I was really looking forward to receiving the watch, it looked great on the website, so i brought it for my brothers 40th birthday.

Everything went smoothly under i called the call centre to find out if they knew when it would ship.

First they told me it already went out, then a few days later when i chased it they told me Christoper personally passes them to DHL, that they have no copies of the tracking numbers he gets and that he had been busy so hadnt processed any.

Then i was promised it would go out asap.

I got a call that saturday from the call centre who told me DHL had been unable to locate my address and had returned the parcel to them, now although the development i live on is new, its been here for 3 years and the postcode on the order can be found on any website tracking system, e.g googlemaps etc. Royalmail, citylink, etc all have no issues finding me.

Now i know i cant blame CW for dhl's mistake but if i had been given a tracking number i could have caught this mistake and got it from dhl's depot before it was returned to CW.

Soooo, i provided some good directions to be added to the dhl delivery notes and asked for a tracking number this time so i could keep an eye on it.

I waited.

I waited some more.

I called the call centre alot of times, now apparantly they are just a general call centre for many company's, off which CW is one, so they have very little control over what happens at CW's end.

All they can do is send him an email, they gave me his mobile as well at this point, it just rings to answer phone constantly.


My Brothers 40th i've now missed, and i'm very annoyed i dont have the watch i paid for.


The biggest issue here is DHL, but in this day and age it is also ridiculous that CW doesnt provide the tracking numbers back to the call centre or customer.


Not happy at all.

On reading your story I think your Topic Header

"Very Poor Customer Service"

is just a little bit harsh but I do understand your frustration and disapointment. It sounds as though it was totally DHL,s fault rather than CWL's. More than likely if your housing estate is relatively new then your address was not listed in the delivery drivers sat nav and he wasted no time in trying to find you which I agree is a pity. I have bought a few items from CWL now and luckily I have had excellent service every time but I have to say apart from one via DHL the others were all delivered via Royal Mail.

I suspect though that you are also partly to blame. I say that because no matter how good a company actually is when a purchase is made via mail order then the real test is down to the delivery company. It appears to me you simply left your purchase for a special day too late which allowed no margin of error. That is a dangerous thing to do when you are relying on mail order delivery for a special occasion no matter which company you buy from. I suspect this has to be the case because I have had every CWL purchase delivered to me here in the UK within 48 hours of the order being submitted so you must have left things very tight unless of course the watch was out of stock. Alas even the big boys can get it wrong hence DHL's cockup. No matter what you bought or where you bought it from via mail order then if it was going to get delivered by DHL it looks like at least in your case that it was not going to get there.

Hopefully though everything will get sorted. I am sure Christopher will be upset to read this and will try to address it because from what I see that is what the man does. I am sure it will upset him to find a customer who feels let down. I dont know why he might not have answered the telephone number you were given which is unfortunate. Perhaps he is on holiday. I am sure though that once your brother does get his new watch that he will be very happy with it and that any initial disapointment will soon be forgotten.

I've spoken to Chris and we've discovered the helpdesk are giving out the wrong contact number for him, hence why i was unable to speak to him to resolve this earlier.

Now i am actually in contact with CW direct we should be able to resolve this, i'll let people know how it goes

Although I love CW watches, I had a bad experience as well:

I tried to order my watch with Safari, but wasn't sure if it went through so I said to cancel the order if it went through and that I would try again with Firefox. I bought it for my birthday and I the order went through quite a bit ahead of my birthday. CW kept putting the delivery date further and further back, I was not pleased. On my birthday my watch was delivered by my neighbour. What? What the hell happened? I was all wallowing in my own WIS withdrawal and this watch came. I was happy, and thought some mistake had happened at CW. DHL shouldn't had given this £170 un-traceable item to a stranger, and I told CW that. One or two days later another watch came, exactly the same from the second order. The first watch was from the canceled order. DHL sucks and the CW site doesn't work properly with Safari.

All my CW-watches where ordered by using Safari, and I didn't experience any trouble...

Most of the pages went through okay, but some of the last ones didn't and I didn't want to be waiting for a watch I wasn't sure that I ordered.

I'm on Intel, are you?

In that case, I would've called the call centre's number to verify my order.

(But then again, all of my watches have been ordered by email, so who am I? )

President wrote:CW kept putting the delivery date further and further back, I was not pleased. On my birthday my watch was delivered by my neighbour.

I know Chris (and many other watch makers) is having a hard time getting the movements. I don't know if this is what was causing the delay though. Lucky you had a trustworthy neighbor!

Devalin, sorry to hear you have had a rough time with your purchase. It certainly doesn't create a good first impression when you have trouble on your first order. I can say that I have ordered two CWs and not had any trouble. I know it is disappointing that you weren't able to get the watch in time for your brother's birthday. That sucks! But, you can at least blame it on CW or DHL.

Unfortunately, mistakes happen. What I will be curious to see is if CW can still win you over. All companies make mistakes, for me, it's how they address them that makes the difference. Will the problem be resolved for you? Will action be taken to prevent this from happening to future customers, etc.? Hopefully, Chris can step up to the challenge. Based on my personal experience with him, I believe he can.

There is one thing to keep in mind though about CW. It is a small company, and it has got to be growing like crazy. Just 1 1/2 years ago, he had one model of watch, maybe two if the ladies was actually available then. Now, he has what, 20+ models? That is crazy growth and difficult for the best companies to manage. It is only natural there be some growing pains.

The real question though is will your brother like the watch when he gets it. Let us know what you and he thinks about the watch! And if you are still upset with your overall CW experience.

I would like to clarify: I still love CW.

But is your love reciprocated?

My experience was the exact opposite really. Thought I would chime in though as you appear to have ordered around the same time.
Ordered Sunday 24th at around 1am. Order said it hadn't gone through so phoned them up.
Spoke to a guy who was very helpful and couldn't find my order on the system, fair enough so we went through it again with him.
When we got to the delivery address (my work address) the existing order popped up as it seems to have been based on the delivery address rather than billing.
Watch arrived first thing Wednesday at work.

ChrisR wrote:Watch arrived first thing Wednesday at work.

So...which one did you get, and what do you think of it?

Thanks to CW this has now been resolved, although DHL and Roymail didnt help the issue

So i now how a lovely Peregrin chronograph in my possession, in the end i've decided to keep it myself and get my Brother something else, its just too nice to give away

Good to hear things worked out devalin!

devalin wrote:So i now how a lovely Peregrin chronograph in my possession, in the end i've decided to keep it myself and get my Brother something else, its just too nice to give away

Glad you like the watch. Which color did you get?