Be Careful with Used Products

Not that I buy second-hand products on my credit card(s), but let's just say I have seen high amount on my bills recently

• Flight tickets $1000+
• Insurance (Car & Home) $1000+
• Appliances (not directly me, but here to illustrate my cash flow) $1000+ for brand new Dishwasher/Washer/Dryer

This blog entry is more of a reminder to myself, to be even more careful on my future purchases, eBay or not
Here are my purchases of used items in the last few months

• Canon SD1200 camera $150 <- great buy
• Fuji S700 camera $100 <- great buy
• Dell D630 laptop $400 <- not a great buy

Story of the Defective Dell D630 Laptop

The D630 laptop looked like a great bargain initially - Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 14.1 WXGA+, 80GB HDD, warranty until Sep 2010, plus a docking station - for $400 CAD via eBay

However, on the first day of the pick up from this Manh Le guy (eBay username: manhgeek) in Mississauga, the LCD started to freeze and constant restarts. Since then it has been on and off and getting to the point of annoying. I contacted him asking for a refund and he refused, citing he sold it AS IS, which is fair, if it were not for the fact that laptop was essentially Dead-on-Arrival on THE FIRST DAY.

Possible causes include overheated GPU from the nVidia Quadro NV135M onboard (his eBay auction listed the laptop having Intel graphic chipsets, so false information there), but Dell wanted to isolate between faulty LCD and motherboard.

Currently my only action left is to seek replacement via Dell warranty, and leave negative feedback for him

Hope you all learned from my lesson - test, test, and test the used products
I am glad that this is actually the only defective used item that I have purchased out of hundreds of them
Regardless, I remain a fan of picking up great bargains on used products, especially resale homes & used cars

Here is Manh Le's information, for the next buyer googling him before purchase

• Manh Le, lives on Genovese PL Mississauga, ON L5V 3B1 Canada, phone # xxx-5174