Sending my watch back to China

[Mendes458 0]

There is already a post on this right at the top of the lounge so I will keep it short and sweet outlining the timeframe you should expect to wait and what to do. 

First got the watch on the 10th of January. Cosmetic issues and a screw in the movement that had fallen out and was flying about in there. It also allowed the fake decoration plate to spin leaving it misaligned with the rest of the movement, which turned out to be a godsend as it meant the screw could not get to the balance wheel as it was covered and stopped any permanent damage.

Send an email to Andrew the same day. With detailed pics of everything that was wrong and circled the issues with mark up feature on my iPhone. (A sound pic clearly outlining the problem helps the TD figure out what's wrong and what best to do about it.)

He tells me to send it back.

First major step- DO WHAT THEY TELL YOU TO DO 

However, use your common sense which for me came in the shape of Del posting a thread about Chinese New Year coming up. I email Andrew asking if he was sure it was a good idea to send it during New Year and he said no and advised to send it to him after CNY

Second Major step- DONT SEND SHIT TO CHINA DURING NEW YEARS (Around Jan-Feb)

So I waited

Sending the package from the UK (Sure it's pretty much the same for places like the Uk and EU)- I won't specify too much as this type of stuff changes (such as what to put in custom forms and what not, so just follow the First Major Step.)

However generally and what I did was not to send it by any of the big names in shipping such as DHL. I sent mine by Airmail. Andrew told me to get it tracked, but that apparently wasn't an option according to the post office, so I just sent it via air mail as it was the only other option that was not DHL. Found out afterwards that you can track it anyways so don't worry too much about it.

However, a key that gave me a bit of piece of mind was I insured it for £200- BIG HOWEVER I have a very very good relation with my post office, and they know us very well, and we do a lot of business with them. They said that it was fine to claim it was worth £20 on the customs form but insure it for more as the Royal Mail don't look at the form, so the two forms were never seen by the same people(except for the person in the post office).  It gives a bit of piece of mind but again YOUR POST OFFICE MIGHT THINK IT IS ODD AND FLAG IT IF YOU DONT KNOW THEM WELL. THIS STEP IS OPTIONAL AND DIFFERENT FOR EVERY CASE.

So, in the end, I sent it of 4th of March.

It got there 5th of April (Patience is key)

From there smooth sailing with it being fixed by the 13th and sent back on the 17th and finally arriving today on the 23rd.

It took a while but the good thing was there was no funny business, just work with the TD and they will deliver, and in my case, Andrew did provide an extremely good service and a fixed watch.

First time doing a long post like this any of the more experienced members have any outlying issues that I have missed or just got wrong I will correct.

Hope this helps relieve some stress as sending your watch back can be a bit of a nightmare.

[reasonoverpassion 0]

Really appreciate this post, and couldn't have come at a better time as I am literally wrapping my newly arrived purchase to send back to the TD as I type.

It's difficult, with one hand wrapping and one hand typing.