Rotary Watches

bumblegee

Hi

I wonder if someone could help please? My husband bought me a Rotary Watch for our tenth anniversary. It had diamonds in, it was a skeleton watch and an automatic time piece (not a battery one or a wind up one). It stopped working after a year, but it took me a while to return it to Rotary (one year, eight months to be exact) as we couldn't find the receipt for a while.

It supposedly has a lifetime guarantee and I received a letter from Rotary stating that they couldn't fix it (they no longer had the parts) and to choose one from their website to the same RRP as my watch. They offered several alternatives in the letter (which were all men's watches).

I was slightly upset as it held a lot of sentimental value and my husband has chosen it for me. But I thought,hey hoo and went to have a look at what they had available. I struggled to find anything around the same RRP - most were a lot more or a lot less. I really wanted an automatic watch again but for a ladies one the cheapest one is £150 over the RRP of my watch (mine was £399). So I emailed to ask what my options were and they want me to pay the difference.

To get a watch that is automatic, skeletal and has diamonds in, they only have one and it is £250 more than mine.

I said I didn't like any for the RRP (I can't afford to pay extra) so could I have a refund on my watch please? And they've said no, as I bought it from H Samuels and not them.

Do I have any rights? Or are the basically squeezing money out of me, or I have to take a much cheaper watch?

Thank you in advance for your help.
Claire

paddyrg

You're entirely reliant on Rotary's goodwill if you deal direct with them. If you want a (partial) refund, you need to ask H Samuel under your statutory consumer rights.

NotRichAtAll

I bought it from H Samuels

Do H Samuels sell stuff with diamonds in? Sorry Op am just messing with you

Keep_pedalling

Rotary don't make the movements, and at that price mark the watch will probably contain a fairly standard Chinese movement.

That is not nessasarily a bad thing, as any repairer of machanical watches should be able to fix it, but it sounds like Rotary don't want to go to the trouble of doing that, as it's probably cheaper for them just to let you have a new watch bearing in mind the kind of mark up these things have.

agrinnall

If you hang on for a while MSE's resident horologist will probably come along and should hopefully offer some pertinent suggestions for how to proceed (quite possibly along the lines of Keep pedalling's post).

Airkraft

bumblegee wrote: »

Hi

I wonder if someone could help please? My husband bought me a Rotary Watch for our tenth anniversary. It had diamonds in, it was a skeleton watch and an automatic time piece (not a battery one or a wind up one). It stopped working after a year, but it took me a while to return it to Rotary (one year, eight months to be exact) as we couldn't find the receipt for a while.

It supposedly has a lifetime guarantee and I received a letter from Rotary stating that they couldn't fix it (they no longer had the parts) and to choose one from their website to the same RRP as my watch. They offered several alternatives in the letter (which were all men's watches).

I was slightly upset as it held a lot of sentimental value and my husband has chosen it for me. But I thought,hey hoo and went to have a look at what they had available. I struggled to find anything around the same RRP - most were a lot more or a lot less. I really wanted an automatic watch again but for a ladies one the cheapest one is £150 over the RRP of my watch (mine was £399). So I emailed to ask what my options were and they want me to pay the difference.

To get a watch that is automatic, skeletal and has diamonds in, they only have one and it is £250 more than mine.

I said I didn't like any for the RRP (I can't afford to pay extra) so could I have a refund on my watch please? And they've said no, as I bought it from H Samuels and not them.

Do I have any rights? Or are the basically squeezing money out of me, or I have to take a much cheaper watch?

Thank you in advance for your help.
Claire

As per the wording of the guarantee, Rotary can repair or replace at their discretion ... FREE OF CHARGE.

There is no goodwill needed - it is part of the purchase contract.
It may be they will only deal with your husband as the original purchaser, but I'm sure that will not cause any difficulty, will it?

theonlywayisup

Airkraft wrote: »

As per the wording of the guarantee, Rotary can repair or replace at their discretion ... FREE OF CHARGE.

There is no goodwill needed - it is part of the purchase contract.
It may be they will only deal with your husband as the original purchaser, but I'm sure that will not cause any difficulty, will it?

Did you miss the bit in the OP that said....

I received a letter from Rotary stating that they couldn't fix it (they no longer had the parts)

And there is a lengthy explanation thereafter about choosing a replacement and it not being suitable.

Airkraft

theonlywayisup wrote: »

Did you miss the bit in the OP that said....



And there is a lengthy explanation thereafter about choosing a replacement and it not being suitable.

No, I didn't miss anything.

I simply advised the OP as to what she could expect from the guarantee

Do you have any advice you are able to offer the OP in her current predicament?

agrinnall

Airkraft wrote: »

As per the wording of the guarantee, Rotary can repair or replace at their discretion ... FREE OF CHARGE.

There is no goodwill needed - it is part of the purchase contract.

But they haven't done either - they refuse to repair, and they have declined to offer a direct replacement.

Joe_Horner

As per keep pedalling's post ( ) the movement will be a more or less stock movement - either Chinese or Miyota (Japanese).

The problem is that Rotary don't repair movements - they "repair" watches by replacing the movement as a complete unit. So, if the particular movement they used in yours has been discontinued, there's not much they can do with it.

Unfortunately, not many watchmakers like working on Chinese units because historically their quality was pretty suspect and reputations die hard when you'e spent too many hours trying to get something to just hold together long enough to get the back back on!

That's not true anymore - if you want to you can pay over £2000 for a Chinese movement and it certainly isn't junk at that level! In the mid range, where Rotary would be buying, they provide perfectly adequate movements that service quite nicely, although it's often cheaper to replace if still available.

On that basis, if they'll let you have a replacement and keep the old one "for sentimental reasons" the way forward might be to choose a daily watch from whatever the price covers then get yours repaired elsewhere for dress use

paddyrg

Airkraft wrote: »

As per the wording of the guarantee, Rotary can repair or replace at their discretion ... FREE OF CHARGE.

There is no goodwill needed - it is part of the purchase contract.

I haven't seen the guarantee terms and OP doesn't provide them, however the OP bought the watch from H Samuel, and so that is with whom the contract is formed.