As a certified Old Grump it is with some pleasure that I relay the thoughts of Bob Corder on WatchPro. His take? That Rolex forums and YouTubers are making it easy for fakers by giving them instant feedback on the quality of their fakes.
Anthony Fabianco, co-founder of Watch Certification Services of America (Watch CSA), a specialist in authenticating luxury watches for trade customers, says super fakes are a growing problem because the quality keeps on rising.
?The tier one counterfeiters of these super fakes are moving so fast with improvements. They monitor forums that share information about how consumers can spot fakes, and then immediately address those issues in the watches they make,? Mr Fabianco tells WatchPro.
The problem is getting worse because, while the total number of fake watches manufactured every year may be stable at around 40 million pieces, the quality from a handful of the most advanced Chinese factories is increasing.
Video is hard. You can make money, but you have to produce content a mass-market wants and the mass market loves fake watches. While sites like WWR can putter along putting up Casios and things, nothing gets the eyeballs like a Submariner.
After the massive House of Horology fiasco in which a fake watch was sold as genuine by a “trusted” seller, almost every watch is now suspect. Fakers simply have to watch to see what the forums and YouTubers notice and fix those small things. It’s essentially an arms race and the guy with the bigger budget, aka the fakers, is guaranteed a win.
It just goes to show you that the more you spend on a watch the bigger the chance you’re getting scammed.
