I want to be clear - the watch is perfect and absolutely five star. I am in love with it, in fact, so much so that before it came in i searched exhaustively all over youtube watch content to get in depth details of this watch and could only find the first iteration of the watch which is around six years old as far as i could tell online. the watch is significantly more premium now than it was then. in fact, this part is absurd but for full transparency- the watch content space was so devoid of information on this watch i literally filmed my unboxing and resizing and everything therein because i was very seriously considering beginning a watch channel with the express purpose of highlighting this watch. not because anything was offered to me but i just love this watch that much and wanted to shout it from the digital rooftops. even with the buying process, i didnt have to sign up for a newsletter or anything they automatically gave me the 10% off and threw in a hat because of a fathers day deal. so far so good. i love that reagan is all over youtube responding to comments; again all of this was going to force my hand in becoming an unpaid ambassador for them, actually in some sense ive already done this because after recommending this brand (before i ever even placed an order) my friend bought a thousand dollar gmt from vaer. again, influencing for free, for the love of the game, because i believe in vaer. but. within a week of owning the watch the bezel popped off. i came home from work and rushed to my watch box to take off my apple watch and throw on my new vaer, i threw a load of laundry into the dryer and went to my bezel to time it and it just clean popped off along with a rod/wire. i was in shock but with the warranty and having had it less than a week i was confident customer service would handle it with urgency. i was wrong. i took pictures and emailed customer service (no phone number to call, which is maddening but not altogether unheard of). 24 hours goes by and i hear nothing. i submit a request online and ANOTHER 24 hours goes by before i hear anything. off to a bad start but i ignore it. eric, my customer service rep, expresses chagrin for what happens, sends me a return label and tells me to send it back, just the watch and broken pieces not the bracelet. upon dropping it off at USPS, per eric, send him a picture of the tracking number or receipt so they could release a brand new replacement, not the repaired watch. suddenly, the wait was worth it. and yet, this is not what happened. that very next day, i send it back i send him pictures of the package, of the items in the box, of the note he asked me to write and include and AGAIN another day or two go by before i hear anything. this has been a theme throughout the entire process, waiting 24-48 hour minimums between individual email responses. this to me is utterly unfathomable and unacceptable. either they have SO MANY customer service inquiries they cannot keep up with volume (scary thought) OR eric is on the other side of the world on a totally different time zone as all of his responses were made between 3 and 4 am. thats not the worst thing to happen yet. i ordered this watch to have for a specific event which is why according to eric they were gonna send me the watch once they saw the receipt. this is not what happened. after waiting days to hear back from eric he informed me their facility in missouri would need to receive the parcel, confirm the missing pieces are indeed there and THEN confirm all of this with eric and vaer to then release the replacement watch. i was extremely annoyed to hear this because of course this is not at all what eric told me they would do. i expressed my discontent with eric and asked him to escalate me to someone who could speak to me more than once every other day, he ignored that request. i sent him a screenshot of when the broken watch was delivered and of course did not hear from him. apparently the warehouse in missouri didnt let him know for another three or four days. again no contact. during this time, i decided rather than the 3 link bracelet i originally ordered i wanted to wear it on jubilee. i asked eric to send the new watch out on jubilee and id return the oyster style and pay the $30 difference. i was hoping vaer might offer to comp the nominal difference since the process had become so insufferable and id expressed as much to eric. he sent me a return label for my original bracelet, and and order for a $30 jubilee bracelet and an email letting me know the new watch will come on jubilee and id only pay the $30 difference because the five link is being returned. we are now two weeks out from my original email and i only just now got an email saying my replacement watch is being shipped out. i genuinely hate to leave this review because in my opinion, this watch is a piece of art ive missed every single day and cannot wait to have back. it just seems impossible in 2026 to spend nearly a thousand dollars on a watch and have such shotty customer service. all of this could have been resolved so swiftly and yet took needlessly long and so much following up on my behalf i dont feel i should be the one doing. i feel when you stand behind your product the onus is on you to rectify these things. i debated so long whether or not to leave this review because i think more people should own this watch, but ultimately what made me decide to leave it was knowing that anytime someone asks me about my watch, i will not in good faith be able to recommend it without first giving them a detailed warning about customer service. that breaks my heart. i have a fair amount of watches and have simply worn other watches throughout this time. but i was thinking about a kid who saved up to buy his first proper watch and then had to deal with this kind of mishandling. i realize that nearly any complaints associated with this hobby are first world problems and we all have much bigger fish to fry, but i couldnt just swallow this and let it go because it's no way to do business, microbrand, independent or otherwise. also, for the price, there should really be on the fly microadjust. especially when being marketed as a sports watch and youre paying $90-$120 extra for the bracelet.
