[NA] Buy Refurbished

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

May the force be with you
Joined
Aug 8, 2013
Messages
17,546
Display Name
First Officer 6PC
So I manage an IT dept at a local company that refurbishes electronics in bulk.
Cell phones, pagers (Yes that is seriously still big business. We have 900k of them on site now), Native Instruments, Skull Candy, etc.

Quick side note. Today I was in the warehouse and we were shipping 95k phones to a carrier and there was an amber alert. The symphony of notifications was nerve wracking.

Anyway, being that this is what my company does, we are also big into buying refurbished. Something I had never considered before in my personal or business life.

I've been buying computers for an assembly line for triaging some inbound devices.
I am amazed at how cheaply you can get stuff. I bought 17 inch LCD Dell monitors for $17 each.

The computers were $200 each. Win 7 Pro 4 Gb Ram, 2 TB hard drive 5i processor. 1 year MS warranty too. We got them in and setup and everything works really well.

80% of it looks new the other 20 might have a scratch or small chip here or there in the plastic.

I am a cheap ass and It never occurred me to go anywhere other than dell to get a computer for my house.

Here are the monitors I bought:
https://www.discountelectronics.com/monitors/

Here are the PCs I have been buying
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...019096 601190702 50010418 600566989 4017 4018

You are not going to be gaming on this stuff but you could to a lot worse and for more money.
I have bought 34 of these so far and all have worked great.

Something to consider.
 
I'm just wondering what story these computers and monitors have. Were they purchased by somebody who opened the box and then decided to return it without using it?
 
I suspect that most come from business that go tits up and companies come in and buy all their assets for pennies on the dollar.
Just a guess.

My company is neither of the above listed ones and we don't sell to individuals.
Most of what we get are items that people buy from stores and return. Literally happens more than you can imagine.

we received almost 100k phones in the last 3 months from Wal-mart all just phones in opened boxes.
People either buy it and return it or buy it and steal the battery and return the phone (too cheap to buy a battery)

We de-kit (remove the packaging), seperate he parts, run them through a ton of tests, flash them to remove any personal information and flag them based on cosmetic, functional, visual or No Issue and ship them to the manufacturer to let them decide if they want to repackage them or sell them to another vendor.
 
Whats cool about this business is seeing how some companies do it. Native Instruments is a cool company.
If you have something of theirs and it breaks, we ship you a brand new one and we refurbish your old one and return it to them.

They are always giving us brand new DJ, keyboard, sequencers to keep in stock.
This way their customers don't have to wait for repairs and get back a better product.

Pretty great way to keep customers happy.
 
I've always bought refurbished Apple stuff until recently when I bought some flat out used stuff from a co-worker who wanted to upgrade.

Other stuff it's hit or miss, but never been afraid of the refurbs. They work and they usually have an excellent warranty period.

We even bought refurbished hard drives for the office NAS for the non-critical stuff. And we badgered the Amazon seller into making good on their warranty when two of them died early deaths. With RAID and hot spares, we didn't care at all about those drives.

Saved a few thousand bucks for the boss, and swapped two dead ones after arguing with the seller and producing a screenshot of their warranty they had removed from their website and our receipt. The replacements looked a lot like the seller had to go get them on the new market and ship them to us for free.

They apparently didn't want bad reviews on Amazon with documentation. They probably got away with screwing some folks. Not us. I think I enjoy that sort of phone call a little too much. ;-)
 
^^ Cute, Sac :-)

I've been buying re-furb Lenovo laptops from their website for personal use for years. Good value for the money, but read the specs carefully to make sure what you're getting.
 
I've bought refurb for years. I won't buy hard drives refurb, enough bad experiences. Cellphones are a "maybe" because some sellers don't ensure that they're de-registered properly. But larger electronics, I will. I still have a "refurnished" NEC monitor that's ~15 years old that works fine (it's on a Linux system so text is fine).
 
Hey Bryan (with a Y), Thanks for starting this thread. I've been contemplating upgrading for some time but working on a (very) limited budget. Went shopping on line and found one that fits my needs for a ridiculously low price compared to new. My Microcenter store is closed today due to major power outages in my area but I'll be going there when they reopen.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Quick side note. Today I was in the warehouse and we were shipping 95k phones to a carrier and there was an amber alert. The symphony of notifications was nerve wracking..
Click to expand...

