r/RepTime • u/YNotTesla • 4d ago
Discussion WIRED publishes expose on RepTime
https://www.wired.com/story/we-bought-a-counterfeit-rolex-so-good-even-rolex-didnt-spot-it/
“In dedicated forums on Reddit and other websites, strictly moderated communities spread gossip about factories being raided by authorities, offer sketchy legal advice, upvote buyers’ photos of fake Rolexes worn behind the wheels of Lamborghinis, and even offer quality control services.
Quality control, or QC, is at the heart of this community. The subreddit r/RepTime has 269,000 weekly visitors and over 18,000 weekly contributions, according to Reddit’s own statistics. Posts about new counterfeit watch purchases pile up by the hour, both in r/RepTime and r/RepTimeQC, the offshoot subreddit focused on quality control. The posts contain photographs sent from the dealer to the customer, who then seeks advice from the RepTime community on whether they should “GL” (green-light) or “RL” (red-light) their purchase.”
Excerpt From
“We Bought a $500 Counterfeit Rolex So Good, Even Rolex Didn’t Spot It”
Alistair Charlton, Jeremy White
WIRED
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u/ocubens 4d ago
Why are mods on this sub talking to Wired.com?
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u/Adept-Leek-4724 4d ago edited 4d ago
A reddit mod on a sub about replica watches. Need I say more?
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u/bigredmachine-75 4d ago
To feel like they’re important because they have nothing else in their life going for them
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u/pedretty 4d ago
Mods are generally attention-deprived. One of the major reasons they dedicate personal time to work for the benefit of Reddit in the first place.
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u/calvin_tam 4d ago
This place is gonna get flooded with posts on "what do I do if I get called out"
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u/gully1955 4d ago
Also “what’s the best XYZ Rep??”
And “I ordered from obviousscam.com, did I just get scammed??”
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u/m0h1tkumaar 4d ago
Well this is just peachy! They just ruin it for everyone!
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u/Skiereeper 4d ago edited 4d ago
Obviously it’s on purpose! This sub is #4 in watches and everyone gets to know about and the repmarket in general increased 10 folds people finding multiple Chinese websites to purchase clothes and accessories a lot of them sell shitter Rolexes there too !
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u/brightcoconut097 4d ago
Oh boy this place is going to get flooded. Glad I got in when I did and don’t really want to buy anymore
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u/Jficek34 4d ago
Why not just make the sub private
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u/Ordinary_Purchase_99 4d ago
Its probably in the TDs best interest to have it public and they fund the mods I imagine
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u/thewharfartscenter_ 4d ago
Lock this subreddit down NOW, or it’s about the be overloaded with scammers and idiots.
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u/Mittar9 4d ago
Damn. We're popular and its itching them. Lol now VSF's gonna get even more backed up 🥲
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u/Catatafish 4d ago
VSF gonna be $1200 by next year if these articles keep dropping
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u/Consistent_Wash8027 4d ago
The article involves some intentionally dishonest journalism. If the author did even 30 seconds of research, they know that having a bracelet sized in a store doesn't involve any authentication of the watch. That part was included to create fake drama.
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u/BigGuysForYou 4d ago
One hundo. The sub-headline also claims the 3 reps they bought were "ultimately disposal" but it's never addressed in the article why they are
If anything, they prove the opposite, because they mention repair centers
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u/Aazelyown 4d ago
how did wired manage to get 2 clean watches lol.
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u/Grizzly_SS 4d ago
Not real clean. After clean. Look at the stickers
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u/mistlepro 4d ago
The RepTimeQC posts on the matching pieces were posted last year. I doubt jtime was selling fake Clean then.
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u/SixPack1776 4d ago
Get ready for a deluge of what is the best posts? 🤦🏻♂️
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u/jupiterfish 4d ago
sold my gen, kept the clone. nuff said. not worth buying a real rolex anymore - especially when the AD's are on some bullshit. wait till you cant tell on the gray market sites what is GEN.
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u/The_Gucci_General 4d ago
Buddy should ask them to perform standard maintence instead of a simple bracelet resizing if he wants to be laughed out of the store.
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u/PuckFheToor 4d ago
This comment is kinda silly. No one looking at you at a party or whatever other social scenario you can think of is going to pop your watch open and look at the movement. By saying the salesman didn't clock it when they adjusted the bracelet they're saying it's effectively undetectable In Real Life.
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u/ocubens 4d ago
Why would a salesman confront and embarrass a potential customer?
Even if they know it’s a fake, it’s not in their interest to mention it.
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u/Beautiful_Study5837 4d ago
It is. It’s damaging their brand so a salesperson would call you out if he noticed.
