Watch Arrived

Tim is fortunate to have some very nice jewelry. One of the pieces was Frank Muller watch that her mom left to her. It was yellow gold with diamonds around the side, and a small sapphire on the knob. The sapphire was broken.

In June of last year, a month before she left for Thailand, Tim sent the watch into a jeweler to get it repaired. She didn't have the certificate of authenticity, so apparently Frank Muller wouldn't repair it. The jewelery store had done extensive work with a jeweler in California who was skilled in this area, so they sent the watch to him.

After Tim left, I received a phone call from the jewelery store. The box containing the watch arrived at the jewelery store, but the watch was missing. Someone had pulled it out of the package and absconded with it. As I'm listening to the manager tell me this, I'm thinking "oh damn, you've got to be f'n kidding me." Before I could voice any concern or objection, he told me that we did not need to worry, that they had insured the watch prior to sending it.

It seems that on more than one occasion that the pieces that they sent to this jeweler had been intercepted and stolen. It appeared as if someone on the inside knew that these packages contained valuable merchandise. The jewelery store suspected it was someone who worked for the delivery service (I won't use its name, but think of the color brown), but they couldn't prove it. The previous stolen shipments had been "self-insured"; that is they relied on their own insurance company to cover the losses. The deliver company did not show any interest in investigating the thefts.

As I mentioned, when they shipped Tim's watch, they insured the package for the value of the watch. When it was stolen, the delivery company had to pay for the content. Perhaps not surprisingly, they took the matter much more seriously when the theft actually cost them money. After a few weeks of investigation, they agreed to pay the claim.

Right before I left for Thailand at the beginning of August, the jewelery store called and laid out our options. They would replace the watch or pay us the value of the insurance. We exchanged some back and forth emails, and in the excitement and confusion of moving to Thailand, I let the matter go for a few months. A big part of the reason is that the jewelery store's response to a couple of my emails ended up in my spam folder, and I forgot. I also wasn't in an enormous hurry, as the watch was going to be shipped to my brother in the U.S. There was no way we would ship it to Thailand.

I spoke to the jewelry store in October, and told them that we wanted the watch. Tim actually didn't like the yellow gold, and instead was able to order the same watch in white gold. The jeweler said that there was a six to nine month wait for the watch. The wait wasn't really important, as it was going to be much longer than that before the watch ever adorned Tim's wrist.

The new watch arrived in the mail today. I am not sure if Tim wants me to bring it with us, or to put it in our safe deposit box. In any case, its good to have the watch back.

I'll have to say that I was very pleased with how the jeweler (Picciones', located near Cleveland) handled things. They were very responsive to our inquiries, and made sure that Tim was made whole. There were actually two big positives to the entire thing. First, Tim got the color of the watch that she really wanted. Secondly, we didn't have to pay for the original watch to be repaired.