Marc Obermann
3219
Sorry Patrick but I just cannot agree.
If I bought a Patek Philippe watch costing tens of thousands of dollars and had a warranty issue and the watch has a worldwide warranty the last thing I would expect on taking it into any official Patek Philippe Retailer is to be charged shipping. Irrespective of where I bought the watch, if I had damaged the watch or it was out of warranty no problem with being charged as that is fair but under warranty means it is not my fault and therefore should not cost me anything. You are right it is not apples to apples as one costs only hundreds of dollars and the other tens of thousands. I would have thought a customer with a warranty claim for an expensive watch would just be treated better. I know many are fanatical about Patek Philippe and to them they can do no wrong but the stories about the games they play for you to get a watch and experiences like this one are enough to put me off even thinking about spending my money with them however great the watch may be. Before this starts to rival War and Peace I suggest we agree to disagree.
Marc
Warranty Case: Patek Miami Bills for Shipping to New York
I went to the Miami boutique with my watch, which is still under warranty. They accepted it but charged me $300 for shipping it to New York for repair. Is this normal? It’s the first time I’ve come across a company charging for shipping on a product that’...
I have never heard of it....if a boutique belongs or represents the brand, this is quite unusual...even if it is out of warranty.
I have sent my wife's Harry Winston to SFO and SFO then sends to NYC for battery replacements since 2014 and never paid a dime. SFO boutique even sent a package to me to return to them, every time. Even secondary dealers I worked with, if watch is under w...
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This is the first time I’ve encountered this, so I decided to get other opinions. This is the main Patek dealer we have here in Miami.
Nice watch!
Since I’m in the UK I can’t answer your question but I will be interested to hear other people’s experiences. Although the watch is still within the warranty period, is the defect covered by the warranty? If they need to send the watch to New York to diag...
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Hi Jon, thank you for your comment. The thing is, I bought the watch a year and a half ago, and only about a month ago I noticed that the hands are slightly misaligned and do not show the exact time. For example, if you set the minute and hour hands exact...
Exactly. Good point.
Why promise free shipping when the diagnosis that this was a manufacturer defect isn't even confirmed by a watchmaker?
Has been my experience.
A JLC Reverso and Omega Planet Ocean both needed warranty repair. No charge for shipping.
I'm not a Patek Philippe customer but that in my opinion is not good in fact I would say that it is terrible customer service.
As an example which I have already posted about excellent customer service. I have a Limited Edition Russian Red Cartier lighter but no paper work for it and no idea how old this model is but I have had it a over a year and took into Cartier Old Bond Stre...
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Thank you, Marc, for sharing your experience. You had an excellent experience, and I have also had great experiences with various well-known brands, even outside of warranty, when I wasn’t charged anything for service or shipping because it was a factory ...
This isn't an apples to apples comparison.
Just because Cartier went above and beyond, doesn't mean that Patek Philippe offers "terrible customer service" just because they didn't match Cartier. And there might be a small difference between a lighter and a watch; although yes, I do agree, the prin...
Sorry Patrick but I just cannot agree.
If I bought a Patek Philippe watch costing tens of thousands of dollars and had a warranty issue and the watch has a worldwide warranty the last thing I would expect on taking it into any official Patek Philippe Retailer is to be charged shipping. Irrespe...
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Thank you for your advice; I also think I will do the same.
Perfectly normal and reasonable.
The warranty covers repairs on the watch. But warranty doesn't cover shipping to the Patek Philippe service center. You have to get it to the Patek Philippe service center; either bring it in person or have it shipped there. The Miami boutique shipped the...
When I had my omega serviced under warranty
They didn't charge me shipping from the boutique to the service center (I believe in Seattle?)...
That's a good reference point, but a lot of details are missing, which might make a difference.
1. Original poster and you both didn't state if you were the original owner of the watch. 2. Both didn't state if you bought it from the same boutique you're sending it for service through. 3. Your Omega boutique may be a franchise or corporate owned. We ...
Now that I think about it
My FPJ warranty not only covered the service, but the shipping back and forth to the Miami boutique as well from my residence! I didn't even purchase it at that location. I didn't think too much of it at the time, but maybe I should have! There is, of cou...
I have never paid for shipping for warranty service neither.
But I do realize, those stores were all "trusting me" that my "alleged complaint" about the watch was accurate and if it were accurate then it would be a valid warranty claim. What if my alleged complaint was inaccurate and the Service Center realized I h...
