Timefactors - A Cautionary Tale
What if there were a UK based Internet watch vendor, who sold quality watches from such old, established and well respected names such as Smiths and Precista? Obviously, my review title gives the game away and yes it is Timefactors, who I believe are a family run concern. All of the above “factors” definitely attracted me to their website and to lots of the products shown therein. I quickly discovered that online purchases could only be made when the site owner decides to open the purchase checkout page.
It seems that purchases can be achieved on a fairly regular basis, possibly as much as once or twice a month but that facility is definitely not there at all times.
I contacted Timefactors about a watch, which from the description, I was really keen to acquire. They assured me that their website checkout page would be open within a few days...So I waited and at the allotted time, purchased my favoured watch, a Precista PRS-10. Having paid almost an additional £10 in UK shipping charges, the watch arrived at my door just 2 days later. So far, everything is great, delivery time is great and having unwrapped my purchase, the watch looked great too!
It was when checking the watch for blemishes that I immediately noticed there was a problem with the alignment of the seconds hand. It started off fully aligned with the dial markers, but then drifted quickly and quite significantly. By the time the seconds hand had reached the 35 second point, it was ticking fully halfway between the seconds markers.
As I was not happy with this situation, I contacted the vendor. They were prompt in replying, stating that the behaviour I witnessed was quite normal for the Swiss quartz movement installed in this particular watch.
They also pointed me to an Internet forum post, the link to which was included in their email....So all is still good!
Having digested the most relevant parts of that forum thread and still not happy with my purchase, I contacted Timefactors again. This time, their tone was entirely different. I believe I can accurately describe the change in tone as confrontational. I was told "if you had done your research you would have known how it performs and probably wouldn’t have ordered it and wasted both our time" - I will leave it to the reader to decide if they find this kind of response from a business rude or offensive. From this point on, I certainly wasn't happy with Timefactors. To be honest, I don't know what Eddie at Timefactors expected to achieve by sending such a message. However, I do know that he successfully alienated at least one of his customers.
By the way, when carefully checking the Timefactors website, I found no mention of the seconds hand drifting out of alignment on the Pricista PRS‑10. Had such a statement existed, I would not have been even remotely interested in owning the watch.
Poor show Timefactors!
9. August 2021
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