"Ashtar Trading" - new-ish online vendor claims to be Authorized dealer. Legit??

[Kbreese]

They have a great price on the Khaki Field 42mm, only $330 shipped as an AD, compared to AMAZON grey market @ $399 shipped:

Khaki Field Black Dial, Men's Hamilton | Ashtar Trading

Price on the King Khaki is about average @ $355, but still very good for an AD if they are in fact an AD:
http://www.ashtartrading.com/collect...ucts/h64455533

(They sell many others, this is just 2 examples.)

For the record I sent Hamilton a message with their "contact us" form asking if they were a legit AD like 4-5 days ago, but unfortunately they never responded. Anyone have any thoughts or info on these guys?

[Kbreese]

Well I guess no one has any comments as of yet but I'm just reporting back that I took a leap of faith and ordered the khaki field 42mm....just couldn't beat the price of $330 shipped, especially if they are in fact an authorized dealer. The one part that kinda sucks is this is one of their watches in the "special order" category so it takes up to 10 days to ship and also apparently is not eligible for return, so I hope I like it. The payment was done with a CC thru paypal. Here is my receipt:

Thank you for placing your order with Ashtar Trading! This email is to confirm your recent order. Please allow 24-48 hours for processing your order to be shipped for in-stock items. ** For Special Order Items Please allow up to 10 Business days to ship. Date 04/28/2012 Shipping address Kevin Breese xxx xxxxx Street xxxxx, New York 11950 United States 1x Khaki Field Black Dial, Men's Hamilton for $330.00 each Subtotal : $330.00 USD Shipping : $0.00 USD Total : $330.00 USD

Very generic receipt and it kinda bothers me that it doesn't specify the model # of the watch and instead uses a generic description. All I really know about them is they are a "Verified" seller on Paypal and I didn't find anything negative about them with a google search. they do have a section with customer feedback and the reviews sound legit, but who knows:

Ashtar Trading Customer Reviews | Ashtar Trading

I'll just keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. The good thing though is if something goes wrong I can just enter a dispute with either paypal or my C.C. or maybe both. Oh and here is the paypal receipt:

You sent a payment of $330.00 USD to Ashtar Trading
(shop@ashtartrading.com)

It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account.

---

Merchant Ashtar Trading shop@ashtartrading.com	Instructions to merchant You haven't entered any instructions.
Shipping address - confirmed Kevin Breese xxx xxxxx street xxxxx, NY 11950 United States	Shipping details The seller hasn’t provided any shipping details yet.

Description	Unit price	Qty	Amount
Khaki Field Black Dial, Men's Hamilton	$330.00 USD	1	$330.00 USD

Subtotal $330.00 USD [COLOR=#333333 !important]Total[/COLOR] $330.00 USD [COLOR=#333333 !important]Payment[/COLOR] $330.00 USD Charge will appear on your credit card statement as "PAYPAL *ASHTARTRADI" Payment sent to shop@ashtartrading.com

Invoice ID: #1542.1

[Kbreese]

Oh and one other thing, is I went to an established "Authorized" onliner dealer, Princeton watches and for that model # it states "Sorry, this watch is out of stock and no longer available from the manufacturer."

So if ashtar is also an authorized dealer, how are they able to get one? Again, They have it as a "special order"...make me wonder where they are getting it from. Hmmm

[Perseus]

Did you find Ashtar on the Hamilton site or email Hamilton customer service?

[Kbreese]

Did you find Ashtar on the Hamilton site or email Hamilton customer service?

I found them simply by doing a google search for "hamilton H70555533" and then clicking on this link:

Hamilton Khaki Field Auto Mens Watch H70555533

The answer to your second question is the last sentence in my first post ;)

[ROBERT A]

I have to be honest, the website looks shady. I googled them and they appear legit with a brick and mortar location in Corona CA. Hopefully, you will be ok. Just a word of advise, sometimes it's better to deal with a well known reseller and spend a bit more than to take a risk. There are con sites out there that advertise extremely low prices to hook people. For gray market I try to stick with Amazon, Joma, Ashford. Let us know how this goes for you.

