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Ordering From Cousins


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I saw a thread that lead me to CousinsUK and I found a great selection at great prices. I placed my order online and it rejected my credit card. So I made an International call to place my order. I talked to a women and placed the order on the 17th of April at 130pm GMT. They charged my card £10.00 and my order is still being picked in the warehouse.

I can't email them and I don't want to make another international call. I used a card that only has the amount of £'s needed with enough room to spare. What was the £10.00 for and does it take awhile for them to dispatch the order?

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I talked to my card holder and they tried to charge me the whole amount and the £10.00. I went ahead and ordered from Cas-ker. I needed my order for a job. :-(.

Cousins has no way for me to get a hold of them except international calls. I spent 30 minutes on hold.

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I suppose that if you were in such a hurry cousinsuk would not have worked for you so you probably did the right thing. Depending on your location, it takes about 3 weeks to reach the US and that is after all the processing is done. The nice part is that they are very dependable and, according to my experience, one of the best suppliers around ban none (considering price, selection and available stock) on either side of the pond.

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I want to buy a timegraph and I will use cousins because of their selection and price!

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It's still worthwhile shopping around to find the best price - good luck :)

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  • 1 year later...

Hello, 

If anyone from cousins is here, help! 

I put an item on backorder, it eventually came off my back order bit on the website. Which was a Yay! But, it's not arrived, I can't chase it because it's not invoiced, I can't find ANYWHERE on the website where I can remotely even send them a message, and the phone line is only there for sales. 

The green button thing just pushes you around the website... 

Help! 

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16 minutes ago, rbfesquire said:

Hello, 

If anyone from cousins is here, help! 

I put an item on backorder, it eventually came off my back order bit on the website. Which was a Yay! But, it's not arrived, I can't chase it because it's not invoiced, I can't find ANYWHERE on the website where I can remotely even send them a message, and the phone line is only there for sales. 

The green button thing just pushes you around the website... 

Help! 

Stop the press! Its just been updated. However I still stand by Cousins being the least customer friendly website I have ever come across! 

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9 hours ago, rbfesquire said:

I put an item on backorder, it eventually came off my back order bit on the website. Which was a Yay! But, it's not arrived, I can't chase it because it's not invoiced, I can't find ANYWHERE on the website where I can remotely even send them a message, and the phone line is only there for sales.

The phone is for anything that you need, they are nice people to talk with. 

I also have no problem whatsoever with the website and find it excellent for both the desktop and mobile version.

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5 minutes ago, rbfesquire said:

I find the website awesome, truly. But I just couldn't navigate that side of things. Its my go to place for, well, anything really.

Yes, Items are ordered logically, it works smooth and easy. No advertising. Search function works. Order management / dashboard works. They were nice and helpful every single time I have contacted overs the phone or using the messaging system. Well done Cousins, really.

Edited by jdm
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5 minutes ago, rbfesquire said:

I'm not slating them. I was just looking for another way of contacting them other than the phone...

You can post a question about an existing item, or even ask to add one, or an issue about returns.

E.g. Dashboard - > My support Inbox -> + Online support -> Products and Stock -> Missing product specifications.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think that cousins website is fantastic, i love nothing more than being able to do everything online, however, i think cousins as a company are terrible. The amount of movements I've had from them that just DO NOT work is unbelievable! and they couldn't care less - quoting their business to business trading agreement and how they can offer their amazingly low prices because they have agreements with suppliers to not accept returns - its ridiculous! if something is broken its broken!! their prices may be the best, but not when i have to buy a second movement because the first didn't work! 

PS - the 'available on request' facility is useless too, a couple of times I've requested items and they don't even acknowledge it.

Edited by Paul78
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  • 1 year later...

Greetings all,


While in the process of searching for vintage watch parts, I have often found that Cousins is about the only place that shows them in inventory. Because of this, I have ordered probably 4 batches of parts from them. I have also found that it's always a challenge to find the right part numbers in order to avoid throwing money away on parts that won't work. I think it's difficult for us, and it's challenging for suppliers.

That said, I've been a bit frustrated with my Cousins orders of late. Maybe it's my fault because I'm a relative newbie to wrist-watch work, and the fact that there are some many makes and models and parts numbers, that it can be tough to narrow it down. My last order I built around a crystal that I needed. In other words, there would have been no order if I didn't need the crystal. Still, I figured if I'm placing an overseas order I might as well add a few other items. After the order was shipped, I noticed that the invoice showed that the crystal order had been cancelled, but the rest of the order was on its way. Gah! I inquired of Cousins about what I could do in the future to avoid having an order sent until the "anchor" part(s) was in inventory, etc. I was told that they keep their site up to date so if it shows "in stock" it's in stock, and vice-versa. Well, that wasn't the case with the crystals, as they showed inventory when I ordered them and the order went through until it came time to grab them from the shelf. Moving along...

