I successfully goldplated the applewatch!

[RyanFlynn]

so are people who invested in you from the beginning covered in any potential warranty upgrade you begin to offer?

i'm terrified that my watch will tarnish in 4 weeks like a poster above showed us it can without any exercise or heavy activity. if you're upgrading your plating technology as time goes by yet the price remains the same i think it's only fair you clear some of your early adopter's heads...

here's what WATCHPLATE.COM products look like after 4 weeks (actually less than 4 weeks)

TALK ABOUT TACKY!

HIGH FIVES!!!!!

View attachment 565138View attachment 565140View attachment 565141

Hey Msagrirmd, I've tried emailing and call you with no response over the last couple weeks. I want to make sure your taken care of.

Eric, Yes we are taking care of our early adopters and are absolutely happy to replate your watch if needed. just shoot us an email.

 

[msaghirmd]

send me MY MONEY VIA PAYPAL BUDDY. THATS THE SOLUTION.

 

[mazz0]

The gold itself is probably worth about $60 as its an extremely thin plating, but the labor involved is where the costs lie.

Hey guys, I'm convinced. I'm going to do this. I just talked to my coowners and we can do 1000+ day. I'm putting together a squarespace page right now.

$399 seems like a good price. Its worth it for us, but not outrageous. I would totally do it if I didn't already own the shop

So after paying for the gold, that's $339 per watch, and you think you can do a thousand per day. Your labour must cost a heck of a lot.

 

[RyanFlynn]

^^ We've offered to replate his watch properly or strip the watch back to normal and refund his money. msaghirmd's watch wasn't done correctly and he seems to have a personal vendetta going. I'm not sure how else we can take care of you sir!

If anyone has any trouble, please contact us! Our support systsem has been upgraded and we are ready to help you out. I want nothing more than happy customers. We can and will take of you!

Ryan

 

[RyanFlynn]

send me MY MONEY VIA PAYPAL BUDDY. THATS THE SOLUTION.

All you had to do was email us and you would have been taken care of! I'm sorry you had a poor experience, but i've refunded your money and sent you a label, just in case.

Anyone who has any issues, email us and we will take care of you! Our response time is now down to an average of 6 hours per email. We are here to help!

 

[RyanFlynn]

so are people who invested in you from the beginning covered in any potential warranty upgrade you begin to offer?

i'm terrified that my watch will tarnish in 4 weeks like a poster above showed us it can without any exercise or heavy activity. if you're upgrading your plating technology as time goes by yet the price remains the same i think it's only fair you clear some of your early adopter's heads...

Hey EriCKY,

I completely agree. Yes, if one of our early adopters needs a replate, we are doing it for free and upgrading them to our new system. All you need to do is email us and we will send you a label.

 

[RyanFlynn]

So after paying for the gold, that's $339 per watch, and you think you can do a thousand per day. Your labour must cost a heck of a lot.

Yes, our costs are very high, but as our business gets better at processing our orders, we are able to make money through being efficient.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

Yes, our costs are very high, but as our business gets better at processing our orders, we are able to make money through being efficient.

Instead of being more efficient at the expense of getting your customers' boxes dirty and shipping them obviously incompletely plated Watches, how about if you slow down and do them right?

 

[RyanFlynn]

Instead of being more efficient at the expense of getting your customers' boxes dirty and shipping them obviously incompletely plated Watches, how about if you slow down and do them right?

Hey Jay, great advice. We've done just that. Please contact us and we will take care of you. We have had issues of watches shipped the say day they are plated in the original apple box getting messed up along the way do to residual moister. Let me know how I can help, but please contact me through our costumer service channels. I can't look up your order here.

Ryan

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

Hey Jay, great advice. We've done just that. Please contact us and we will take care of you. We have had issues of watches shipped the say day they are plated in the original apple box getting messed up along the way do to residual moister. Let me know how I can help, but please contact me through our costumer service channels. I can't look up your order here.

Ryan

I'm not a customer. This advice should be common sense to any reputable business owners.

 

[msaghirmd]

Well when the money posts back to my account I'll be done. I have a vendetta with anyone who claims to do gold plating and then proceeds to use gold colored magic marker to temporarily color my watch....when the money posts I'll update further.

In the meantime be sure to check out the photos of my watch that I posted everybody ...page 20

 

[RyanFlynn]

Well when the money posts back to my account I'll be done. I have a vendetta with anyone who claims to do gold plating and then proceeds to use gold colored magic marker to temporarily color my watch....when the money posts I'll update further.

In the meantime be sure to check out the photos of my watch that I posted everybody ...page 20

Alright, i've made every attempt to replate your watch properly, i've refunded your money and i've offered to still replate your watch. I'm not sure what else we can do to make you happy. Good luck to you.

 

[Mobster1983]

Not a customer, but just been following this thread. Seems to me that the OP is doing a pretty good job overall with responding to people's complaints. Some of the rants on here almost seem to be from competitors or people who just want to tarnish his name. This is America. He got a great idea for a service and stood up a business. There are some growing pains, but his customer service seems pretty good considering the business is brand new.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

Say what you will, he hasn't betrayed me yet. Just got this email:

<snip>

Hey Robert,

Just a heads up, your watch came in today! It will be going in for plating on thursday, testing on friday and shipping out on monday. I'm really glad we were able to sort this out so quickly.

Thank you sir!
Ryan

<endsnip>

 

[WilsonFlyer]

Not a customer, but just been following this thread. Seems to me that the OP is doing a pretty good job overall with responding to people's complaints. Some of the rants on here almost seem to be from competitors or people who just want to tarnish his name. This is America. He got a great idea for a service and stood up a business. There are some growing pains, but his customer service seems pretty good considering the business is brand new.

