Should I return PC?

grumpycrab

Terrysdelight said:
- This pre-owned product has been professionally inspected, tested and cleaned by Amazon-qualified suppliers.

...
It is so disappointing that Amazon can allow advertising like that.  The add is very mis-leading, it kind of implies that 'Amazon' are involved with this business but I doubt for one minute they are.

Who was the reseller? (if not Amazon)?

Terrysdelight

IT Buffs.    When looking deeper into this, there are lots of different re-sellers 'different' accounts but they all link back to IT Buffs.  Apparently, they are 'Certified Refurbishers'.   Certified by whom, I don't have a clue!  Probably certified by bodger and leggit.....

grumpycrab

Hmmm, haven't used Amazon Renewed.  At least you get a guarantee.  You could make a complaint.
Then its a case of finding out about the reseller.  The IT Buffs have received a 13% negative "score" in the last month which doesn't appear to be reflected in written comments.

fred246

I don't think they expect you to open them up. This is the one that I said would have been used in a big company for 7 years and then had an SSD and a new CMOS battery. The dust is just an indication of how much cleaning went on in the office. Not much by the looks of it. Dust is only bits of other people's dead skin. Nothing to worry about. Not seen much rust on a PC but it's made of coated steel so that is what happens to coated steel with a bit of humidity. Think of car bodywork. By removing the mechanical hard drive they have taken out the bit most likely to fail. If it works perfectly it will probably be OK. I understand it's not what you expected though.

Terrysdelight

grumpycrab said:

Hmmm, haven't used Amazon Renewed.  At least you get a guarantee.  You could make a complaint.
Then its a case of finding out about the reseller.  The IT Buffs have received a 13% negative "score" in the last month which doesn't appear to be reflected in written comments.

I completed a review.  When I clicked submit, a message came up from Amazon stating, the review might not show up and may instead be sent to the supplier for there own website???     It looks like feedback can be manipulated.

interstellaflyer

fred246 said:

I don't think they expect you to open them up. This is the one that I said would have been used in a big company for 7 years and then had an SSD and a new CMOS battery. The dust is just an indication of how much cleaning went on in the office. Not much by the looks of it. Dust is only bits of other people's dead skin. Nothing to worry about. Not seen much rust on a PC but it's made of coated steel so that is what happens to coated steel with a bit of humidity. Think of car bodywork. By removing the mechanical hard drive they have taken out the bit most likely to fail. If it works perfectly it will probably be OK. I understand it's not what you expected though.

Personally if described as 'renewed' and 'as new' and from a 'certified seller'  I'd expect the machine to have been stripped down and cleaned properly to a professional standard, the state of the front IO panel  says enough about the condition of the rest of the machine, inside and out.

fred246

There is no point taking something apart and putting it back together for no reason. These are large assignments of PCs that are judged 'end of life' by companies who don't want to maintain them anymore. Instead of putting them in landfill the bits that are likely to fail are removed and replaced. Microsoft helps by providing refurbished Windows Licences. If a computer loads Windows it is probably working OK. The computer can then go to someone who can use it to get on the internet cheaply. The lockdown has shown loads of families that don't have enough PCs for their children's education. These PCs are very low cost and are likely to be reasonably reliable. I always remember working on my house. I could hear the neighbours shouting at each other. They were arguing about who's turn it was to use the computer. One of them threw a plate and then the other shouted "I can throw plates too" . I don't know how many plates were smashed that evening. I had a garage full of old PC components. I could have easily gone round with another PC for them but it would have been too embarrassing for them to know I had heard what was going on.

dan958

fred246 said:

There is no point taking something apart and putting it back together for no reason. These are large assignments of PCs that are judged 'end of life' by companies who don't want to maintain them anymore. Instead of putting them in landfill the bits that are likely to fail are removed and replaced. Microsoft helps by providing refurbished Windows Licences. If a computer loads Windows it is probably working OK. The computer can then go to someone who can use it to get on the internet cheaply. The lockdown has shown loads of families that don't have enough PCs for their children's education. These PCs are very low cost and are likely to be reasonably reliable. I always remember working on my house. I could hear the neighbours shouting at each other. They were arguing about who's turn it was to use the computer. One of them threw a plate and then the other shouted "I can throw plates too" . I don't know how many plates were smashed that evening. I had a garage full of old PC components. I could have easily gone round with another PC for them but it would have been too embarrassing for them to know I had heard what was going on.

What happened next? Could he also throw plates?!

fred246

dan958 said:

fred246 said:

There is no point taking something apart and putting it back together for no reason. These are large assignments of PCs that are judged 'end of life' by companies who don't want to maintain them anymore. Instead of putting them in landfill the bits that are likely to fail are removed and replaced. Microsoft helps by providing refurbished Windows Licences. If a computer loads Windows it is probably working OK. The computer can then go to someone who can use it to get on the internet cheaply. The lockdown has shown loads of families that don't have enough PCs for their children's education. These PCs are very low cost and are likely to be reasonably reliable. I always remember working on my house. I could hear the neighbours shouting at each other. They were arguing about who's turn it was to use the computer. One of them threw a plate and then the other shouted "I can throw plates too" . I don't know how many plates were smashed that evening. I had a garage full of old PC components. I could have easily gone round with another PC for them but it would have been too embarrassing for them to know I had heard what was going on.

What happened next? Could he also throw plates?!

They threw plates for ages. People used to give me PCs instead of taking them to the tip so I always had a few working PCs spare and loads of parts. Mechanical hard drives are the part most likely to fail. I had a stack of those before I smashed them up with a hammer. Motherboards are next and then maybe a few PSUs. Never had failed RAM or CPU.

interstellaflyer

fred246 said:

There is no point taking something apart and putting it back together for no reason. These are large assignments of PCs that are judged 'end of life' by companies who don't want to maintain them anymore. Instead of putting them in landfill the bits that are likely to fail are removed and replaced. Microsoft helps by providing refurbished Windows Licences. If a computer loads Windows it is probably working OK. The computer can then go to someone who can use it to get on the internet cheaply. The lockdown has shown loads of families that don't have enough PCs for their children's education. These PCs are very low cost and are likely to be reasonably reliable. I always remember working on my house. I could hear the neighbours shouting at each other. They were arguing about who's turn it was to use the computer. One of them threw a plate and then the other shouted "I can throw plates too" . I don't know how many plates were smashed that evening. I had a garage full of old PC components. I could have easily gone round with another PC for them but it would have been too embarrassing for them to know I had heard what was going on.

In that case describing them 'as new' and 'renewed' is a huge misrepresentation if they can't even blow some dust out and make the front panel look half decent, the state of the front IO on the op's computer clearly shows no effort was made to to make the computer anything like 'as new'  If they want to use such descriptions then perhaps they need to spend more time on the PC and charge more money or be more honest about the condition.