is it ever safe to sell a laptop on ebay

jaynemaria

as the title says is it safe.
My son has a laptop, we got it through the scheme where qualifying children got a laptop, he has now used it so much its about kaput!, running slow not connecting etc.
I have had three computer engineers look to see if is worth repairing and they have all said its not worth it, it could be repaired but the cost would make it unviable. 99.9% is things he has done for school but i have used it a couple of times and am obviously worried about it having possible bank details on. If we did sell it anything would go towards a new one for him

What are general thoughts on this?

TIA

amcluesent

If it's as bad as you say, I think you'd be honor bound to sell for spares of repairs so price would be much reduced. Otherwise you'd risk an SNAD and even more aggro. Is it worth it?

The totally safe way would be to remove the hard disk and list for spares\repairs with 99p starts.

jaynemaria

Thanks for the quick reply. I was definately going to sell it for spares or repairs, being a technophobe didnt know how you could make it safe:o

Obviously_the_best

jaynemaria wrote: »

as the title says is it safe.
My son has a laptop, we got it through the scheme where qualifying children got a laptop, he has now used it so much its about kaput!, running slow not connecting etc.
I have had three computer engineers look to see if is worth repairing and they have all said its not worth it, it could be repaired but the cost would make it unviable. 99.9% is things he has done for school but i have used it a couple of times and am obviously worried about it having possible bank details on. If we did sell it anything would go towards a new one for him

What are general thoughts on this?

TIA

The short answer to the title of your thread is no, unless like Hammyman you know every trick to get you out of trouble in the world of laptop sales

sezzlebum

could you not just make a backup disk and restore it to factory settings then see how it runs

Hammyman

jaynemaria wrote: »

as the title says is it safe.
My son has a laptop, we got it through the scheme where qualifying children got a laptop, he has now used it so much its about kaput!, running slow not connecting etc.
I have had three computer engineers look to see if is worth repairing and they have all said its not worth it, it could be repaired but the cost would make it unviable. 99.9% is things he has done for school but i have used it a couple of times and am obviously worried about it having possible bank details on. If we did sell it anything would go towards a new one for him

What are general thoughts on this?

TIA

I have a business selling laptops on Ebay. The problem you have with the laptops bought through the scheme is that it doesn't actually have a usable licence key for Windows so you'll have to sell it as not having Windows. Not a problem as to be safe you want to take the hard drive out and put a hammer through it anyway.

I refused to have anything to do with these laptops when the scheme started as I was inundated with dole scrounging !!!!!! who got one "for their kids" and instantly wanted to sell the laptop and the dongle to fund their booze or baccy. However the first ones will be a few years old now and about on their last legs so selling for spares is a different story.

Hammyman

sezzlebum wrote: »

could you not just make a backup disk and restore it to factory settings then see how it runs

No because the installation of Windows on these was not a standard one. There were lots of things put in place to lock them down so you couldn't do it. Also there wasn't a licence key you could use either.

trukdiver

jaynemaria wrote: »

as the title says is it safe.
My son has a laptop, we got it through the scheme where qualifying children got a laptop, he has now used it so much its about kaput!, running slow not connecting etc.
I have had three computer engineers look to see if is worth repairing and they have all said its not worth it, it could be repaired but the cost would make it unviable. 99.9% is things he has done for school but i have used it a couple of times and am obviously worried about it having possible bank details on. If we did sell it anything would go towards a new one for him

What are general thoughts on this?

TIA

You could probably put a new hard drive in it and install a new copy of Windows. I've got an old 2GHz Core 2 Duo machine that was really slow with Vista and all the preinstalled [EMAIL="!!!!"]!!!![/EMAIL] from Dell. Installing a new HDD and Windows 7 rejuvenated it.

Whether it's worth doing is another matter. I got the impression from the costs quoted for this scheme that they must be very high spec machines??

ThinkingOfLinking

If I were you, I'd sell it for parts only and state this clearly more than once in the listing. You won't make a vast amount of money on it but at least there won't be any comeback for you if/when the new owner can't get it working or has any issues with it.

jaynemaria

Thanks for the replies, to be honest they were great for students which is what they were for, but not a high spec laptop in other senses.

Hammyman, I know what you mean it made me so angry that people were just getting them and selling them on ebay for a quick pound. I think to be honest it will be more grief to try to sell it than its worth.

sezzlebum

Hammyman wrote: »

No because the installation of Windows on these was not a standard one. There were lots of things put in place to lock them down so you couldn't do it. Also there wasn't a licence key you could use either.

mine offers me to make a backup every time i log on, and i have restored it to defaults when it ran slow using one, it is also one the scheme and its about 2 years old now