Perhaps for a remote location like Mount Everest it would make sense
But the OP stated they went to the brand boutique… it isn’t normal in my experience either.
Brand boutique doesn't mean they have to forward the watch to Patek Philippe Service Center for free.
Let's say I'm a new Patek Philippe boutique in an expat-filled city; am I really expected to eat the cost for shipping hundreds of watches a year - especially if none of these watches were sold by my boutique? That's not scalable. The original poster also...
It does not compel the boutique one way or another but what do the majority of consumers expect in this case? Especially taking into account the average cost of PP timepieces
Anecdotally, we took my wife’s inherited Datejust to the Rolex boutique in Vancouver. They sent it to Toronto free of charge and when they wanted to replace all the sentimental pieces we declined the service. They returned it to the Vancouver boutique fre...
I would say that Rolex Vancouver went above the call of duty.
I would say that this store went above and beyond the call of duty. That's great. But that can't be expected be very store all the time. You yourself said you were pleasantly surprised that you weren't charged for shipping and you saw this as a "bonus." A...
Yes they went above and beyond
That is my expectation for a large luxury company, as I stated previously. Sometimes when you give a little you get a lot, nickel and diming at this level doesn’t feel right to me.
But we don't know the whole story. And yet we're already declaring the dealer is in the wrong.
We only know what one side has told us. And there are a lot of missing details. And we're also making an assumption that what we are told is accurate. We really shouldn't pass judgment on Patek Philippe Miami without knowing the full story. In these kinds...
Indeed -
we don’t know the whole story, but I can’t see that people are saying the dealer is wrong. I see people sharing their views and expressing their feelings about their expectations. I think it boils down to communication (and policy). I tend to agree with t...
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I don't quite agree. If there’s an official PP representative in the city and I go there with a warranty issue, I don’t expect to pay extra for resolving it on a nearly new watch — that’s what the local representative is for. If someone cannot physically ...
Here's the contractual language of the guarantee...
From Patek Philippe's own guarantee paperwork: "The Guarantee covers all manufacturing faults and material defects as confirmed by an Authorized Patek Philippe Service Center only." This means that you are responsible for getting the watch to a Patek Phil...
Did you buy the watch from the Miami Boutique? Have you bought any Pateks from them? If not, that may be the logic on their part ie that it was not their watch and
you are not their client. This is not to say that this is right but it might be their reasoning. If you bought the watch there, or any Patek there, it would seem to make a much stronger case that they should cover the shipping and do it with a smile. I th...
It certainly would not be scalable for a Patek Boutique to ship every watch they got for warranty service for free - especially if they didn't sell it in the first place.
Shipping costs are real. Insurance costs are real. Also, a store isn't always able to make the determination that a watch is defective. Let's say the hands were misaligned. Sure, everything would suggest that's a factory problem. But who knows, maybe the ...
Yes, that is a possibility, but because the warranty never mentioned that shipping is covered by Patek Philippe, it cannot be expected by the consumer.
Omega's warranty does mention shipping is covered for warranty repairs. So it's safe to say some brands cover shipping charges and some brands don't. Patek warranty doesn't mention it. So we cannot assume it's covered. So, by contract, there's no obligati...
I agree with you on that one! But you're operating on a big assumption, that the problem is covered by a guarantee - we don't know that for certain.
We don't know what's going on. Maybe Patek hasn't determined if the watch is actually a manufacturer defect. And maybe once they did, they'll cover the shipping charges. All we know is that the watch has been dropped off and a shipping charge was charged....
I certainly appreciate the logic of your viewpoint and the arguments you make in favor of it. My viewpoint is a bit different.
I feel that from a customer relations standpoint and long term financial standpoint: if a client of an AD buys a Patek from that AD and the watch develops a problem during the warranty period the AD (unless the warranty specifically states that the client...
I understand your viewpoint, but there are some areas where that's not feasible for an AD.
As I mentioned before, if there were a thousand people who all expected free shipping to be paid for by Miami boutique, that would not be scalable for Miami boutique. And this is also the problem when you have dealers/franchisees as your main points of co...
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I consider these to be details and service-related issues. As a consumer and a client of various renowned global brands, this approach certainly raises many questions for me. In the 21st century, where customer service is often as important as the product...
You would image they have weekly shipments back and forth and they are not going to make 25 individual shipments?
I hear you, and I get the logistics side of things. But here's the thing, this isn't someone calling from the middle of nowhere. The client actually walked into a major Patek boutique in Miami with their watch. Charging $300 to ship something domestically...
