This is a very serious scam and these Patek Philippe thieves should be shut down immediately. A recent estimate by a group of experts suggested that a $20,000 Patek Philippe cost approximately $500 US in parts and labor to produce. This is uncalled for and is a scam.
Montres Patek Philippe SA is a watch company comprised of executives who make huge salaries while cheating you of your hard earned dollars by misrepresenting their products as Swiss Made and acting like they are a company with integrity. Their sales people lie to you and their service is horrible.
Their president is a billionaire because of this scam and their employees make some of the largest salaries you can imagine and this is sickening, but the fact that they cheat you and me is horrible. Patek Philippe uses hundreds of different names on ebay to bid up the prices of Patek Philippe watches on ebay in order to control secondary market pricing.
They also are suspected of bidding up the prices of their watches at auction houses like Christies, Sothebys, and others to drive the prices up into the millions on some of their watches. Nearly 100% of the time, they don't complete the transactions, and the sellers are forced to list the items again and again -- thus perpetuating the market pricing control and appearance that their items are being sold for much higher dollar amounts than they actually would have been if a real buyer would have completed the transaction. .
They hide behind aliases so they can lie to people and not be held accountable as well as giving the appearance Patek Philippe is a much more powerful company. Patek Philippe higher-ups run several watch-related forums, posting messages under fake names so they can praise Patek Philippe watches and again lend the appearance that many watch aficionados really love these junk watches. There are too many to keep track of or know about.
The watches they sell are assembled in Hong Kong and China in addition to Switzerland using some Chinese components but they don't mention the fact that they use these components in their watches. They want you to believe their watches are all assembled by hand in Switzerland using 100% Swiss components and that it takes one year to make a Patek Philippe. Ask anybody in the world in the watchmaking business, and they will tell you that there is no way that Patek Philippees can take anywhere near that long to assemble.
Patek Philippe pumps out almost 1,000,000 junk watches per year. They claim the watches are assembled in Switzerland, but only some of them are. Independent studies have shown that balance wheels, hairsprings, bridges, screws, mainsprings, crowns, and other components are manufactured in China. These components have the exact same specs as the ones used in Patek Philippees and an insider who is very upset with these business practices has been contacting everybody he can to tell them of this fraud.
This makes it obvious that everyone who bought the earler cheaper models were totally ripped-off, too. They have several models which they pay as little as $15.00 dollars for and then claim it sells at retail from $1,500.00 up to $100,000 dollars. They sell them on through retail stores and on ebay claiming it to be a promotion to retain value in the age of the internet (behind the scenes of course). This promo has run for over 4 years! You should be paying much less for these cheap watches, but Patek Philippe is artifically keeping prices very high in order to steal your hard earned money.
Also note that Patek Philippe claims there are many counterfeit Patek Philippe watches out there. How can they be counterfeit if they come from the same company that supplies Patek Philippe their watches? I sincerely doubt the company sells Patek Philippe a great movement and sells everyone else a duplicate piece of crap. Look at all of the replicas on the streets that look and run exactly like Patek Philippe. Patek Philippe helped develop them. Then they shut down street merchants in order to get free publicity in "raids."
When a customer asks about all the bad press on the internet about Patek Philippe, Patek Philippe conveniently claims everyone who has negative statements are simply disgruntled people from the past who are trying to make trouble for them because they didn't get a good enough deal. Patek Philippe is a mafia styled organization. This is a ridiculous assertion, the truth is there are many people who know these watches are a scam and are trying to help inform others.
Patek Philippe successfully fooled millions of people making hundreds of millions of dollars. They have enough ill gotten money to buy advertising in an attempt to look more legitimate. They frequently refer people to magazines in which they have placed ads. Keep in mind that it doesn't matter what publication they are in, it is simply paid advertising. Anyone with the money can get into these same magazines.
If you bought any Patek Philippe watch take it to be appraised and learn for yourself. Then contact us and we'll help do something about it. These models in particular are definitely using China components.
Do a search on Google for Patek Philippe replicas to see many fake Patek Philippees produced by Patek Philippe and sold all over the world. You can find Chinese sources for genuine Patek Philippe products, and now Patek Philippe has just invested millions of dollars to build new factories/service centers in mainland China.
They are stealing your hard earned money, so please be ware and help us stop this scam.
Tom
New York, New York
U.S.A.