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_fat_santa 2 days ago

Not for a CPU but earlier this year I bought a Thinkpad workstation off eBay for $500. It's a machine from 2020 and when it was new cost $5,700.

I see this for pretty much all hardware out on eBay, just go back 5 years and watch the price fall 10x.

saalweachter 2 days ago | parent [-]

Has eBay fixed their "and then they ship you a box of rocks" problem?

I feel like there was a five year span where everyone I talked to said buying or selling electronics on eBay was a nightmare, so I'm a little curious if I need to re-evaluate my priors.

buildbot 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, it’s extremely rare to be stuck with a broken/wrong/missing item as a buyer on eBay. Selling is quite risky in some ways because eBay will nearly always side with a buyer. Every missing or broken thing I have purchased has been refunded or replaced. On the other hand, 3 things I have sold were claimed to not arrive. The only case where eBay decided in my favor was when the buyer had signed for the package in a literal USPS office :)

throwawayffffas 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You don't get that with used old stuff, you get it with unrealistic low prices for new stuff.

A 7532 CPU is now ewaste for all the datacenters out there 1/10 of original price is reasonable, but the latest Nvidia GPU for 200 bucks is obviously a scam.

apetresc 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My understanding is that eBay sides with the buyer on all disputes, to the point of ridiculousness. So you should be fine.

The real issue is being a seller and solving the "and then the customer claims I shipped them a box of rocks" problem.

buildbot 2 days ago | parent [-]

Yep selling is way more risky. Ebay might be the most safe (refund wise) marketplace for buyers… I have more trouble with amazon.

accrual 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Has eBay fixed their "and then they ship you a box of rocks" problem?

I've personally never had that problem after over a decade and hundreds of purchases on eBay. I've had some defective parts, but never outright fraud. IME eBay favors buyers.

mjh2539 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Every single laptop I've bought off of ebay (all of which were used) over the past ten years has functioned perfectly and flawlessly. You just pay attention to the number of recent sales the account has had and their overall rating.