I can only imagine. There was an amber alert here the other week, about 2am. My phone makes a horrendous noise for the alert, and I thought the house alarm was going off. I grabbed the home protection and proceeded to scare the wits out of my wife..... I can only laugh think that noise times 95,000....:lol::lol::lol:
 
Much "refurbished" equipment is brand new. It is just packed in a white box, given a 90 warranty and lower price.

It is just another marketing scheme.
 
kgruber said:
Much "refurbished" equipment is brand new. It is just packed in a white box, given a 90 warranty and lower price.

It is just another marketing scheme.
Click to expand...

A way to lower overstock on stuff that's a year or so long in the tooth in tech. Pretty common.
 
I too bought from a reseller that was collecting "outdated" HW from companies. Whether they went tango uniform or just upgraded.
That's how I ended up with 3 LCDs for my home sim for the price of one. Pretty good view! :)

Br-Y-an, you mentioned a symphony of 95k cell phones. WHY were they all on if they were being shipped? :D
 
NO
BigBadLou said:
I too bought from a reseller that was collecting "outdated" HW from companies. Whether they went tango uniform or just upgraded.
That's how I ended up with 3 LCDs for my home sim for the price of one. Pretty good view! :)

Br-Y-an, you mentioned a symphony of 95k cell phones. WHY were they all on if they were being shipped? :D
Click to expand...
No idea. There are a bunch of people in blue coats that know about all of that.
 
Got the new critter this morning. HP 8200 Elite. Now the fun begins; installing program software and setting thing up. I see Windows Live Mail is no longer available. What's the next best choice?
 
"Refurbished" can mean lots of things:
  • New overstock getting dumped while trying not to disrupt normal sales channels
  • Customer returns of perfectly good products
  • Demos used at trade shows
Except for very valuable hardware, though, there is not going to be much actual "refurbishing" done nor any serious repairs. Labor is just too expensive for this.

My favorite is Amazon Warehouse Deals "used" products. The ones I have bought seem to be 100% customer returns and in near-perfect condition. Often a new item will have a small "used" price link. Or you can search Deals exclusively: https://www.amazon.com/Warehouse-Deals/s?ie=UTF8&me=A2L77EE7U53NWQ&page=1&rh=n:10158976011
 
Both of my iPads that I use for Foreflight have been refurbs. The first was a WOOT! special and the second I got from the Apple store. Both came with a warranty which I didn't need to use.
 
I got it pretty well set up but the audio is weak even through Bose powered speakers. Tinkering with settings didn't help.
 
NoHeat said:
I'm just wondering what story these computers and monitors have. Were they purchased by somebody who opened the box and then decided to return it without using it?
Click to expand...

One source are Cost+ government contracts:
New contractor every 13 months, new computers every 13 months. The office they were put into may have never seen the worker bees as those were on a different contract which was held up due to a protest at GAO.
 
Last edited:
Will you get a refurbished parachute for your Siruus?

I gotta start watching the Amazon Deals section. Good find.
 
All of my apple products besides phones have been refurbished, they aren't great deals but still better than new. At work we buy refurbed pcs. Work wonderfully
 
I buy from apple's refurb store quite a bit. Can't really tell it's not new.
 
cowman said:
I buy from apple's refurb store quite a bit. Can't really tell it's not new.
Click to expand...
Same here. I bought my iPad and both my MacBook Airs from the refurb store and I have had no problem with them. The older MacBook Air is almost 7 years old and still works,.
 
I know a guy who kept buying refurbished wives until he realized it was bankrupting him at number three, even with the up-front discount. :)
 
I'm cheap like that....so of course I always buy second hand....or refurbished. :D
 
Scuse me while I blow my own horn, but I get smarter every day. Wanted to install the storage drive I removed from the old computer in the new one. Thought sure I'd have to call my guru but was lucky enough to find the service manual for the new one on line. Read the directions first. Installation was easier than some software. Booted it up to find the computer already recognized the drive and assigned it a letter. Wonders never cease. Pretty good for an old (ancient actually) fart. Where's the icon for a puffed up chest?

One more question. Anyone know how to retrieve Windows Live Mail? I'm already not fond of Thunderbird.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top