Two months, four hour-long round trips, and the crystal I asked for still hasn't been replaced…read more
I brought in an old Waltham -- nothing valuable, just a watch I like and wanted to wear -- for a service, a new crystal, and a new strap. I was told up front the work would cost more than the watch is worth. I appreciated that honesty and chose to move forward anyway. That was the last thing about this experience I can praise.
A month passed with no word. When I finally called, I learned my phone number had been entered wrong. The strap still hadn't arrived. After a fifth week I gave up on it and picked the watch up as-is -- only to find at home that the crystal hadn't been replaced either, despite the work order plainly saying to replace it. Instead, someone had buffed the original plastic. I never requested that, was never asked about it, and it appeared nowhere on the work order. I was charged about $35 for it.
They offered to credit that $35 toward the crystal, so I drove back and dropped the watch off a second time. Weeks later it came back untouched again -- and not because of a backlog or a delay in starting. It went to their in-house watchmaker, who had it in hand, did nothing to it, and returned it with "replace crystal?" scrawled across a work order that already said, in plain English, to replace the crystal. The one instruction on the ticket came back to me as a question. I was then told the owner and the watchmaker were both leaving for three weeks, so my choices were an untouched watch or another month of waiting.
At pickup, Karen at the counter was pleasant and professional, as the front-of-house staff have been throughout. From around the corner, the owner Sean volunteered "yeah, I buffed it." When I replied that we'd already discussed the buffing and it wasn't what I asked for, he raised his voice: "I'll talk about it when I'm done with what I'm doing." He started the exchange, then treated my answer as an interruption.
When we did talk, he repeated the buffing point, and when I noted we'd covered it, told me I was repeating myself. He argued the watch "wasn't due back until 8/7, so it's not late" -- irrelevant, since his own staff had just told me three more weeks. He then corrected me that his vacation was "more like two weeks," as though I'd invented a number I was only repeating back from his employee.
I asked for a refund of the $35 for work I never authorized. He flatly refused -- he doesn't refund "services provided." He added that he stands behind his work and had already made it right by crediting that same $35 toward a crystal replacement that, seven weeks in, hasn't happened.
Smaller thing, same pattern: an employee kindly measured the lugs so I could order a strap online and told me 18mm. The 18mm strap doesn't fit. Now I have a return to process too.
The counter staff are genuinely kind and I have no complaint about them. I'm also told the internal service was performed, and I have no reason to dispute it -- though I can't verify it myself, and at this point I'm taking it on faith I don't have much of. But four trips, seven weeks, a charge I never approved, no apology, and no accommodation is enough. I can't recommend Keegan's for watch service, crystal replacement, or straps.
