their appraisal department, and later that the parts had been ordered, the parts had arrived, the work had been done and that the watch was ready for dispatch. All in all a very good line of communication and they contacted me without further prompting to quote the new bezel at £66, which was less than I was expecting actually. They also sent me an email offering to buy my watch from me, which I obviously wasn't interested in, but fair enough they were trying to turn my free service into an opportunity.
Finally a few days ago they emailed me to tell me the watch was ready and then rang me to confirm the delivery address. One day later a huge box arrived via DHL containing my beautifully refinished watch in a nice Watchfinder watch box and I was a very happy (and somewhat relieved) chap. They really did a fantastic job on it, obviously the bezel being replaced was an excellent move on my part since it's the first thing you see when you look at the watch, but I really didn't expect the bracelet to come up so well. I don't think the watch had been 'abused' as such, it just looked like a watch that had been worn every day for several years and picked up a lot of desk rash all over the bracelet.
There remains a small line of scratching on the clasp, but I only noticed this when I took a photo, it's certainly not something you would notice in normal use. The polished bevel edges on the case are still intact too, though actually the case was never badly marked. Still, it's nice to see that they haven't suffered during the process.
I haven't worn the watch enough to comment on the service itself, it was running pretty good anyway so I would hope it isn't running any worse than when I sent it in. But as I said I was viewing the service as a bonus really, more of a precaution than anything. I'm just so happy that my watch finally looks like it belongs in my collection (ie - looking as new as possible!). The only downside of course is that when I got the watch I wore it quite a lot because it was scratched anyway so no need to baby it... I guess this was the catch I was looking for all along! Haha.
But no, what can I say, other than thank you to Watchfinder? I know a lot of people criticise them for being expensive, but I've always had good experiences when dealing with them and the fact that they offer a two year warranty with everything they sell (no matter the price or the age of the watch) is worth paying a little bit extra for in my opinion. Of course people always want to get their watches at the cheapest possible price, but I'm not sure that's always the smartest option.
I still have no idea why they offered me this service though, and I'm still yet to hear from anyone else who has received the same email. I have bought a few watches from them over the years, but not that many and not really of that great a value. Still, what a wonderful early birthday present! I loved this watch when it was scratched and beat up and I love it even more now it's (almost) pristine again.
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