Photo/Illutration A Rolex watch that a man in Yuki, Ibaraki Prefecture, lent to Toke Match (Provided by the watch owner)

People who fear their luxury watches have been stolen in a “sharing economy” scam are having a tough time tracking down their valuables and getting police to accept their criminal complaints.

They were involved in a service called Toke Match, which arranged for people to rent luxury watches from the owners, who received a monthly rental fee.

The termination of Toke Match was announced on Jan. 31, along with the dissolution of Neo Reverse, the Osaka-based operator.

But around 900 watches, worth a total of 1.9 billion yen ($12.6 million), that were loaned for the service had not been returned as of Feb. 27, according to a group of about 190 owners.

Many owners said they have lost all contact with the company.

Earlier this month, some of the watch owners discovered that their missing timepieces were being sold at an online auction site. After they contacted Valuence Japan Inc., the Tokyo-based operator of the site, the watches were delisted.

Valuence Japan also published a notice urging owners of unreturned Toke Match watches to contact the company to determine if it had obtained their timepieces. It had received reports for about 500 watches by Feb. 22.

As of Feb. 27, the company confirmed that at least 20 of the watches it handled had serial numbers matching those of the watches loaned to Toke Match.

Furthermore, half of the watches were already in circulation before the Toke Match service was terminated.

The company plans to return watches with matching serial numbers to their rightful owners through the police and damage reports.

However, recovering all of the watches will be a daunting challenge.

“The speed of circulation in the secondary market is very fast,” a company representative said. “If the watches are resold repeatedly, it will become difficult to track them down.”

HURDLES TO CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION

Although many watch owners have reported their cases to the police, few of them have had their damage reports accepted.

One factor that has hindered police investigations is that the watch owners continued to receive “depositor fees” from Toke Match until the service ended.

In addition, the service operator said on its website that it would “return the watches to (the owners) within six months” of the service termination in January.

A 34-year-old man from Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, saw his damage report rejected by the police.

According to the man, the prefectural police cited the following reasons for rejecting the complaint: The watches have not been found in the resale market; and there is currently no evidence of fraud or embezzlement on the part of the operating company.

Related News