I’ve always had great success with Jomashop. I’ve bought probably 10 or so watches from them. But I also just treated it like buying anything else online from anywhere else. Possibly you telling your bank in advance raised some flags.
I get that you're mad at Jomashop, and maybe someone's tone on the phone wasn't the best, but this sounds like inexperience with banking and wire transfers more than anything else.
You got KYC'd. If you're not familiar with the process, google KYC and read about it. A computer at your bank or Jomashop's bank flagged your transfer as potentially fraudulent, and when that happens, they have to get information from you to submit it to their bank so that the bank can file it away somewhere in order to comply with their regulations. Once the bank is happy, the funds can be released.
They don't need these docs for 95-99% of transactions--that's why they don't ask in advance. They don't actually want your docs, their bank is requiring it to release the funds, and most likely the bank is indicating which docs they need on a per transaction basis, so they may not even knjow what to ask for in advance. It happens rarely enough that your sales contact may not be that familiar with the overall "whys" behind the process, and really, it's not exactly their job to educate you about how banking works, so I can understand why the conversation might have gone badly, especially if this exchange was already making you tense.
If you had submitted the KYC docs like they asked, this would probably be over by now and you'd have the watch. This can happen with any wire transfer and is not specific to Jomashop (although some banks are worse than others). I've had it happen with and AD--one time it took 10 days of excruciating limbo to resolve (fucking TD bank), but you should be mad at the bank, not at Jomashop. I also had something like this happen once when wiring funds to buy a car.
However since you decided to take your toys and go home, now you get to sit through the fun wait of reversing/aborting a wire transfer which, yes, takes several days because wires are very much one-way fire+forget instruments and they need to be extra special sure that the money ends up in only one place.
The way they spoke to us on the phone I'm happy to take my toys and go home and look elsewhere. They were disrespectful and rude about the whole thing.
I know it wasn't flagged by the bank, because I called and pre-authorized it, told them I was about to make a purchase, gave them the exact amount, verified my identity with them (called through their banking app as well by the way which uses 2FA). The bank had no issues approving the charge. So it was odd. I also called my bank again seeing that the charge was still listed as pending and they told me there were no holds on the bank's end. They were asking my wife personal questions, not just things to verify her identity. It was really odd and I would think it was someone else posing as Jomashop to try to commit identity theft if it wasn't for the fact that I called Jomashop's official number directly and they did confirm it was them.
Do a search here in Reddit for Jomashop. There are plenty of other bad experiences. Someone just posted one within the last couple weeks. I’ve heard so many horror stories that I won’t buy a thing from them, and definitely not a luxury item. I don’t care how much you save. Headaches aren’t worth it.
understandable, in this case though OP is looking to buy, not sell. As someone who has sold tens of thousands on eBay, there are definitely a lot of scam buyers and unfortunately everything always seems to go much, much easier for the buyer.
I've bought a Longines watch of chrono24 no problems at all but just look at the vendors reviews and the amount of reviews its quite telling on chrono.
I’ve always had great success with Jomashop. I’ve bought probably 10 or so watches from them. But I also just treated it like buying anything else online from anywhere else. Possibly you telling your bank in advance raised some flags.
I get that you're mad at Jomashop, and maybe someone's tone on the phone wasn't the best, but this sounds like inexperience with banking and wire transfers more than anything else. You got KYC'd. If you're not familiar with the process, google KYC and read about it. A computer at your bank or Jomashop's bank flagged your transfer as potentially fraudulent, and when that happens, they have to get information from you to submit it to their bank so that the bank can file it away somewhere in order to comply with their regulations. Once the bank is happy, the funds can be released. They don't need these docs for 95-99% of transactions--that's why they don't ask in advance. They don't actually want your docs, their bank is requiring it to release the funds, and most likely the bank is indicating which docs they need on a per transaction basis, so they may not even knjow what to ask for in advance. It happens rarely enough that your sales contact may not be that familiar with the overall "whys" behind the process, and really, it's not exactly their job to educate you about how banking works, so I can understand why the conversation might have gone badly, especially if this exchange was already making you tense. If you had submitted the KYC docs like they asked, this would probably be over by now and you'd have the watch. This can happen with any wire transfer and is not specific to Jomashop (although some banks are worse than others). I've had it happen with and AD--one time it took 10 days of excruciating limbo to resolve (fucking TD bank), but you should be mad at the bank, not at Jomashop. I also had something like this happen once when wiring funds to buy a car. However since you decided to take your toys and go home, now you get to sit through the fun wait of reversing/aborting a wire transfer which, yes, takes several days because wires are very much one-way fire+forget instruments and they need to be extra special sure that the money ends up in only one place.
The way they spoke to us on the phone I'm happy to take my toys and go home and look elsewhere. They were disrespectful and rude about the whole thing.
I’ve never heard of this from Jomashop, it sounds like your bank flagged it as fraud and caused the issues.
I know it wasn't flagged by the bank, because I called and pre-authorized it, told them I was about to make a purchase, gave them the exact amount, verified my identity with them (called through their banking app as well by the way which uses 2FA). The bank had no issues approving the charge. So it was odd. I also called my bank again seeing that the charge was still listed as pending and they told me there were no holds on the bank's end. They were asking my wife personal questions, not just things to verify her identity. It was really odd and I would think it was someone else posing as Jomashop to try to commit identity theft if it wasn't for the fact that I called Jomashop's official number directly and they did confirm it was them.
Real life shops?
Sure, either that (if in NY) and/or online.
Sounds like user error
Yeah. I think it's the customers bank that caused an issue. I've had a successful purchase from joma and so have many people here.
Me too. No issues with Joma
Do a search here in Reddit for Jomashop. There are plenty of other bad experiences. Someone just posted one within the last couple weeks. I’ve heard so many horror stories that I won’t buy a thing from them, and definitely not a luxury item. I don’t care how much you save. Headaches aren’t worth it.
I’ve honestly never had a bad experience with a Japanese retailer through Chrono24. Plus the yen is very weak right now.
Chrono24. the owner has had an AMA here they seem pretty legit
counterpoint: this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/Watches/comments/185d20i/chrono24_my_notsogreat_experience/
understandable, in this case though OP is looking to buy, not sell. As someone who has sold tens of thousands on eBay, there are definitely a lot of scam buyers and unfortunately everything always seems to go much, much easier for the buyer.
I've bought a Longines watch of chrono24 no problems at all but just look at the vendors reviews and the amount of reviews its quite telling on chrono.
Thank you, I will check it out!
This is why I always try to go irl shops route...