Buying a Laptop off Ebay?

[memo]

Has anyone bought one off Ebay yet? I'm thinking about getting a Dell because the prices seem ok compared to the hot deals forum. A bit less, plus no sales tax from ebay. My question is most only come with 1 year mail in. I would like to extend it to 2-3 years but I'm not sure if it transfers. I've called 3 Dell people. 1 said yes it does, the other said under no circumstances because when ordering off of ebay they cant track it(?), the third said it depends on the seller. Well I said ebay, and he said he would have to get back to me on it, put me on hold for 20 minutes so I hung up because I couldn't wait any longer. So has anyone actually done a warranty transfer?

Also if I could extend the warranty through Dell, what if I put it on my AMEX or something simliar that would double the warranty? Would that work? I'm assuming not because I'll only be paying the warranty cost with AMEX and not the total machine cost.

 

[xchangx]

I bought a thinkpad from the IBM direct ebay store

 

[Kipper]

Probably not, is my guess. Unless you are buying it direct from Dell (many companies liquidate surplus on eBay). If you buy it from Mr. X, probably not.

 

[memo]

anyone else?

 

[Drakkon]

if theres a good deal of time left of the warrenty (over 200 days) its plausable the person can transfer the warrenty over to you and they should be able to. I'm selling my dell on there right now and i would definately try and transfer the warrenty if need be...but other sellers might not be willing to make the time or effort to do so...i say email them first and ask what they mgiht be willing to help you out on cause it is possible to do but it takes that person dealing with dell on the phone possibly and not everyone is that patient these days.

 

[stam01]

I just bought a Latitude D600 from eBay about a month ago. When I got it, I checked the warranty status on Dell's site using the service tag, and saw that it still had much of the 3 year warranty left. Plus, the laptop was only 4 months old. However, from what I read, I figured I couldn't get the warranty transferred into my name because I didn't have the original owner's info.

Then I went to Dell's tag/warranty transfer online form and filled it out. After calling last Friday to see if it went through, it turns that it actually did. On the form, it says that "valid current customer information is not required if valid service tag and express code is provided". Since I did have these two fields (from the bottom of the laptop), I put them in and it transferred the warranty to my name. So, since I needed warranty service on my laptop (dead spot on my LCD), I should be receiving a visit from a Dell technician tomorrow to get my screen fixed I basically got a free 3 yr. next biz day warranty from my eBay purchase that I did not expect to get at all.

Of course, this may be a special case or a new change in policy by Dell. At first, I had regrets about buying from eBay because of the lack of any sort of warranty, but I guess I got lucky. Buyer beware. Does anyone happen to know if you can purchase Complete Care after a warranty transfer has gone through from Dell, even though the system is more than 30 days old?

 

[memo]

Originally posted by: stam01
I just bought a Latitude D600 from eBay about a month ago. When I got it, I checked the warranty status on Dell's site using the service tag, and saw that it still had much of the 3 year warranty left. Plus, the laptop was only 4 months old. However, from what I read, I figured I couldn't get the warranty transferred into my name because I didn't have the original owner's info.

Then I went to Dell's tag/warranty transfer online form and filled it out. After calling last Friday to see if it went through, it turns that it actually did. On the form, it says that "valid current customer information is not required if valid service tag and express code is provided". Since I did have these two fields (from the bottom of the laptop), I put them in and it transferred the warranty to my name. So, since I needed warranty service on my laptop (dead spot on my LCD), I should be receiving a visit from a Dell technician tomorrow to get my screen fixed

Of course, this may be a special case or a new change in policy by Dell. At first, I had regrets about buying from eBay because of the lack of any sort of warranty, but I guess I got lucky. Buyer beware. Does anyone happen to know if you can purchase Complete Care after a warranty transfer has gone through from Dell, even though the system is more than 30 days old?

interesting