Just my 2 cents.

At this point and based on my personal experiences, I have to agree.

 

[Donstil-nl]

here's what WATCHPLATE.COM products look like after 4 weeks (actually less than 4 weeks)

TALK ABOUT TACKY!

I took those with my canon L glass. Love that Canon quality. HIGH FIVES!!!!!

View attachment 565138View attachment 565140View attachment 565141

Well there is one plus, it's back to Stainless steel in a couple of weeks

 

[Vgm1987]

Just got my watch back from WatchPlate and it is sooooo disappointing.

I did not even wear it once. I sent it straight to WatchPlate after receiving it from Apple. You can see in the photos all the scratches. It looks a mess.

Issues:
Huge areas of missing plating on the back (all 4 corners on back have no plating)
Crown is stuck, had to rotate it a bunch to get it to scroll.
All scratched up (you can see in the photos - I have NEVER worn it)
Black stuff is rubbing off onto the white band
The white Apple box was all dirty along with the white case
The plating is streaking on the band pin
Scratches on the band pin
Uneven plating on the buttons

Just a CRAZY ****** job for $400.

I'm following up with them and I hope they make it right. How frustrating.

I will say, the coloring of the gold is beautiful. I'll give them that.

Say what you will, he hasn't betrayed me yet. Just got this email:

<snip>

Hey Robert,

Just a heads up, your watch came in today! It will be going in for plating on thursday, testing on friday and shipping out on monday. I'm really glad we were able to sort this out so quickly.

Thank you sir!
Ryan

<endsnip>

I totally understand everyones frustration, but al least he is willing to fix everyones problems. We all knew we were talking a risk when sending our watches there. Personally, I dont see it as a scam. As long as Ryan has a good disposition to make it work, and follow through with it, then thats enough for me. Good luck to everyone!

 

[mbapple]

Rian actually met me at a client's office today to personally pick up the watch to replate it. I live pretty close-ish to their shop. It's LA so 3 miles is a 30 minute ride.

I can't complain so far. He responded right away to the issues, apologized in person and is going out of his way to make it right.

Good dude so far.

I will continue to update as this progresses.

Agreed with other posters. The venom is a bit over the top. I called my initial experience with the company 'disappointing' and the original plating shi-ty. But I never questioned whether he was ethical or made it a personal attack.

In the original post, I also complimented the color of gold. It is beautiful in person guys.

 

[msaghirmd]

Wow, you people deserve what you get. When my money posts I'm done with this stupid discussion board. If anything this is an advertisement to not be a poor phony and buy the real thing.

 

[zmunkz]

^^ We've offered to replate his watch properly or strip the watch back to normal and refund his money. msaghirmd's watch wasn't done correctly and he seems to have a personal vendetta going. I'm not sure how else we can take care of you sir!

If anyone has any trouble, please contact us! Our support systsem has been upgraded and we are ready to help you out. I want nothing more than happy customers. We can and will take of you!

Ryan

Ryan, as you probably have seen, I've been supportive of this project from the beginning, I was customer number 13, and I got you several thousand views with a youtube video review. I am trying to stay positive, but check out my posts from a few pages ago:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-the-applewatch.1876641/page-18#post-21450746
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-the-applewatch.1876641/page-19#post-21482882

Since then, I've noticed the back of the watch around the sensor fading as well. I am starting to get pretty upset with the way this seems to be going... not sure why it is fading so fast, I am maintaining it as advised by jewelers for plated jewelry, but considering I am 6 weeks in, at this rate it is going to be half gold and half silver within another month. The bands are already both half and half.

Is this normal? Are we paying for plating that only lasts a few months? Or was the process used on the earliest watches problematic? I am already outside the warrantee window, so please let me know your thoughts.

 

[anez]

So after paying for the gold, that's $339 per watch, and you think you can do a thousand per day. Your labour must cost a heck of a lot.

To be fair, the base materials + manufacturing labour aren't the only costs involved in something like this. There's also overheads like product testing, increased electricity costs, customer service (either a new labour cost or diverted resources from existing employees leading to losses in other areas), shipping and receiving along, taxes, insurance, associated paperwork and filing for all of the above, etc.

I have no idea what their profit margins are --although obviously they're sufficient to keep the process viable-- but it's nowhere near as straightforward an equation as "retail price - (cost of materials + production staff costs)".

 

[techspin]

I can understand why he is capitalizing on the demand for gold plating, but clearly not enough time and money was spent on product testing. At least he is addressing unsatisfied customers. Owning up to production mistakes on here is one thing, but disclosing "we screwed up the first batch (include dates), so send your watch back to us for replating/replacement" on the website is another.

 

[bunnicula]

It's pretty clear, after reading this thread, that is service is simply not running under an effective business model.

They're selling the service itself for very little money compared to other plating companies, so I'm highly doubtful that this thread is full of competitor sites' plants who are out to get them.

I think that there have been enough admissions of error in this thread alone to convince me that these mistakes are actually occurring.

You get what you pay for.

 

[KPOM]

Might aluminum be a better surface to plate, or is the anodizing an issue? Since it isn't as smooth as the steel, it might hold better.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

Might aluminum be a better surface to plate, or is the anodizing an issue? Since it isn't as smooth as the steel, it might hold better.

No, as explained in the FAQ and elsewhere, the coating that Apple has applied to the Sport models renders the electroplating process unworkable.