Why buy refurbish products from newegg?

[RobCur]

You may not be so lucky so why take that chance of having to return something and cost you time and money? The answer is newegg is just too lazy to test their products that are returned due to defects or other flaws, instead of hiring people to test it you are the guinea pigs for them in the pursuit of profits. What they do have to lose? Some won't return it even if something is wrong with it because of inconvenient It is faster to package the stuff and ship it out then to test it for any problems. Usually it's not much cheaper to buy refurbish vs new so why bother? To save some bucks to buy lunch at mcdonald's?
This hasn't been my day, out of 4 refurbish item I've bought consisting of dvd burner, all are bad or unusable. WTF? Oh god, I feel like I'm the biggest sucker throwing money to help test their products all for free at my own expense.

Wonderful.

 

[Tostada]

Well, it is a risk. I wouldn't buy a refurb product if I wasn't saving a solid $20 on it. I've bought several refurb motherboards and only had to return one. Shipping back to CA cost me $7. Even then, it's a good deal since I paid $64 for a DFI LanParty UT 250Gb board which was normally $108 at the time.

Still, I haven't ever bought a refurb for someone else's system without being totally upfront about it. I'm not going to take a risk with someone else's system (and in the case of motherboards, it's pretty unprofessional to have a system without an I/O shield).

That's quite an accusation if you're saying NewEgg takes their RMAs and sells them as refurbs without any testing.

 

[Texun]

Yea, it's a crap shoot and you're right about them having nothing to lose. On the other hand the buyer has a lot to gain if the parts are good. I haven't bought a lot of refurb's from NE, and haven't bought anything refurb'd recently, but of the 5-6 items I have purchased all have been perfect except for a 2500 Barton. It looked cooked when I got it but thought I would give it a shot. I got an ASUS AV266 board about a year or two ago and it was missing the back plate but turned out to be one of the best boards I ever owned. I paid about $35 for it. I think a lot of people RMA parts because they don't OC well or don't know what they are doing. I would stay away from HD's or burners though.

 

[RobCur]

Originally posted by: Texun
Yea, it's a crap shoot and you're right about them having nothing to lose. On the other hand the buyer has a lot to gain if the parts are good. I haven't bought a lot of refurb's from NE, and haven't bought anything refurb'd recently, but of the 5-6 items I have purchased all have been perfect except for a 2500 Barton. It looked cooked when I got it but thought I would give it a shot. I got an ASUS AV266 board about a year or two ago and it was missing the back plate but turned out to be one of the best boards I ever owned. I paid about $35 for it. I think a lot of people RMA parts because they don't OC well or don't know what they are doing. I would stay away from HD's or burners though.

Would you buy opened products from Best buy for a slight discount of 10-20 percent?
The thing is at newegg, you don't get full refund but at best buy you do so it's less of a risk. I hate to lose 7.50 on 50.00 item or 15.00 on 100 dollar item. Even the ones that came from manufacturer were of defects, their still something wrong with it. So far only 1 out of 4 that I've bought in the past works good, so I've spent my time testing it out and shipping it back at my own expense. I've just ran into a refurb mobo that was so heavily used I swear it look like a kid pulled out the transisters and twisted them out for fun.
This hasn't been my lucky day, I am totally frustrated because it was way below my expectation.

I hate to break the facts to you but a lot of people rma stuff because their is something wrong with it, or maybe a shoddy bad quality products and says their's nothing wrong with them. They end up in the refurbish area as has been warned by a few users who returned them and saw them being sold again slighly cheaper then new.
I wish I've taken their advice. newegg is great at selling them but doesn't stock quality stuff or sell them a lot less then it should be.

 

[Tostada]

Well, they've never charged me a restocking fee for returning anything, except one time when I got a Tualain CPU that wouldn't run in any P3 board I had.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Well, considering how an ATI Radeon x700 Pro 256MB card is only $120 refurbished compared to ~$200 retail, I'm going to take my chances and get the rerfurb...

 

[Chaotic42]

I love my Newegg refurbs. They work well.

 

[RobCur]

Originally posted by: Tostada
Well, they've never charged me a restocking fee for returning anything, except one time when I got a Tualain CPU that wouldn't run in any P3 board I had.

So you called them and have something worked out? If they did this for everyone since their selling mostly defectives they wouldn't be in business, would they?

 

[LBmtb]

You pay less for the refurb stuff and take a risk of them not working right. If this pisses you off then pay the full price and get a new item. Problem solved.

