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by BRIAN CRANDALL, NBC 10 NEWS
TOPICS:
A mistake on a piece of official Donald Trump merchandise might be funny to some.
But it wasn't a laughing matter for the Rhode Island couple who paid more than $600 for the Trump-branded watch.
One letter was left off the watch face.
And it was pretty much the worst one possible.
After being disappointed with the initial response from the website they ordered it from, the Middletown couple contacted NBC 10 Tuesday, and then received an answer they like within hours.
“I just thought it was really nice. It was beautiful. And I knew it would be something that she’d like,” Tim Petit says of the watch he ordered for his wife Melanie.
A limited edition.
“One of 250. So that attracted me,” Tim told NBC 10 News.
And he shelled out $640 for a watch that may now be even more of a one-of-a-kind than he bargained for.
Petit bought the watch after hearing an ad on the radio.
“With the president’s voice hawking the watches. I was curious, so I went on to the website,” he says.
The web site is GetTrumpWatches.com.
President Trump can be found in video ads for the web site, too, saying “It’s Trump time.”
Petit picked out the pink Inauguration First Lady model watch.
“It has a nice little case,” Melanie says. “It has the pink and little fireworks on it.”
She likes the style.
But, it's what this watch doesn't have that makes it stand out.
“I noticed it right away,” Melanie says. “The T is missing. It just says R-U-M-P.”
The watch face should have the word “Trump” on it.
Instead, it reads “Rump.”
She has a $640 Rump watch.
“How could they process this and go through something without checking their work?” Melanie asks.
Tim told NBC 10 News, “I’m very disappointed. I wanted to do a special thing for her. And we expected that it would have the integrity of the President of the United States and good follow through.”
The GetTrumpWatches.com site calls its products the official watches of President Trump, but in the small print notes that it licenses the Trump name and likeness.
The site also states it has nothing to do with any political campaign, “that the watches are not designed, manufactured, distributed or sold by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals.”
“I think that someone needs to be aware of it in their licensing department, that someone’s dropped the ball big time,” Tim Petit said.
When the Petits talked to NBC10 around noon Tuesday, they were not satisfied with what they thought was a lack of response to their messages to the company.
“We’re not getting any kind of support or response,” Melanie said.
“We would like this corrected properly and quickly,” Tim said. “An apology would be nice, for making my wife cry.”
NBC 10 News also reached out to the company's customer service email and has not heard back.
But after NBC 10 sent messages, Tim Petit called NBC10 later Tuesday afternoon to say the company had just called him back, telling him they will immediately replace the watch, apologized, and offered an $800 coupon to also buy something else.