In the same order was another of the more important parts in the order, an escape-wheel cap-jewel for an AS1240. Before ordering, I went to the Cousins site and searched under "AS1240, All Parts". Up came a list of parts that I took to be for an AS1240. When I got to the cap-jewel there was a number in the column to the right. It was something like AS1193330. The AS1193 part of the number had me a touch concerned that it was for another model. Since there is an AS1193 model, and it too is an 8 3/4 L, I figured it must interchange with the 1240. There was no image of the part. It wasn't super cheap at around $8.50 American dollars, so I tried to be careful not to order the wrong thing. Well, it got here with the crystal-less order and it is indeed the wrong thing. So I'm curious, where did I go wrong on the ordering? Or was it Cousins' database that would be wrong to have it listed with AS1240 parts? My absorbing the cost may hinge on which one of us was in error, me or Cousins. What would you say? I suspect I'll get the hard-line from Cousins on it. It won't be the end of the world either way. What it does do is make me a bit more hesitant to buy from overseas if I'm losing the benefit of the bargain this way.

Any help is appreciated, as I'm relatively new to the world of (mostly) Swiss wrist-watches. Thanks ahead of time. Cheers.
 

 

Edited by MrRoundel
Correct Typo
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Cousins search function is funky. It returns a lot of bogus results. I just tried your search, and it certainly did come up with parts that were not AS1240. If I specified cap jewel,  it came up with no results.

My impression is that Cousins does not do returns unless the part is defective or was shipped incorrectly, being a wholesaler they expect you to know what you want :-)

Learning how to navigate the minefield of watch parts purchasing is part of learning the repair game, and I don't think it's going to get any easier over time. 

Don't get discouraged, though, just don't make any assumptions, and verify what you are ordering before you pull the trigger!

 

Cheers

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25 minutes ago, dadistic said:

Thanks for you input, dadistic. I will certainly be more careful in the future. One problem is that Cousins is overseas, so contacting via phone isn't as easy. Like I said, live and learn. I just wish there was a parts place in the USA with a similar inventory to Cousins'. Oh well, wish in one hand...Cheers.

BTW: The part was called "lower cap jewel with end-piece" in their inventory.

Quote

Don't get discouraged, though, just don't make any assumptions, and verify what you are ordering before you pull the trigger!

 

Cheers

 

Edited by MrRoundel
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Nothing helpful to say only I just recently had an issue with their availability display. I wanted a tube of molykote 111, ordered it when it said it was in stock, didn't turn up, checked their website to see it had changed to "available on ___" then i waited to that date and placed the order again, and once again it didn't show up, i checked the page again and the date had moved forward. I eventually got it on a subsequent order, but it was pretty irritating. 

Edited by Ishima
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Ordering from them has been a bit of a hit and miss.

Last week I ordered 2 crystals (2 different watches) and both were smaller in diameter by almost 0,2mm which is VERY bad.

I also remember ordering a Seiko stem which was shorter than what it should have been as it was intended for a diver watch.

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4 hours ago, Chopin said:

Ordering from them has been a bit of a hit and miss.
Last week I ordered 2 crystals (2 different watches) and both were smaller in diameter by almost 0,2mm which is VERY bad.
I also remember ordering a Seiko stem which was shorter than what it should have been as it was intended for a diver watch.

I'm sure that once you show them product is sized different from what is advertised they will refund or exchange.
Seiko stems can be case-specific, I think we had this discussion already.

I have nothing but praise for Cousins. Without them I could not have done my hobby and trade as I did. Recently I have noticed they have raised prices on some items, but that means that people is willing to pay that, so good for them.

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I want to chime in with jdm here. I had a recent experience buying several of their budget 10-in-a-box sets of crystals. All samples in a box were measuring 0,4 mm too small and I reported that back on their website and had overnight response that I was indeed correct and their stock had been checked and found faulty on that size. I was promptly refunded the not very big amount involved.

S**t happens and proper response and handling counts a great deal in my book...




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4 hours ago, bsoderling said:

I want to chime in with jdm here. I had a recent experience buying several of their budget 10-in-a-box sets of crystals. All samples in a box were measuring 0,4 mm too small and I reported that back on their website and had overnight response that I was indeed correct and their stock had been checked and found faulty on that size. I was promptly refunded the not very big amount involved.

S**t happens and proper response and handling counts a great deal in my book...




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Interesting. The crystal that I mentioned in my original post was from a set of 10 of their budget crystals. I had originally ordered another individual that cost as much as the box of 10 but I deleted it when I could get 10 of them. Once I saw that the order was cancelled, I kicked myself for not keeping the original single on the order. Maybe they discovered a dimension problem after I placed my order? Oh well...

I'm pretty courteous about how I handle such issues. And, as I said, if they don't refund me on a return it won't be the end of the world for me. My post is more about wondering whether I can trust what I find during a search or not. From what I gather thusfar, I need to take an extra step or two to confirm such things as size.

Oh, and BTW, after this order disappointed, I decided to try a seller on Ebay who had NOS crystals. They had an envelope that was factory marked as a 20.7mm. When it got here this afternoon, I measured it, and it had an ID of only 19.5mm. Quite a difference. It's starting to look like I'm going to need to take a trip to downtown LA to see if I can find the right crystal at one of the suppliers there. Like you said, sh** happens.

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Another observation on crystal sizes...

As mentioned earlier, I bought several of these budget 10-packs and with one being obviously faulty, I started to measure the rest.

What I found was that this series seems (to the best of my measuring capacity) to be around 50 um short of the nominally stated.

This in contrast to the Sternkreutz crystals I had laying around that measure about as much (50 um) larger than nominal.

I guess it’s all about manufacturing tolerances with a not super stable material as the plastic these are made from and not much to complain about. But if I try them again, I will step up one size compared to what I’m used to.






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