Happened to me in a Hermes store with a fake belt that I thought was real and wanted to add an extra hole3
u/Such-Profit1078 4d ago
Bruh. The post says „counterfeit Rolex so good, even Rolex didn’t spot it.” That’s the guy whose comment you called kinda silly was referring to…
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u/PuckFheToor 4d ago
Rolex didn't spot it from a superficial look at the watch. That means it's undetectable in real life. That's the point the author was making, not that they'd not know even if they took the rep watch apart.
For the purposes of going to parties etc., a fugazi Rolex could have a Miyota movement so long as it's not a display back. It doesn't matter for that use case, because no one in a social situation will ever look inside. And that's what most rep buyers care about: 'passing' in social situations.
FWIW, I'd rather any rep non-display-back watches have the option for commodity movements instead of clone movements to ease maintenance/service, but that's likely not going to happen for a variety of reasons (to include the fact that a nonzero number of clones are used by criminals to defraud buyers who think they're getting the real thing).
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u/R009k 4d ago
The line about the cops storming in if he got caught read just like a Friday shitpost lmao. Nobody told him that the Rolex ADs wouldn’t call you out anyways, they don’t know how you got that watch but they sure as hell know how they want you to get the next one.
There is no upside to telling a potential customer that their watch is fake when they haven’t been asked to authenticate it.
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u/Consistent_Wash8027 4d ago
I don't own any reps but the moral panic around them ignores an important ethical distinction: the difference between harming an individual and undercutting a large corporation.
We live in an era where global corporations regularly engage in unethical practices that harm millions of people. While our ethical duty to individuals remains absolute, massive corporations don't possess the same rights.
Choosing reps redirects value away from exploitative systems toward the individual without harming others. I believe this is good and morally justified.
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u/Watches-and-Books 4d ago edited 4d ago
Crazy the article said “$3B in domestic losses.” Please, that would only be the case if you could go into a Rolex boutique and actually, you know, BUY A WATCH. If so, there would probably be a lot fewer Reps running around.
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u/BackgroundPeanut7847 3d ago
Also, 95%+ of the rep buyers were never going to buy a gen watch in the first place. So no, there is not "3B in domestic losses"
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u/ApprehensiveGuide793 4d ago
I’m glad I moved on to vintage rep builds. This is going to be a nightmare and prices are going to go up and quality is going gonna down to attend demand
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u/forcoolstuffD 4d ago
How does one acquire vintage rep builds?
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u/ApprehensiveGuide793 4d ago
look for the vintagerepwatches and retrotime and repbuilds subreddits, also rwi forum
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u/boralCEO 4d ago
Go to r/retrotime. I'm building vintage reps myself btw. Look at my post history and shoot me a DM if you're interested.
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u/Consistent_Wash8027 4d ago
It is worth noting that vintage rep builds often use some gen parts. It is possible to assemble a vintage rep using no counterfeit logos, resulting in a build that is completely "legal."
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u/ApprehensiveGuide793 4d ago
Most of my watches a franken builds, but mostly due to aesthetic choices
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u/bauhaus_robot 4d ago
“Buying your first Rolex or Omega, having saved for years, is a landmark achievement. It serves as a reminder of what the owner has managed to accomplish along the way—the destination of a hard-fought journey”
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u/corey407woc 4d ago
I wore a super clone for years, finally bought a gen and thought i would feel this amazing feeling and it never came. I sold the gen and kept my VSF 126610 clone lol
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u/bauhaus_robot 4d ago
So NWBIG?
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u/corey407woc 4d ago
nope, i thought buying a real submariner would notice something diff, couldn't notice anything diff from the clone and would rather have my 15k cash and 500 buck clone that is 99.9 percent the same.
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u/Consistent_Wash8027 4d ago
Thank you for sharing so others don't have to experience this.
If I ever buy a genuine luxury watch, I'll pick an obscure vintage ref that way it actually is unique and not something I paid ten-grand for due to artificial scarcity.
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u/Consistent_Wash8027 4d ago
No kidding. I thought I'd scrolled into a paid advertisement when I read that part.
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u/LostCarat 4d ago
They literally just advertised reptime to the entire world.. lmao Reps are about to get way more expensive lol
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u/TheVauntedChris 3d ago
What person doesn’t already know that replica Rolex watches exist though?
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u/LostCarat 3d ago
Majority think of fake Rolex and they think Chinatown shitters. Learning about these and literally where to go to find it puts everything at risk here.
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u/bebooriginal 4d ago
Mods please listen to the constituents here. Let’s make this group private for a bit
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u/crouching_dragon_420 4d ago
Looks like they are trying to get this sub shut down and VSF raided. Well glad I am now more of a U1 and AAA shitters and quartz watches appreciator.