Dealers don't make weekly shipments usually. They ship on demand.
To increase speed for the customer, a jewelry store will generally ship the watch immediately to HSWA, often the same day. This is done to minimize delay for the customer. For instance, if the jewelry store shipped weekly, then the clients would have a po...
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The watch was purchased from a Patek Philippe AD in Illinois. That's a good idea. I will definitely do that with HSWA (Patek USA).
I would not expect a Patek Philippe dealer/boutique/retailer in Miami to ship my watch for free if I bought the watch in Illinois.
And I think if you had empathy for the store's position, you might come to the same conclusion. It's a scalability issue... if a thousand people came to the store in Miami and asked them to send their watches for warranty work... It's not scalable. And Mi...
You made the same argument as well.
And even if the watch were returned to the same AD, that AD is still not obligated to send it back for free because they can't make that determination that it is an actual warranty claim. Sure, they can take the client's word for it. But that's a risk. Su...
For clarification’s sake I did not make the argument that the AD should charge shipping on a watch it didn’t sell. I merely expressed that the AD, rightly or wrongly, might differentiate between a watch it sold and one
it didn’t. But you made a strong argument that makes a lot of sense. Well done!
True, you merely suggested that was a possibility and not support of it.
Here's the truth. Almost all the respondents are jumping to conclusions based off of assumptions. For instance, this watch is ALLEGEDLY suffering from a manufacturer defect - that's not a fact yet. We don't know if that's actually the case or not. Also, o...
Actually, that can and has happened...
Let's say you're in a city like Shanghai or Beijing. About a decade ago, Shanghai and Beijing saw lots of Patek owners who bought them externally. And at one point they're getting floods of watches for warranty claims. This really did happen.
I quit buying PP watches over fifteen years ago. I’ve visited the factory and museum. That’s it. I keep three which I send to a fantastic watchmaker in NYC. And I keep them because…
…my daughter wants them, otherwise they’d be long gone. Thank you but no, thank you.
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You are a wonderful father for your daughter, keeping such things for her.
Never been charged
Have had a few watches serviced and shipped overseas for servicing and have never been charged a shipping fee. It’s best to call up H.Stern and see if this is a mandatory practice.
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Thank you for your advice, I will definitely clarify this situation.
The normal practice is that within warranty there is no charge.
Outside of warranty there is always a shipping charge, once the issue is identified you get an estimate that you can accept and get the watch serviced, or refuse and get it returned to you. My guess is that someone at the AD messed up confusing the two si...
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It seems very likely, because the lady who accepted the watch told me that mine were covered by the 5-year warranty since they were purchased in 2024. However, the 5-year warranty only applies to watches purchased starting from May 1, 2024, while mine wer...
Weird
I’ve had montblanc (which got sent to Switzerland), VC, and breitling all sent for warranty work no charge and they covered shipping from my house to them and back. They all were purchased at boutique 🤷♂️
cheap
warranty or not. u want to be considered class, act like one. that is a five figures toy at minimum and u decides to nickel and dime your customer on $300 SH 🤣🤣🤣
It's "Shipping" and "handling" right?
Handling can be very subjective sometimes! Also, AD does have to pay for insurance (they have an overall business insurance - like a big umbrella - that covers all business operations including shipping, this they would have to pay regardless, but it woul...
I called three Patek Philippe stores in the region.
Definitely nothing shady in Patek Philippe USA. For Patek Philippe, in USA, any watch for warranty or service always goes to HSWA in NYC and comes from HSWA in NYC. If it needs to go to Geneva, it is still routed to Geneva from HSWA and sent back to HSWA ...
Right, the shady comment was meant for the ADs. If PP doesn't have owned boutiques and the ADs operating in their place treat PP like any other brand in the case PP is not far off from a department store brand.
I think if the ADs truly operated as PP boutiques, they should cover shipping as many owned brand boutiques do. If charging for shipping, I very much disagree with charging for the round trip up front because there's no telling where I may be 6 months fro...
I'm surprised you went to the boutique at all. Did you consider contacting the service center directly?
I don't think of boutiques as specialists in handling service. Convincing me to leave money behind, yes, but service, no.
I called three Patek Philippe authorized dealers in the region. Hope this helps!
I called the Miami boutique and two other Patek Philippe stores in the "Southern Region" of America. I explained to all stores that I was an editor collecting information for a watch blog, and I had a hypothetical problem that I was convinced would be cov...
Agreed.
We got the consistency part answered. Still not feeling terribly great about the $300. But at least there's some consistency there.