“I have bought a few watches from Stuhrling over the last couple of years and each one has either broken quickly or had some sort of annoying defect. They look quite nice for the money and I have assumed they can't ALL be bad, but now that my fourth one in two years has arrived with defects, I'm done. Called Customer Service and seems like the person was new and/or deeply uninterested. She really didn't care if I was happy or not -- so both product and customer service are a wipeout with Stuhrling. Sounds like my options are waiting up to a couple of months for repairs and/or exchanges or just never buying from this company again. My guess is the latter will be far less painful. Stuhrling lost a good customer.”
“After my loyal, tried and true Invicta Pro Diver V1 died after six years of use (surpassing my expectations), I decided to try a Sturhling. What a mistake that was...
My father helped me select a reasonably-priced stainless steel men's automatic skeleton face model which looked great in the online pictures. I don't own many watches (or timepieces, as the aficionados have me calling them), but have worn enough to know that this one was truly a hunk of junk. Right out of the box, the watch would only keep time for about a half hour. A call to the customer service center and they told me I would have to send the watch to the manufacturer service center in Brooklyn along with a $20.00 check for shipping and handling. Gee, I just bought the watch and am already paying to have it serviced?
The watch was returned to me in full working condition, so I used it. For about five months until the small pin holding the band to the watch bent and fell out. Another call to the service center where they sent me replacement pins, free of charge. To Stuhrling's credit, calls to their service center were always answered quickly. Their representatives were kind and helpful, although I never expected to have that much interaction with them having owned the watch for less than a year.
Another five months went by when out of nowhere, I noticed a sizeable chip on the inside of the glass face. Since I wear a watch at work and sometimes lift heavy packages, I do occasionally tap or bump my watches into hard objects. Never hard enough that I notice it happened and feel concerned that I've damaged my watch. Keep in mind, I wore my Invicta regularly for six years under these same conditions (as well as much less expensive Timex and Armitron models). Oh well, I went on living with that first chip... until about one week later another larger chip appeared in a different position on the inside of the glass face. This time, glass had fragmented inside and was bouncing around inside. A glass chip lodged into one of the small springs and has stopped the watch completely. Instead of paying another $20.00 to send the watch in for service, and since the included warranty states it does "not cover the watch case, watch bracelet, straps, crystals or normal wear," I decided to select a new watch from a more reputable brand to live with.
Regardless of which make or model you select, I hope your watch-ownership experience is better than my was during my time with a Stuhrling.”
