OTA Watchmaker & Jewellry Inc — Local services in Montreal

WARNING. He tried to steal my ETA 2836-2 by replacing it by a 2824 clone from China hoping i don't notice.

Left my watch for a crown installation. Took over three weeks, which is reasonable because it was during the Holidays. I come by for my watch, everything seems functional, crown is working as it should be. Home, i open up the case back to verify if everything is in place. The ETA markings/caliber on the Base Plate are completely gone. Sent him a mail asking if he has replaced any parts or the movement as a whole. He told me that he has replaced the Base Plate by a Sallita SW200... without my permission and without even telling me when i picked up the watch. Sallita, just like ETA, marks their Base Plates underneath the balance wheel, this one is unmarked like the Chinese clones that are worth nothing. Asked him why its not marked, and he tells me its marked elsewhere... ffs. No such thing as marked elsewhere, its always marked in the same place, and lying to your customers won't get you far.

Told him i don't want any aftermarket trash in my movement, and came back for the supposed "Sallita sw200" swap to the original ETA plate. He told me to wait 10-15 minutes. Who swaps base plates on a fully build movement in under 15 minutes? This right there was his first scamming mistake. While he was installing the "supposed Sallita sw200 Base Plate", i asked him why did he replace a part of my watch without my permission, when the original was in a perfect working order. He tells me that ETA plates aren't as strong as people will let you believe. Are you * kidding me right now? Just writing this pisses me the ** off... and who, on which planet EVER criticized a base plate from ETA? No such thing, he has invented a BS reason hoping it sticks. Not only that, but when he supposedly replaced it without my permission, HE KEPT THE ORIGINAL PLATE FOR HIMSELF, so he could resell it to others. Since its from an ETA automatic movement, its worth at least $40 on its own. This is called harvesting movements. He then finishes the supposed plate swap in under 15 minutes, i told him to never replace any of my parts without permission and leave his place. At this point you could see him being extremely guilty.

Inspected the movement and EVERYTHING but the rotor is different. He did not replace just the Base Plate (like i assumed since you cannot swap plates on a fully built movement in under 15 minutes, the time i took him to do the job when i came by), he has replaced the whole movement of my watch but kept the original rotor, dial and hands, so it looks as genuine as possible, hoping the customer doesn't notice and he makes ~$200 for a perfectly functional ETA2836-2 on the side. Like what kind of ** is that? Not only was he lying to my face until i existed his place telling me bs like "i thought it'd be a good idea to replace the part by a stronger one", he didn't replace "the part", he swapped the whole movement.

You only read and hear about these kind of scammers, but we have one in Montreal. I have only visited him to drop 4-5 watches, and in that small amount, he has already tried to steal the whole movement of my $800 Swiss divers watch.

With all the elderly folks visiting his place, i can only imagine how he is taking advantage on someone like that, folks with poor vision or the ones that won't take the time to verify his "repairs".

If you need a movement repair, especially if you have the higher end watches like Rolex, etc, i don't care where you go, but stay far from this place. If he has done this on my watch, he has without a doubt harvested parts and whole movements hundreds of times in his "30 years plus of experience" that he keeps on repeating to everyone. This is criminal.

IF YOU'VE BEEN TO HIS PLACE, I WOULD URGE YOU TO OPEN THE BACK OF YOUR WATCH AND VERIFY IF EVERYTHING IS IN PLACE. IF YOU AREN'T SURE, TAKE A PICTURE AND SEND THEM TO THE MANUFACTURER OR ANOTHER PROFESSIONAL. THIS THIEF NEEDS TO GO TO JAIL. I have picture and mail proof of...

Watches in worse shape than when I dropped them off, no communication & very slow.

6 year later update at bottom 👇

With any luck my experience was an anomaly but it was nearly a disaster. Really nice people run the shop, it's family run, and I wish them the best, but I am very disappointed.

I dropped off 3 automatic watches with simple jobs as a trial for the rest of my collection, but after over two months of waiting patiently, very little was done and one of my watches is in worse shape than when I dropped it off.

One watch was returned to me "only a second or so off" only to be running 55s fast a day - totally unacceptable. This is an anti-magnetic watch, so in the event it was magnetized, it had to happen before the watch was cased back up!

Watch two was only an alignment of a GMT hand. So simple I almost did it myself. This is a 20-30 minute job for a professional. It took months and is still a bit off.

Watch 3 was a vintage watch that I was most hopeful for. In all honesty, they might have been able to do this justice, but after months of the above two, I had lost my patience.

They were kind, receptive & gracious when I asked for my watches back. There are so many positive reviews here that I can't help but wonder - but as the old adage goes; fool me once....

UPDATE 6 YEARS LATER: the above experience was so unpleasant that I stopped wearing watches for nearly 6 years. Recently I’ve begun servicing my collection at other watchmakers in the city in order to get everything working again. One of the watches that I had been told was worked on by OTA showed NO signs of being worked on (new/untouched screws on the movement), but the case had been opened and mistreated. One of the screws that held the soft iron core was not screwed in properly (which I suspected as the crown was wobbly) - but I couldn’t verify because the case back was screwed down so tightly that it shredded the gasket. Also, there has been a human hair stuck on the dial the past 6 years as a reminder of the terrible work done (and paid for!).

It get that mistakes happen, maybe something got forgotten, but the service I received sure seems dishonest. I would not trust them with your mechanical/automatic watch. From what I’ve heard (anecdotally, from other watchmakers), OTA doesn’t do some/a lot of the mechanical work themselves, but ships complicated jobs out to other watchmakers - which I doubt is communicated to clients.

Absolutely terrible...

Lukas is excellent, competent, efficient, very knowlegible, helpful and VERY HONEST. We brought him a vintage pocket watch in 2023, which, while not of great monetary value, had great sentimental value for my family. It was well over a 100 years old and had been handed down through at least 3 generations. He repaired it and got it working in record time and it has kept perfect time ever since (2023). My brother who is 70 yrs. old plus is now the very proud owner of this watch and he too will pass it on to his children or grandchildren. Lukas's charge for restoring our old watch was more than reasonable! I recommend OTA Watchmaker &...