I had high expectations when I decided to participate in an auction on CATIWIKI but unfortunately, my experience was nothing short of abysmal. Catiwiki The website's user interface is astonishingly outdated and clunky for a platform that deals in high-end, luxury watches. Navigating through the listings feels like an ordeal, with pages taking forever to load and filters that either don’t work properly or are so limited that they might as well not exist. It's baffling that a site dealing with items worth tens of thousands of dollars can't manage a decent, modern browsing experience. Questionable Bidding Practices The bidding process itself raises a lot of red flags. I witnessed several instances where bids jumped in suspiciously large increments, making me wonder if there are shill bidders or if the site is artificially inflating prices. Transparency is key in auctions, but this site seems to operate with an unsettling opacity that makes it difficult to trust the process. *Lack of Proper Authentication** You would think that a luxury watch auction site would take authentication seriously, but that’s clearly not the case here. The descriptions provided are often vague and sometimes outright misleading. On top of that, they seem to rely too heavily on third-party authenticators who have no real accountability, accessibility to the items they are valuating leaving buyers in the dark about the true provenance of the watches they are bidding on. **Poor Customer Service** If you’re unlucky enough to encounter an issue (which, trust me, you will), don’t expect any help from customer service. Their response time is slow, and when they do get back to you, their answers are generic and unhelpful. They seem more interested in closing the ticket than actually resolving your issue. For a site dealing with luxury items, this level of customer service is inexcusable. The customer service are of the "Cut & Paste" school. Mostly youngsters with no real people skills and closely follow a script. Therefore USELESS **Overpriced Buyer’s Premium** The buyer’s premium on this site is extortionate. After paying a significant amount for the winning bid, you’re hit with an outrageous fee that makes the whole experience feel like a rip-off. When you factor in the lack of transparency, questionable bidding practices, and poor service, this premium feels like an insult to injury. : **Avoid at All Costs** Overall, Catiwiki is a dismal place to buy luxury watches. The poor user experience, suspicious practices, lack of transparency, and terrible customer service make it a platform to avoid. If you're serious about purchasing a luxury timepiece, do yourself a favor and take your business elsewhere. This site is more interested in squeezing every penny out of you than providing a trustworthy, high-quality auction experience.