VINCERO WATCHES REVIEW
THE CHRONO S IN ROSE GOLD
The Chrono S watch in Rose Gold looks like a very smart watch. I am not qualified to comment on the engineering but I can say that it has only gained 3 seconds in the first month of use(compared with the atomic clock); which so far as I can research online is much better than most modern battery-operated quartz watches, though not as accurate as some Bulova, Seiko or Citizen, that may be more expensive and not as stylish. However, it has one major design fault.
On every Vincero advertisement, the Chrono and all their other watches have the large sweeping hand that most people would take to be the “second hand”, at approximately 36 seconds past the hour. Any reasonable person looking at the advertisements would assume that this is a normal “second hand”. However, on the Chrono range(and possibly the Rogue) the large sweeping hand is NOT the “second hand”, it is the stop watch “second hand”. I have other chronographs where the timer “second hand” is one of the small dials(usually the bottom one) as you would expect since the hour and minute times hands are also small dials.
What this means is that the large sweeping hand sits at the 12 o’clock position and anyone who admires your watch will think it’s stopped. It’s also quite disconcerting not to see the “second hand” moving. Sure, the small “second hand” does move but it’s barely noticeable in every day use. To me this completely ruins the overall appeal of the watch.
I've since read that it has a very cheap mass produced Miyota quartz movement which can be purchased individually for around £3.
We found the Vincero service to be extremely arrogant, condescending and at times a downright insult to your intelligence. None of their emails are ever signed unless you insist on getting a name. The agents in California refused to pass any email to the owners in China.
My wife ordered the watch as a significant birthday gift on 26 April 2020. At that time there was no indication on the web site that they provided a custom engraving service; so, I made the suggestion. Rather than thanking me, the response was that they do normally offer an engraving service but that it was suspended due to “coronavirus quarantining”, which is fair enough. However, I responded “If there had been a note on your web site that you have an engraving service, which is temporarily suspended, I would definitely NOT have placed the order, as it was already past my birthday and would happily have waited until you were able to resume this service, which must be imminent”. Obviously, they didn’t want to advertise the fact that they had temporarily suspended the engraving service, in case people like me would withhold their orders.
The reply was that “Since your package has been shipped already, here's what we can do. Once it arrives, please refuse the delivery so that it will be sent back to us. Once we received it back(sic) we will let you know, and then we can wait until we open the custom engraving again.” So, they wanted to let the package make the journey from California to Glasgow, Scotland and then return; how stupid can you get.
Miraculously, however, on 27 April 2020, they were “able to get a swift response from(their) fulfilment center and they were able to cancel the shipment of(my) package. As requested, we have canceled(sic) your order and processed a refund back to your account. Please allow for at least 3 to 5 business days for it to reflect on your bank. However, my wife didn’t receive the refund until 25 May 2020 and then only after sending a reminder to which the reply was “We are sorry about that. It looks like the refund didn't push through. I went ahead and reprocessed it. It should be reflected in your account soon.” It then appeared the same day, which gives the lie to the original statement about 3-5 business days.
On May 13 2020, I emailed to say that “Although you have not notified me as promised it would appear from your web site that you are now offering engraving again and they replied the same day “We are sorry to hear that you are(sic) not notified of this. It looks like we are gradually taking the engraving back on our site and it is only available in some watches at this moment.”; which is another way of saying they forgot or couldn’t care less.
My wife re-ordered the watch the following day but a week later had not received any dispatch or tracking information. The response was “I am very sorry that you did not receive your tracking information and I am more than happy to look into this for you. …. maybe it was blocked by your spam filter?” which it wasn’t, in other words it wasn’t sent at all.
The delivery was a complete farce. Nothing happened from 17:58 on Friday, 15 May, when it was given release by Customs, until 19:06 on Thursday 21 May when it departed San Diego for Los Angeles Gateway. In response to my wife’s enquiry they said: “There may be a delay in the update of your tracking info as in most cases, the package just missed a scan and will update at the next checkpoint. Please be informed as well that delays are a possibility as some couriers are not working at full capacity due to the Covid-19 Pandemic”. This was nonsensical because there were no delays at any other stage of the journey. No sensible explanation was ever received for the fact that “the package did not move for 6 days nor why it took 12 days from receipt of order to the scheduled delivery when the normal time for Express Courier packages from the US to the UK is 2 days.” All told the package passed through 6 hubs before delivery on 26 May 2020. This is not “express delivery”.
It is also worth noting that Vincero watches are constantly on an alleged 15% sale, with a countdown clock purporting to show that you only have a few hours or minutes to complete your purchase at the sale price. I don’t know about the US but this is a breach of the Advertising Standards Code in the UK. Once you register, you will receive email advertisements every day, though you can unsubscribe, I haven’t found a way to stop the watches literally popping out at me every time I am on the internet. You should also watch out for “sponsored posts and ‘review’ videos that have been paid for by the brand, making them inherently biased and untrustworthy”.
Overall, Vincero is an interesting story, the watches are stylish and reasonably priced but you should be aware of the “second hand” issue with the popular Chrono series and the appalling, condescending service before deciding to buy.
If the watch had not been engraved, we would have returned it because of the “second hand” issue.
- Thank You! We appreciate your effort.