Michael Winter is an experienced lawyer and always in the service of his clients. Indeed, he had not reckoned with the fact that his engagement as a columnist with TrustedWatch would supply to him with so many clients who were cheated during purchases of luxury watches online. His current case deals with the LSU Luxus Schmuck- und Uhrenhandelsgesellschaft mbH, which has its headquarters in Hamburg. Michael Winter is now representing two aggrieved parties.

His latest report concerns itself with the commercial methods of the trader, as well as the marketplace which the LSU Luxus Schmuck- und Uhrenhandelsgesellschaft mbH uses to increase its customer base. He appears under the heading of Law.

LSU Hamburg and Chrono24.com (by Michael Winter)

In consideration of the continuous stream of “LSU aggrieved customers”, including the feedback on “dialo.de“, the legal eagle in me has started to consider a few things:

Preamble:

It was this summer that Chrono24.com knew that one of my clients had been obviously cheated by the LSU. A source that originated at the platform operator informed me of this fact - as already reported - in the form of an informative silence.

But only a scoundrel would think badly of such an action! As it was, the situation gave rise to a few questions which I was minded to ask:

Question 1

1. Is not the operator of a platform that is in possession of positive factual knowledge that one of their members is a "black sheep" not obliged to lead this sheep out into a meadow and slaughter it?

On 19.04.2007, the Federal Supreme Court decided that a not totally unknown internet auction platform was obliged, when operating with the knowledge that a trader is offering fake products, to provide for the fact that this does not re-occur. In my opinion these principles can be transferred in their entirety to the present situation, so that we're presently checking claims to block / delete the LSU on Chrono24.com with several lawyers.

2. Afterwards - and here my respect goes out to the District Court of Saint Poelten in Austria - that as recently as last year, this not quite unknown platform was ordered to pay more than 16,000 euros in compensation to a customer who lost money because a swindler on the platform went on the rampage.

Question 2:

Would it not be possible that the claimants against the LSU could not also lay claims against the operators of Chrono24.com, due to the fact that they knew that this situation existed, and did nothing to stop it?

It is to be expected - and this is also a subject currently being checked - that Chrono24.com has a so-called market observation obligation, something that is not an excessive demand. One simply has to type “LSU-Hamburg experiences“ or similar catchwords into Google, and the results speak for themselves.

We’re also currently checking these claims.

Question 3:

Question 3 poses the conundrum: "Do have the operators of the Chrono24.com platform possibly have a so-called "guarantor's position" (a legal concept from criminal law)?“ If this were confirmed by the State, one would have to consider if, and to what extent they also have to justify themselves before a criminal court for the behaviour of their "black sheep".

One can be assured that we have also begun to check this in an intensive manner.

I will inform my clients in both current situations regarding these examinations and their results. Their decisions remain to be seen, depending on these results, and maybe this will lead to new ground being broken.

To conclude, I’d like to share an experience which only now begins to make sense:

A long time ago, I was a columnist at the Chronos watch magazine, published by the Ebner Verlag, and, at the end of last year, I presented the editorial staff some column proposals, for which they seemed to be interested. Meanwhile, my first column had just appeared on Trustedwatch.de when I received an e-mail asking me to remove my Chronos columnist ID from my own Xing site.

Interesting, because at the Ebner Verlag, not a soul had been interested in me or my Xing profile for years. But now, if I read which connections presently exist between the Ebner publishing company and Chrono24.com, nothing surprises me any more. They obviously thought at the Ebner Verlag in Ulm that I had "defected over to the competition“.

I see it as my job to divide my hobby (and also my knowledge) with a very large number of people. Having changed over, I realised that I am now much happier because I could not conscience myself to write columns for a magazine whose publishing company is now connected in the way described with a platform on which traders like the LSU do their dreadful deeds.

Don’t get caught unawares: Stick to the maxim "Make sure you know who you can trust!"