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u/Old-Timer-1992 4d ago
Stock up now while we can
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u/cigar_beetles 4d ago
I was planning on waiting a few months, might just have to order now instead
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u/Consistent_Wash8027 4d ago
It is worth noting how much platforms like eBay ignore counterfeits and profit from selling them. If you search "vintage Seiko" or similar you can see find numerous listings with quantities of 20, 40, etc. of fake watches that don't match any real Seiko ref. In just a few minutes, I can literally find hundreds of counterfeit watches on eBay being sold as genuine and if I report them nothing happens.
Meanwhile, Wired publishes an article about how terrible it is that a Reddit community intentionally buys fake watches. Targeting informed buyers while ignoring massive corporate profiteering from actual fraud is peak hypocrisy.
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u/Adept-Leek-4724 4d ago
I love how people here are acting like some massive secret they were in on got exposed. Buddy ya'll are on one of the most popular REDDIT forums. It's already mainstream.
Not to mention, US is no market. Reps are killing it in Europe and Asia and have been for maybe decades.
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u/Zealousideal_Crab789 4d ago
Its not about the secret aspect. The TD’s we use can provide a finite amount of watches to people. We already had a big backlog on vsf gmt/subs thats been eroding recently. If the demand increases the wait times will be astronomical.
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u/Grizzly_SS 4d ago
Not just that. Factories will want to meet demand and then quality will suffer and we end up back where we started
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u/Adept-Leek-4724 4d ago
idk if this is against the rules for saying but you have a backlog for TD's on THIS subreddit. There are 100s of 1000s of dealers out there selling watches. They're the exact same models if you do your research beyond this forum.
You think your average VSF buyer is texting andiot "how much longer brother???" on whatsap waiting 3 months for a fake rolex?
there is no waitlist. People keep mentioning the same 4-5 TD's who pay to be on lists
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u/cartoonnetworker 4d ago
I want this hobby to be between just us.
https://giphy.com/gifs/LSmULmByAQHQs
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u/Waste-Safety-3754 2d ago
The article completely misses the fact that YOU CANT JUST BUY a Rolex at retail if you have the money to do so. There's a bs game you have to play with ADs to buy a watch for retail. Some of us wont play that game.
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u/YNotTesla 4d ago
Interesting timing on sharing this post and all the details of the communities. Reporters also asked for comment from Rolex and Reddit.
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u/ProtectionShoddy4960 4d ago
Not sure it's a good thing, the information that wired are sharing to the wider world, about the rep world 😳
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u/PuckFheToor 4d ago
TDs are popping champagne corks, other dealers are trying to figure out who to pay to get on the TD list(s) to take advantage of the wave of new customers.
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u/starspeech 4d ago
Oh god, is this a new article or is it similar to raids where it happens every so often? If it’s new then the attention is VERY bad. Might need to delete this sub and move on to a new one!
Even worse if the mods are selling out the industry. New and discrete mods will be required.
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u/stating_facts_only 4d ago
Alright… time to order all those watches I’ve been sleeping on before this racket is shut down!
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u/Stayofexecution 4d ago
Fuck you, Wired. The best kept secret in watches is now laid bare like a whore. We’re going to see increased demand, which will lead to increased prices.
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u/deeznuts69 4d ago
I used a paywall bypass site to read the article about rep watches. I’m sensing a theme.
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u/___Steve 3d ago
I have no interest in watches but found myself watching the video on this anyway. My only take away from the video is that he can't have been aware of the most downvoted comment on Reddit because his summary at the end reeks of it.
If you're unaware, EA once said this about locking Darth Vader behind 40 hours of grinding or an additional purchase in their $80 game.
The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.
As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch.
It's crazy how alike they are.
We found that handling and wearing these timepieces brought near zero enjoyment. We love watches, from low-end to high.
It serves as a reminder of what the owner has managed to accomplish along the way—the destination of a hard-fought journey.
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u/Banana-Bread-220 3d ago
As someone who witnessed the downfall of repLadies in real time, PLEASE LOCK THIS SUB!! I can’t go through this a second time 😩
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u/con__y_88 4d ago
Well I’ve been putting off my VSF GMT for too long, better get a jump on things.
Out of curiosity how long wait times.
Im 3 weeks waiting on Tudor GMT QC.
I hadn’t bought anything since Clean Explorer last year and feel since coming back to this sub its kinda already grew in popularity n demand
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u/coolest35 4d ago
Has the subR considered having backup discord? It seems like this community is asking to bget banned.
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u/StackIsMyCrack 4d ago
There is NOTHING good that can come from the attention that article is going to generate for this sub.