[Kbreese]

I have to be honest, the website looks shady. I googled them and they appear legit with a brick and mortar location in Corona CA. Hopefully, you will be ok. Just a word of advise, sometimes it's better to deal with a well known reseller and spend a bit more than to take a risk. There are con sites out there that advertise extremely low prices to hook people. For gray market I try to stick with Amazon, Joma, Ashford. Let us know how this goes for you.

Yeah I hear you and I have been purchasing stuff online for almost 20 years now and I am pretty good at it as i've always done my research. And I agreed the site seemed a tad shady, but overall I felt the chances were better that it was legit then not and worse case scenario i just do a dispute on my CC or with paypal. Also, they just happen to have a really low price on that one model, most of there other watches are priced about average/competitive with Amazon etc, but yes low for an AD...but I just think since they are new they have to price very aggressively to establish a customer base.

[Kbreese]

Little bit of an update here:

On Sunday after I placed the order I sent an email to them to confirm the model # since their order confirmation only gave a generic description ""Khaki Field Black Dial, Men's Hamilton." and to be honest I also just wanted to sort of test their customer service and get a response from an actual person to make me feel better. Well I kept checking my email yesterday and never got a response. So I started to get nervous and sent a second email today entitle 2nd request. Well I just got home and was glad to see I had the following response:

Hello Kevin, My apologies I did not see the first email about your order, Thank you for sending another. Yes the Hamilton H70555533 is the model number for Khaki Field with the black dial on your Order. As stated on the watch's page special orders can take up to 10 days for me to ship out the watch. Though I am expecting to receive the watch Tuesday, Wednesday. Pending the time of the delivery I will ship the watch out same or next day. Once shipped you will receive a confirmation email of the shipment with the tracking number.
Thank you again for contacting us about your order, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions!

--
Best Regards,
Melissa Spurlin
Ashtar Trading

So I feel pretty good about things now. And as a side note I noticed Amazon's price on this same exact watch is now up tp $431.25, and for me Amazon charges tax too so I'm saving like $140 ordering from Ashtar and they are even an authorized dealer! Assuming all goes well, you can't beat that!

...keeping fingers crossed.

PS - I also did some google searching yesterday and found out the owner of Ashtar is also the owner of "Le Vive Jewelry" which is a brick and mortar store in Chino Hills, CA with some good reviews online.

[Kbreese]

Just updating this thread even though not many people seem to be interested, if you Google Ashtar Trading it comes up on the first page, so I feel like I should keep it updated. I know I've run into many dead end threads over the years when seeking info. Anyhow, this is the latest email exchange:

Hi Kevin, You are quite welcome and I do apologies for the lateness of my reply's as of late we have been really swamped. So I thank you for your patience. Yes we are quite new to online selling and endeavoring to prove ourselves through excellent customer service.
We are trying to get the seller reviews for Google shopping but haven't quite figured out just how it works. Thank you for putting your trust in us regardless. Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns about your order I would be happy to help. Thank you!
--
Best Regards,
Melissa Spurlin
Ashtar Trading
Quoting "Kevin Breese" <kbreese@optonline.net>:

> Hi Melissa,
>
> Thanks for your thorough response. to be honest I was starting to
> get worried because you are a fairly new online retailer and there
> were no reviews yet on Google shopping (Where I found you), or
> anywhere else online, other then your website, so I kind of took a
> leap of faith placing the order with you. Assuming all goes well it
> looks like I might possibly be the first to leave a nice review on
> Google. I'm also a member of "Watchuseek" forum and will leave nice
> feedback there as well.
>
> Thanks again!
> Kevin

[Stephl]

Just ordered a Hamilton Khaki Navy BelowZero Auto chrono (H78616733). Very good experience so far, will post once I receive the watch.