Bay Area jeweler made man spend $220,000 so he could buy $109,000 watch he never got: lawsuit

SiliconValley.com ^ | Ethan Baron

[Dr. Sivana]

Reminds me of Sondra Locke alleging that Clint Eastwood "made" her get an abortion, as if he tied her up and dragged her into the clinic. Or that the British royal family and/or the clergy "made" Margaret cut if off with Townsend

Though the Kennedys sure made sure they showed Rosemary who was boss.

[Robert DeLong]

Sounds to me as if a con is being performed here, by the customer. I do believe that if a real customer walked in desiring that watch, and was told that, he would have gone to another high-end jeweler & done business there.

Doesn't pass the smell test at all, for me.

[Chickensoup]

Ski

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Yup - for high end watches, the racket jewelry stores run is to make you buy other stuff. Lots of other stuff. Then you have a hope in hell of being offered the watch you want at the retail price...someday. The cheaper alternative, if you just have to have that AP or PP or even a lowly steel Rolex, is to just go gray-market and pay the markup.

[Seruzawa]

Eh. Jewelry is largely a scam. Aside from a few high end names most jewelry depreciates ruinously after purchase. Stupid investment in my experience. Your $1000 Zales bracelet won’t sell for anything near that.

[Fido969]

Plenty for sale on the internet:

https://www.jaztime.com/patek-philippe/5980

[alexander_busek]

Oh yes, I remember. Carlotta, beautiful Carlotta, sad

Regards,

[maddog55]

Haven’t worn a watch in 40+ years. No jewelry at all actually.

[nickcarraway]

Thanks!

[FrankRizzo890]

I had always heard that. Then, one day at the race track the guy in the pit box next to me was in a new 430. So, I asked him what Ferraris he had owned before, he told me this was his first. I asked if he had bought it used, he said he had not, that it was brand new off the showroom floor. I then asked about the maintenance costs, and he said that he had only had 1 scheduled trip to the dealer for routine service, and that was just under $1500. (He owned a paving company in Calgary IIRC).

Now, all that being said, the SPECIAL Ferrari models, the F40/F50/Enzo/LaFerrari/Monza, etc., are DEFINITELY this way. There’s an interview with Jay Leno where he talks about why he doesn’t/won’t own Ferraris. And it’s just this.

[Mermaid Girl]

Good tires and they kept the streets pretty clean in winter. At least that was my experience living there for 7 years and commuting by bike. Riding in the snow is an art.

[Captain Peter Blood]

He should have gone to NYC to the diamond district at 47th St. and he would have found one. Lot cheaper than what he did.

[Reverend Wright]

The dealers usually have more buyers than new cars. That is why they can do this.

Same with some of the luxury watches etc.

Maybe in Feb 2009 there were new Ferraris available...

[Right_Wing_Madman]

this is a perfect case for the ODF (own damn fault) defense.

I think the plaintiff has a good case here. In high-end jewelry and watch stores, you have to buy a certain amount of high-margin junk jewelry before they'll let you have access to the good and rare stuff. That's standard practice in the industry. In this case, the jeweler probably underestimated the rarity of the Patek Phillipe Nautilus watch that the customer wanted and he just couldn't supply it.

I bet they settle out of court.

[Right_Wing_Madman]

Here's an 1887 Patek Philippe watch...

Thanks for posting the photo. It's a beautiful watch.

[yldstrk]

I would have told that jewelry store and the Ferrari dealership to eff off.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

OK, guys & gals, for the big bonus round, “What is the connection between beautiful Carlotta and the ‘pinch-to-zoom’ feature you use on your phones and tablets every day”?

[Honest Nigerian]

I had read that this is the game (show us that you are a real enthusiast of our product; we have people standing in line to buy oru elite offerings) that is played at Ferrari dealerships. Sounded koo-koo.
But then an acquaintance who had the money to buy Ferraris (and McLarens) told me a story about his purchase of his first ... Ferrari!! Seems that the fact that he owned a McLaren P1 (which he had purchased new from authorized McLaren dealership) allowed him to go to head of the line.
I imagine a similar form of scam is also involved in the sale of “art”.

[nickcarraway]

Wow, that's a tough one. The only thing I could think of is that the feature is based on the dolly zoom effect that Hitchcock created, where the foreground stays the same, but the background gets smaller or bigger?

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Nope, not even close. A clue...SF Gate has the answer.