All Ali Rezaei wanted must have been a rose gold Patek Philippe Nautilus ref. 5980/1R. So , the Bay Area man walked down to his local boutique, long-time Patek authorized dealer Shreve & Co., to check out acquiring the gold Patek. This from a story that was first brought to our attention by SiliconValley. com that you can read here.
Not so fast, he says he was told by the folks at Shreve and Co. Instead, Rezaei was told this individual needed to build up his purchase history so that he could have the opportunity to buy a 5980. And so Rezaei did. He started with a Patek 5905R in September 2020 ($70k). Then, he bought two watches from Patek's women's collection totaling nearly $100, 000, and finally, a diamond bracelet in March 2022 (another $50k). In all, he purchased $220, 000 of merch from Shreve over an 18-month period. During that time, Rezaei says that Shreve and its sales associates continued to encourage him to buy items. Following the bracelet buy in Mar 2022, Rezaei says the sales associate told him that "he had been certain [Shreve] would offer him the actual Promised Watch that year. " But the 5980/1R never came.
Shreve & Co. 's Gulf Area roots date back to 1852 - the particular era of the California Gold Rush - and it has been acquired through North Carolina-based Schiffman's Jewelers in 1992. Shreve was the second United states retailer to represent Patek Philippe. But , Shreve lost its status as a Patek AD in April 2022. It was right after Rezaei bought which diamond band; in other words, that will promised 5980/1R was never going to come. The lawsuit states that Shreve knew it'd be losing this status long before it actually did in Apr 2022 and did not inform its product sales reps (or Rezaei), "in order to reap additional revenue revenue provided possible simply by induces the customers to purchase merchandise that they would not otherwise have bought in order to be offered certain high-demand Patek Philippe watches. "
Rezaei's alleged fact pattern is one that will no doubt sound familiar to some who have tried to get a hot watch in the past few years, but in this article there's also the added complexity of Shreve recently losing it is status like a Patek ADVERTISEMENT. The lawsuit brings some ten causes of action against Shreve, including breach associated with contract, purposive and at fault misrepresentation, fraudulent concealment, false promise, as well as unfair business practices, pursuant to California's Unfair Competition Law. The actual lawsuit ended up being filed on June 9, and Shreve & Company. now has 30 days to file their response. We'll continue to keep an eye on the legal action, and while it might have as much of a chance as seeing any jury because Rezaei does of getting some sort of 5980/1R, it'll be interesting to see if it sheds any additional light on these sort of AD practices.