Especially since Michele has been around since 1940....and the CE mark, 1985. My Michele does not have this mark, and it is authentic, like many others. I think it should be more researched the year it became mandatory instead. A little reading never hurts anyone 🙂
@a_c_green wrote:
eBay wants you to return the watch to the seller before enforcing a refund because they will not get into the middle of a he-said/she-said dispute over whether the watch is or is not genuine. You yourself have been all over the place in your prior posts on that point, first saying that someone said it's a fake, then it isn't, then it's a fake again, etc. The best thing for you to do is to return the suspect watch to the seller and just buy locally next time.
My general take on your adventures to date is that you probably did get a fake, partly because it's not too difficult to find a fake Michele watch on the Internet (regardless of whether it's through eBay or via one of those Chinese "replica" watch sites), and partly because you made a passing reference to other discrepancies that you say the jeweler pointed out to you, which I assume involved the watch design or (especially) the movement inside.
Those errors in the watch design, or the presence of a cheap quartz movement inside where a house-branded movement should be found instead, are much more reliable indicators of real vs. fake. You're really getting hung up on a matter of standardized product markings used in some parts of the world but not not others, when those markings would be trivial to add by a watch forger if they felt the need. You should not hang your decision on the presence or absence of "CE" alone.
Finally, when you return the watch, be sure that you have Delivery Confirmation on the shipment (or Signature Confirmation, if the sale was $750 or higher), or else you may not get your refund if the seller claims that they have not received it back.
As for your eBay account, there's no point in closing it. Just limit your purchases to those items that can be reliably bought over the Internet. If you continue to buy designer watches on-line, regardless of whether it's through eBay or another site, you will continue to encounter fakes if buying from unreliable sellers (especially those from China, Hong Kong or other points in the Far East), so just make independent verification a part of your post-purchase routine, and be prepared for some hefty return shipping charges if needing to prove Delivery Confirmation on a return shipment going all that way back. Good luck.
