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OK so this is a bit of a rant thread.
I buy a lot of second hand monitors for my business probably about 100 a year and tend to source them from eBay. The reason I buy second hand and not new is you can get them for about 25% of the cost and when you are buying 100 a year that soon adds up.
I only buy monitors that are in great condition. I am not interested in monitors that have loads of dead pixels, squashed bugs, pressure marks, scratches or any other defects. Therefore I specifically seek out good quality monitors and specifically ask the seller if the monitor has any of the above defects. I will only buy a monitor if the seller can assure me that there are no defects.
So after buying a monitor that has been sold under the assurance that there are no issues, I would estimate that for every 1 good quality, as described monitor I receive, I will receive 3 that are not as described.
The most common issue I come across is that when asked if there are any scratches on the screen, the seller answers no and upon inspection I find multiple obvious scratches. the vast majority of these scratched monitors turn up filthy making it impossible for the seller to be able to tell if there are any defects in the first place. Therefore I have to come to the conclusion that three quarters of sellers I deal with are liars.
For instance, just today I received a monitor that was described as both "Has not been used. Just opened." and "Opened – never used". When I inspected it this is what it looks like out of the box:
A filthy, clearly not just taken out of the box for a photo, monitor that also has the added bonus of a squashed bug behind the screen. To make matters worse the seller has decided instead of just letting me return it for a refund, they would rather argue about it. A silly thing to do considering I am 100% guaranteed a refund if I open a dispute and it puts them at risk of negative feedback. Multiply this a couple of hundred times a year.
The cost savings of buying from eBay are still outweighing the hassle. Just.
The thing is, why do eBay sellers do this? More to the point, why do eBay sellers do this to themselves? I specifically ask the sellers about the defects so that I have in writing that the monitors have no defects. That makes it super simple for me to dispute the transaction and allow me to return the monitor at the sellers expense. It ends up costing the seller more than the monitor is worth in postage. If you were trying to sell a monitor and someone asks very specific questions about defects you have to be some sort of special idiot to either not bother checking to see if it has defects and say it doesn't, or just straight up lie about it.
I can see why the big sellers do it. They can absorb the cost through volume.
It just astounds me though the amount of people who are idiots and liars on eBay. Oh well. Rant over. Feel a bit better now!
I buy a lot of second hand monitors for my business probably about 100 a year and tend to source them from eBay. The reason I buy second hand and not new is you can get them for about 25% of the cost and when you are buying 100 a year that soon adds up.
I only buy monitors that are in great condition. I am not interested in monitors that have loads of dead pixels, squashed bugs, pressure marks, scratches or any other defects. Therefore I specifically seek out good quality monitors and specifically ask the seller if the monitor has any of the above defects. I will only buy a monitor if the seller can assure me that there are no defects.
So after buying a monitor that has been sold under the assurance that there are no issues, I would estimate that for every 1 good quality, as described monitor I receive, I will receive 3 that are not as described.
The most common issue I come across is that when asked if there are any scratches on the screen, the seller answers no and upon inspection I find multiple obvious scratches. the vast majority of these scratched monitors turn up filthy making it impossible for the seller to be able to tell if there are any defects in the first place. Therefore I have to come to the conclusion that three quarters of sellers I deal with are liars.
For instance, just today I received a monitor that was described as both "Has not been used. Just opened." and "Opened – never used". When I inspected it this is what it looks like out of the box:
A filthy, clearly not just taken out of the box for a photo, monitor that also has the added bonus of a squashed bug behind the screen. To make matters worse the seller has decided instead of just letting me return it for a refund, they would rather argue about it. A silly thing to do considering I am 100% guaranteed a refund if I open a dispute and it puts them at risk of negative feedback. Multiply this a couple of hundred times a year.
The cost savings of buying from eBay are still outweighing the hassle. Just.
The thing is, why do eBay sellers do this? More to the point, why do eBay sellers do this to themselves? I specifically ask the sellers about the defects so that I have in writing that the monitors have no defects. That makes it super simple for me to dispute the transaction and allow me to return the monitor at the sellers expense. It ends up costing the seller more than the monitor is worth in postage. If you were trying to sell a monitor and someone asks very specific questions about defects you have to be some sort of special idiot to either not bother checking to see if it has defects and say it doesn't, or just straight up lie about it.
I can see why the big sellers do it. They can absorb the cost through volume.
It just astounds me though the amount of people who are idiots and liars on eBay. Oh well. Rant over. Feel a bit better now!
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