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: RobCur

Originally posted by: Tostada
Well, they've never charged me a restocking fee for returning anything, except one time when I got a Tualain CPU that wouldn't run in any P3 board I had.

So you called them and have something worked out? If they did this for everyone since their selling mostly defectives they wouldn't be in business, would they?

That's not what I said at all.

I've always requested RMAs online. The only time I returned a refurb board, I went online to request an RMA and said it didn't work, and I was only out the shipping. The only time they have charged me a restocking fee is when I returned an item that I simply didn't have a use for (the CPU I was talking about).

If they charge most people restocking fees for returning things that don't work, I guess I'm just lucky.

Most of your comments are just dumb, though. You can't compare NewEgg to Best Buy. If Best Buy gives you a 10-20% discount for an open box item, it'll still probably be more than a new one at NewEgg, and NewEgg gives a lot more than 20% off their refurbs. It's usually more like 40%.

 

[FoxyProxy]

LOL nothing wrong with refurb!

Not a car folks!

Slap it in. Works? Great! Now move on!

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: RobCur

Originally posted by: Tostada
Well, they've never charged me a restocking fee for returning anything, except one time when I got a Tualain CPU that wouldn't run in any P3 board I had.

So you called them and have something worked out? If they did this for everyone since their selling mostly defectives they wouldn't be in business, would they?

There is no restocking fee for Newegg refurb items that are returned within the (15-day, I think) warranty period. They don't pay return shipping, however.

Newegg ships its returned items back to the manufacturer, who then either repairs or replaces them and ships them back to Newegg. Newegg them sells these items as refurbs. As far as I know, they do not just take returned items and ship them back out to other customers. They are very up-front about the fact that they do not test the items themselves.

From my personal experience, as well as comments here on AT, defective refurbs from Newegg are fairly unusual (although certainly not unheard of). I'm sorry you had a bad experience (3 out of 4 not working), but clearly that's unusual.

Buying a refurbished product is always a risk, but IMO it's no more risky than buying a used item from any other source. At least with Newegg you are guaranteed you can get (most of) your money back if it arrives DOA.

 

[w00t]

i would never buy just like oem has alot less warranty on cpu its 30days and maybe 10 dollars cheaper at most for retail you get 3 year warranty from manufacture.

 

[Texun]

Originally posted by: RobCur

Originally posted by: Texun


<mucho~deleto>
I hate to break the facts to you but a lot of people rma stuff because their is something wrong with it, or maybe a shoddy bad quality products and says their's nothing wrong with them.

I wish I've taken their advice. newegg is great at selling them but doesn't stock quality stuff or sell them a lot less then it should be.

Of course I know that some items really are defective. I never said that wasn't the case and NE makes it clear that refurb's have a higher return rate. The only reason I gave it a shot was the price, but that was a while back when you could take a chance on a board for about 50% less than a new one of the same model. I'll take my chances with a reputable dealer if I can save 50% on the cost of something new, but since they have gone up on their refurb'd prices the "safety margin" isn't so appealing now which is why I tend to go with new only items. I got burned on a refurb'd Barton which resulted in my build taking longer than I wanted. Yes my luck had run out, but the goods that I received before that were worth it. I may still try a refurb'd item but it would have to be at least %50 less than the retail price for me to take the chance and I don't see that happening at NE. They have been inching their prices up in one way or the other over the past couple of years. They went from free shipping to charging $5 for a $5 fan and now refurb's are not much less than new.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: LBmtb
You pay less for the refurb stuff and take a risk of them not working right. If this pisses you off then pay the full price and get a new item. Problem solved.

is there really ANY risk? , , , if the part is [still] defective is has the manufactuirer's warrenty - Right?

correct me if i am wrong
[that was unnecessary - ]

[i haven't boiught any refurbs but would do so if the price was "right" and the mfg covered it]

 

[RobCur]

Originally posted by: LBmtb
You pay less for the refurb stuff and take a risk of them not working right. If this pisses you off then pay the full price and get a new item. Problem solved.

Not a lot less, usually the cheapest refurbish ones are the worst to the point of unusable. If by any miracle you know soldering skillz, by all means do so. I'm no technical geek or even wizard geek like you, so excuse me and pardon me for my frustration...

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: RobCur
Not a lot less, usually the cheapest refurbish ones are the worst to the point of unusable.

Wow. It sounds like you have it all figured out. I didn't realize you had the inside track on NewEgg's pricing policy.

