First time dealing with a grey dealer - delayed payment

[daysky1]

I would be concerned and I would hope for the best and chalk it up as a lesson learned not to consign a watch. And at the very least I would be keeping in touch with them once or twice a week until I got my money.

[inadeje]

Consignment by default is an extremely risky endeavor. It’s premise is one that the watch owner wishes to use the alleged sales channels boasted by the grey dealer to rapidly liquidate a given watch. However, either people are living under a rock or they’re overlooking 100s of cases of theft via consignment followed by the disappearance of the vendors. I’m certainly not saying that’s the case here. What I am saying, mind, is that your story OP echos how some of the frauds commence and eventually end badly. I am not trying to spook you, but there can be no rational nor plausible explanation why your property was exchanged for money in June yet said money is still elusive late July.

I’d candidly give them a midnight deadline for full payment on a specific day and in writing advise them that commencing the next morning the gloves are off and the information will be made public (including here). They will fret and sweat when presented with that type of ultimatum and I would expect you to be quietly paid.

As a counterpoint - grey dealers worldwide are hurting badly. Consignment monies could be helping them maintain cash flow in a kind of reverse ponzi scenario in which they use money from people like you to fill the void caused by the huge crash in proprietary inventory prices. If they can keep enough consignment watches rotating and delay disbursement of the proceeds for 6-8 weeks you’d be surprised how much fake health that could be injecting into a terminally ill balance sheet.