Anyone here bought a computer on ebay?

Contains_Mild_Peril

My DH and I are planning to buy a new PC in the very near future, and I've seen a few that look good on eBay. However, hubby is very mistrustful (especially after listening to his brother, who "knows about computers" but isn't too familiar with eBay), and he thinks that a PC with a starting price of a fraction of the usual retail price is dodgy, possibly stolen, especially if the seller is not registered as a business seller.
Do any of you have experiences, good or bad, of buying PC's on eBay? Apart from obvious things like checking feedback, reading small print etc, is there anything I should watch out for?
Also, is it true that if I install my licensed Windows XP disc on a new computer and continue to use it on an old one networked to the new one, both computers would be blocked?
Any help appreciated!

s30jok

https://www.novatech.co.uk a good website who will give you good advice over the phone also look at https://www.mesh.co.uk and https://www.evesham.co.uk

Al_Mac

I've bought two laptops.

Probably paid a bit over the odds. But both from Edayers with high volume and high score.

Can get them as cheap in the high street now.

:beer:

Contains_Mild_Peril

s30jok wrote:

https://www.novatech.co.uk a good website who will give you good advice over the phone also look at https://www.mesh.co.uk and https://www.evesham.co.uk

You don't trust eBay either when it comes to PC's then?

3card

Hi
I have bought 2 desktop PC off ebay. In fact the 2nd one was only today.
The 1st one i purchased was about 3 years ago. I collected it from the seller who was a building the units at home whilst he was looking for premises.

The one i bought today was from the same seller as the 1st one (better the devil you know!!! ;-)

i was more than happy with the 1st one so decided why not for the 2nd

HTH, 3card

uncle_buck_3

Why not just buy a PC from Dell?

The best Dell deals are normally posted on here when they come up....or have a look on Rpoints.

HTH.

Contains_Mild_Peril

DH isn't keen on Dell, because he's heard too many stories about people having problems with them, and the ones I looked at on eBay looked better vhm. EBuyer seem to have some not bad deals atm. We're looking for a decent PC with at least 512mb RAM, DVD +/- RW and preferably a good sized hard drive for about £400 or less inc delivery if mail order.

ka7e

I bought from Arbico Computers 6 months ago, through Ebay. Quite high spec, with reasonable costs for upgrades. The fan is noisy and the casing is cheap, but my sons wanted it for high-resolution online gaming, and it's been great so far.
Lots of v polite emails (and a couple of phonecalls) from the people building the system, confirming upgrades, date of dispatch etc. Watch out for some business sellers - they don't include VAT in auction price.
Previously bought a great s/h laptop. Only considered sellers with extra Paypal protection, 100% feedback and contacted them for extra details before bidding. Also used snipe bidding process so I wasn't tempted to pay more than I intended!

impecunious

I bought my desk top PC off Ebay last summer and it was a bargain buy, bought off a fantastically nice guy who made every effort to make sure that we were happy. Never met in person a bad ebayer in fact.

But ALWAYS be cautious so here's a good tip for you: use the search options on the left hand side to select that you want to buy a PC in your area. That way you can look at it and see it working, if in doubt of the buyer - all genuine sellers would certianly appreciate that, wouldn't they? Our seller welcomed us to come and check it over. But we never did. He lives in Leeds and we live in York, so we met up in the car park of John Smith's brewery in Tadcaster (bout half way) and sorted it out there. Must have looked dodgy, though, eh?!

Personally, I would NEVER spend more than £100 on ebay without seeing the item first.

trigger_mike

Hewlett-Packard sell remanuafacterd pc on ebay which come with 1 years warranty, i'd recommend looking at one of these, very good prices as well.
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/HP-Renew-Shop-UK_W0QQssPageNameZstrkQ3amefsQ3amesstQQtZkm

Contains_Mild_Peril

impecunious wrote:

But ALWAYS be cautious so here's a good tip for you: use the search options on the left hand side to select that you want to buy a PC in your area.

Good idea in theory, but I have 2 problems with that: 1, I don't live near any big cities so I'd be really lucky to find any in my area, and I don't have a car. 2, I can't get that search function to work. Thanks anyway!
I found one from a power seller that looked unusually good vhm, but the seller's feedback was pretty dodgy so I'll give it a miss.