Horology House: The Takeaway
Most of us have heard by now the drama surrounding Horology House
But for those who don’t know, Horology House, AKA Chris Essery, was a major contributor of wonderful, high quality watch content. His Instagram page featuring daily gorgeous watch shots, his populated Facebook group an Australian watch community cornerstone, and a YouTube channel with equally stunning cinematography (his videos ranged from reviews to in detailed ways to spot high quality AAA Rolex counterfeits).
One of HH’s photos showing a real and high grade fake Rolex Submariner. Makes you wonder why someone has an open channel to high grade fakes….
As someone who voiced his disdain for replicas and someone who had displayed a meticulous knowledge on how to spot them (and shared some of his tips on discerning them) what happened next would shock the watch community.
He sold someone a fake Rolex Daytona.
A redacted WhatsApp log of the latest transaction
Now, the chat logs are out there. Evidence is abound. And more and more accounts of bizarre transactions on his behalf are coming to light. I think it’s natural to want to give someone the benefit of the doubt, as nobody would want to throw away lots of hard work building a brand and online persona as polished and, allegedly, reputable as Horology House. You can do a quick search and find all the evidence, it doesn’t look good, it has all the hallmarks of a scammer and even some stooping as to leverage the natural disasters of the Australia bush fires and New Zealand volcanic eruption (complete with fake photos of “his parents house”) to buy him more time. Like I said, it’s bad, and it’s clear that this wasn’t some accidental case of an expert Rolex replica sleuth letting one slip past him (what are the chances?).
Above, chat log of Chris using a photo of a house burned in bush fires claiming it’s his parents.
The watch industry is small.
The watch industry is small. The collector industry, while slightly larger, is also small. This isn’t a post designed to bash someone for scamming someone, but one where we can hopefully suss out some ways to make this community safer and better for all of us.
In the used community, the golden rule is, “Buy the seller, not the watch.” There are a handful of accounts where HH took people’s money, provided non-functional tracking numbers, and absconded with their thousands of dollars for months on end - only to slowly pay it back, sometimes over the course of 6 or more months.
But nobody knew this. Chris asked these people not to talk about the situation. Why is that? I know many people like to give the benefit of the doubt and think in the case of having a huge following and a reputable brand, this could be more leverage to maintain that people stay quiet. Since, you know, you wouldn’t have been able to build such a following burning people. In the age where social media numbers can be inflated, agencies can be paid to accelerate growth, it’s not hard to imagine the inverse happening - a new entity pops up in a niche, cash flush, industry. The combination of beautiful photography, cinematography, fast social media growth and a relatable personage on a YouTube channel - you soon have an entity whose popularity is more based on properly feeding algorithms instead of reputable transactions.
Beautiful photos from the Horology House Instagram
Lets say that again. In this world, it’s possible to create a polished entity that grows fast and in the absence of reputable transactions. Is this what happened here? I’m certain that HH and Chris had a number of legitimate transactions. Absolutely positive. Though, the bad ones stayed suppressed, or even worse, he got away with scamming someone and they didn’t(don’t) even know. When the news first broke, we saw tons of people ignore the claims of scamming and run to his defense. Those voices seemed to quiet as more evidence came out and Chris deactivated comments on IG, left his FB group, and turned off access and comments to his YouTube channel and videos.
As a community, there needs to be some degree of policing ourselves.
I often find myself (sometimes much to my chagrin) policing false information in regards to horology (actual horology, like watchmaker stuff) in the online space. False information can be damaging to a small community and arming ourselves with correct information can be challenging but it is paramount. Trust is a huge factor in this community. Especially when it comes to buying used. Do you trust your dealer? Do you trust this shop? Trust is absolutely earned, and with watches, we’re often trusting people with large sums of money or trusting people to repair a watch worth large sums of money. Nobody wants to lose their money, nobody wants the valuable components of their irreplaceable watch damaged by a bad watchmaker. This is why trust is a cornerstone of the watch industry. Without it, there would be chaos, or at least the industry would be reduced to the only transactions happening at boutiques and the only servicing at service centers (which, lets be real, that’s absolutely the goal of many of these huge corporate brands).
So why didn’t these first few people burned by HH come forward? Not sure. For at least some of them he sent them little consolation gifts or asked them on a phone call not to disclose the embarrassing/fraudulent nature of their transaction. Aside from that, we don’t really know. The truth is, every time someone lets a scammer get away scot free (that’s a little tax joke for ya), they have free reign to select another victim and try again. So if you get scammed, or someone tries to scam you, or if someone takes your money and feeds you nonsense for 3 to 6 months on why they can’t repay you, you need to let the world know. Actual policing in an international community like this is tenuous at best.
Sometimes this happens with high dollar dealers or flippers. Sometimes these people have problems and need help. Sometimes they have money and mental health issues, maybe they have a self image issue and don’t want to be perceived as poor or struggling. I’ve seen these scenarios before, otherwise trustworthy people in the community suddenly taking money for watches they don’t have from multiple people (who stay quiet) with resolution occurring after months and/or drastic measures have been taken.
Now, offering them the help they need to stop this kind of behavior is really out of the scope of a sale or trade of a watch. The best way you can help, is to let people know and to shut the person down before they make more promises they cannot keep and dig themselves into a far deeper hole. It’s good for preserving your assets/capital. The best way to help them and to protect yourself, is to shut down shady transactions and let the world know.
Aside from, “Buy the seller, not the watch.” Other sayings like, “If it’s too good to be true, then it probably is.” “Trust your gut.” are especially true. Sometimes we need to take a step back from the transaction, is something clouding our judgement? A doctor I recently had demonstrated, “Come to your own conclusions.” saying very well. Making a challenging diagnosis that necessitated ignoring the (inaccurate) observations of doctors before her. Going into a transaction, if it smells bad, it probably is. Don’t be fooled by praises made by other people, you need to determine the veracity of a person based on your own experience. And if something goes wrong beyond bad luck and you’re dealing with a shady character, it’s up to all of us, to let the community know.
I do wish this was all a big misunderstanding with HH. Though, the aftermath and evidence suggest otherwise. This isn’t a post to bash on Chris or HH, I did thoroughly enjoy his content and was working up the gumption to speak to him in regards to doing an Orion review (really, I love his photography). This is an opportunity to make an example. To remind the community that scamming can come from anyone and how important it is for us to police ourselves and communicate with candor and document our transactions with evidence.
As more info comes to light about transactions with Chris, it seems that previous victims did speak up but their attempts were met with post removals in the Facebook group as well as bans (which would make sense in Chris’ run FB group). Subsequent rulings had the mods siding with Chris and silencing anyone with criticism. Some of these people are still waiting to get their money back.
The ultimate takeaway isn’t to blame victims, but the realization that the unfortunate onus is for victims to communicate, effectively, who the scammers are among us. If the word doesn’t get out, then nobody ever knows.
