Conned by Puretime Watches
Please read this if you are considering buying a replica watch from Puretime-asia.com, Puretimewatch.com, Pureti.me.uk,
and all other variations of the Puretime Watch company ([email protected]).
I have just been conned and scammed by Dong Yan Jie, Angus, Nikki Chen and the rest of the staff at Puretime watches, and I want to warn anyone else who is considering buying a watch from them – PLEASE DON’T!
I am a private person living in Britain and a little while ago I decided to buy a replica watch. I spent several months reading every replica watch review site on the net and a litany of other internet articles, including ones written by some of Britain’s national newspapers.
I decided early on to abide by several criteria, one being that I would not pay by bank transfer or Western Union, only by Visa because then I could claim on the card if the company was a scam. Another, that I wouldn’t spend over $250 because several site authors who had bought a cheap and expensive version had been told by jewellers that the two watches were identical.
And so using my self imposed rules and everything I learnt from the review sites, I whittled out the more unscrupulous replica watch sellers, but I became disillusioned over how impartial these ‘reviewers’ actually are as most stick to one Chinese company and its subsidiaries and condemn all others. Anyone can say what they want about themselves if they are paying for an advert or if they are perhaps, incentivising a reviewer.
So in the end I found myself going back to several replica watch forums especially “rwgforum.net”, “rwg.biz” and RWI forum. These are every day, unbiast replica watch enthusiasts and so I felt that anyone they recommended would be based upon real experiences. So I spent hours everyday on this site, in particular reading everything ever said about Puretime, Angus, Dorris and Nikki Chen.
I noted that yes, there were many bad reports of where transactions had gone wrong, there were numerous postings of clients unhappy with the quality of Puretime watches… BUT the company and its owners were also praised repeatedly by the regular forum members. They seemed to love Puretime watches and all the actual members had good experiences. I didn’t dismiss the many complaints I’d read, but Puretime had seemed to explain some of them away (in ‘replies’) or simply accused the complainers of being “rival companies out to slander them”. Many forum members agreed.
Wow, I regret that decision. I emailed Angus and begged to be allowed to pay by card. He said no. In hindsight, I should have asked myself why he can’t take Visa when so many fake watch companies can… the only answer would have been; because Puretime and Angus (Dong Yan Jie) has committed fraud, conned the Visa payers, and after those customers got refunds from Visa, Visa stopped allowing Puretime to use their facilities! I was reluctant to break my own rule about only paying by Visa, but the high praise of the forum members kept ringing in my ears.
And so my nightmare began. I chose a watch that was far more expensive than I'd intended to spend (again, I felt that I couldn’t lose as I could see forum members discussing and praising Puretime’s better, more expensive models), and I went to Nat West bank and transferred $750 plus fees to Dong Yan Jie at Puretime (Industrial and Commercial bank of China, Laioning Provincial Branch, Gold Star Hotel, Floor 3). That was on the 13th June 2014. I sent it 2 day transfer and eagerly waited for the quality control photos.
None came. Dong Yan Jie and Puretime continuously told me that the “money had not come”, but added it was “OK and that I was to be patient and the money would arrive”. 4 weeks went passed with Puretime fobbing me off and making excuses and swearing the money hadn’t arrived. I scanned and emailed them all the Nat West documents, showing the account name, account number and swift/bic number etc. Puretime didn’t acknowledge them and continued telling me to ‘wait’.
In the end I paid Nat West £25 to do a full investigation into where my money went and a week later they told me they had investigated the payment all the way to China and that it had indeed gone into Dong Yan Jie’s account 6222020707003334851, Swift Bic; ICBKCNBJLNP. They had even been told by the Chinese bank that they money had been withdrawn soon after, and that “similar occurances had happened before, but that was between the sender and the account holder”. My bank were 100% sure that the money had been successfully transferred a month ago and to the right person. And then the told me that I had been conned and that the whole Puretime company was a fraud. I'd lost my money.
Now Puretime don’t even bother to reply to my emails, not even to lie and say it’s not been received. And they were never brilliant at it in the first place, never sending more than a one-liner.
I've lost my money now and realise I've been scammed. What was I thinking! As one newspaper article wrote “these replica companies are criminals, pirates who steal brand names – don’t ever kid yourself that they actually care about the quality of what they sell or the people to whom they sell”.
And all this makes me wonder about the forum members. Why were they sent “superb quality watches” and why was my money was stolen by Dong Yan Jie?
Well, Puretime’s con is quite clever; On their website they say “we made our reputation in the watch forums” and I think that’s correct. They sell decent watches to those ‘in the know’, to those who they can see writing in the forums, to those they know are members, and who are obviously serious about replicas etc. Then, they sell trash quality watches to other, generic buyers who wouldn’t know a quartz from kinetic (which explains the thousands of internet complaints of broken, rubbish quality Puretime watches). And there is also a section of would-be buyers to whom they don’t even send anything, and just steal their money, and I fall into that category. They know that my cries will be drowned out by those vocal forum members who’ve received decent watches. They almost play us buyers off against each other, using the knowledgeable forum members to (innocently) reel us suckers in.
The perfect scam. And if one does complain, Angus and Nikki Chen and those who have received good watches will accuse me of being a “libellous rival” or I’ll be explained away as “nuts” or “mistaken” in the forums. And Dong Yan Jie gets another $750 for nothing.
And as I said, I'm not the only one. Please, please Google Puretime, pureti.me and all the variations and you will see complaint after complaint (especially if you search using the word ‘scam’). I wish I had listed to those thousands of people rather than to the forum members who got the few ok watches the company sends out.
Please don’t buy from this company!! You will lose your money and even if you get a watch, it will be trash! These people are criminals and if they don’t care about breaking Chinese law and stealing brand names, then they certainly won’t care about you!
Dong Yan Jie, Nikki Chen and Puretime are a massive con, so be warned!!