I can understand the frustration if you've really had that many bad refurbs from NewEgg, but you're not making any sense. Let it go. I would've stopped buying refurbs a long time ago if I got 4 broken items out of 4 purchases.

 

[superkdogg]

Rob, sorry for your pain, but you're wrong on this one.

Refurb by definition means that it was returned to the factory and re-passed all the factory tests. Then NE gets them back and sells them at a discount price. Refurbs include all the stuff people buy on accident (PCI-E GFX when the wanted AGP/754 CPU's instead of 939, etc.) It also includes items that users didn't know how to install properly (onboard sound seems to be huge one on motherboards-how people screw it up I don't know but they seem to be gifted). It also includes a few items that actually were broken and the manufacturers fixed and sent back.

My hypothesis is that most of the refurb parts were never broken to begin with and buying reputable brands refurb is a minimal risk. I have had more retail stuff break than refurb in my experience. If you are having such a hard time, you should deal with customer service-they are really great @ NE.

However, buying refurbs of low quality or fly-by-night companies is not a good idea. Since Newegg does not test themselves, the manufacturer's word is good enough. E.g.-Buying an Asus mobo on refurb is probably ok. Buying a PCChips on refurb might be fine, but increases the risk factor.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: LBmtb
You pay less for the refurb stuff and take a risk of them not working right. If this pisses you off then pay the full price and get a new item. Problem solved.

is there really ANY risk? , , , if the part is [still] defective is has the manufactuirer's warrenty - Right?

correct me if i am wrong
[that was unnecessary - ]

[i haven't boiught any refurbs but would do so if the price was "right" and the mfg covered it]

It's up to the manufacturer. Most refurbs do not come with a manufacturer's warranty. Of course, if you plan on voiding the warranty anyway...

Newegg does not offer any warranty beyond 15 days on refurbished items. That's plenty of time to test it out and make sure it works, however.

 

[JBT]

I bought a 200GB Seagate 7200.7 from Newegg Refurbs for alot less than new ones were currently going for. The drive still has a warrenty till 2009 so if it did even die on me Seagate still has my back.

 

[RobCur]

Originally posted by: Tostada

Originally posted by: RobCur
Not a lot less, usually the cheapest refurbish ones are the worst to the point of unusable.

Wow. It sounds like you have it all figured out. I didn't realize you had the inside track on NewEgg's pricing policy.

I can understand the frustration if you've really had that many bad refurbs from NewEgg, but you're not making any sense. Let it go. I would've stopped buying refurbs a long time ago if I got 4 broken items out of 4 purchases.

I already have my geek friend, I already have. My frustration will no longer be in existent as long as I buy low priced new item then old, reburbish, used item.
This is no different then buying a used car, your chance of getting a good working one is slim to none.

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: RobCur
I already have my geek friend, I already have. My frustration will no longer be in existent as long as I buy low priced new item then old, reburbish, used item.
This is no different then buying a used car, your chance of getting a good working one is slim to none.

Interesting comparison. When you buy a used car from some random guy, it's not like the manufacturer looked it over and fixed all the problems then sold it to you. Buying refurb parts is more like buying a "certified pre-owned" car. Still, trash is trash. A certified pre-owned Hyundai with a warranty is still a Hyundai. I wouldn't buy a refurb ECS or PC Chips board, either.

But if I'd had 4 of 4 refurbs die on me, I'd be more inclined to compare it to buying a regular used car.

 

[RobCur]

Originally posted by: superkdogg
Rob, sorry for your pain, but you're wrong on this one.

Refurb by definition means that it was returned to the factory and re-passed all the factory tests. Then NE gets them back and sells them at a discount price. Refurbs include all the stuff people buy on accident (PCI-E GFX when the wanted AGP/754 CPU's instead of 939, etc.) It also includes items that users didn't know how to install properly (onboard sound seems to be huge one on motherboards-how people screw it up I don't know but they seem to be gifted). It also includes a few items that actually were broken and the manufacturers fixed and sent back.

My hypothesis is that most of the refurb parts were never broken to begin with and buying reputable brands refurb is a minimal risk. I have had more retail stuff break than refurb in my experience. If you are having such a hard time, you should deal with customer service-they are really great @ NE.

However, buying refurbs of low quality or fly-by-night companies is not a good idea. Since Newegg does not test themselves, the manufacturer's word is good enough. E.g.-Buying an Asus mobo on refurb is probably ok. Buying a PCChips on refurb might be fine, but increases the risk factor.

You seem to be envy user of refurbish stuff because maybe you bought one, got lucky that it works great for you. Why does it say so on their page about buying refurbish is risky and that it has a much higher return rate then new items sold?
The reason for the 15 days warranty is because most refurbish will not work past 15 days, they temporarily works for a few weeks and even a month at the longest then just gives up on you, like a timebomb that say sorry " I'm dead, you used me over my life expectancy"

Newegg.com does not test any product, including refurbished items. Refurbished components are therefore only tested by the original manufacturer. Due to the varying quality of manufacturer testing, YOU ARE TAKING A RISK BUYING REFURBISHED PRODUCTS. Refurbished items are OPEN BOX products that contain components that have previously been owned by other clients and returned to Newegg.com. These products are sold considerably under cost.

You see you see, somethings cannot even be fixed by the manufacturer such as lockup in windows which only end users know. Usb 2.0 malfunction, defective bus master controller that keeps defaulting to lower then their max possible. I've ran into a mobo that pushes my DMA100 hd back to DMA66 and my CDRW from DMA2 to DMA1
Some users return bad products and say their is nothing with them you infact are paying this sligtly low priced refurbish junks to receive their wonderful headaches
Even if a mobo is functional, and it doesn't work like it should doesn't mean it is good.
It is a blessing yes? No, my friend it is more like a curse so geeks who have all the free time in the world have something to tinker with?

FYI, I have 15 years of pc experience so I know what I am talking about. No bs, no lies.
Only the truth, and nothing else.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: RobCur
You seem to be envy user of refurbish stuff because maybe you bought one, got lucky that it works great for you. Why does it say so on their page about buying refurbish is risky and that it has a much higher return rate then new items sold?

Uh, because it's more risky? And they have a higher return rate?

The reason for the 15 days warranty is because most refurbish will not work past 15 days, they temporarily works for a few weeks and even a month at the longest then just gives up on you, like a timebomb that say sorry " I'm dead, you used me over my life expectancy"

Sorry, just flat-out not true. I've bought several refurb electronic products (both from Newegg and other places like Overstock), and all have functioned just fine (my video card, in fact, is at about a year and a half with no problems, and my PDA is almost two years old). Blanket statements like "refurbs will all die after a month" are BS.

Newegg.com does not test any product, including refurbished items. Refurbished components are therefore only tested by the original manufacturer. Due to the varying quality of manufacturer testing, YOU ARE TAKING A RISK BUYING REFURBISHED PRODUCTS. Refurbished items are OPEN BOX products that contain components that have previously been owned by other clients and returned to Newegg.com. These products are sold considerably under cost.

Very good! I see you've mastered copy and paste.

You see you see, somethings cannot even be fixed by the manufacturer such as lockup in windows which only end users know. Usb 2.0 malfunction, defective bus master controller that keeps defaulting to lower then their max possible. I've ran into a mobo that pushes my DMA100 hd back to DMA66 and my CDRW from DMA2 to DMA1

Nobody's saying that refurbished products are never defective -- which is why Newegg gives you 15 days to test it out and return it if there are any problems. Despite your claims, the likelyhood of a computer product working just fine for several weeks and then spontaneously failing shortly thereafter is pretty low. Nonzero, but pretty low.

Some users return bad products and say their is nothing with them you infact are paying this sligtly low priced refurbish junks to receive their wonderful headaches

AFAIK, all products Newegg sells as "refurb" have been back to the manufacturer (of course, this doesn't help if the manufacturer is inept or doesn't test them). If you don't want to deal with this, buy new products.

Even if a mobo is functional, and it doesn't work like it should doesn't mean it is good.

English?

It is a blessing yes? No, my friend it is more like a curse so geeks who have all the free time in the world have something to tinker with?

You buy used/refurb parts, you pay less money but take a chance they may not work right. Of course, there is no guarantee that "new" parts will work perfectly or not fail, either.

FYI, I have 15 years of pc experience so I know what I am talking about. No bs, no lies.
Only the truth, and nothing else.

Uh, ok.

Nobody's holding a gun to your head and making you buy refurbished products, and Newegg is very clear about the fact that these products are untested and carry no warranty. I don't know what else you want them to do -- just throw them away?

 

[PanzerIV]

I've lost count of the refurbed products I've bought from Newegg but I do know none of them have had a problem and ever been returned. I only buy true values that are hard to pass up. Sometimes it makes sense to get new instead of a refurb they are offering but if you are knowledgable you can get in on some pretty good deals.