Help with potential ebay purchase

[Crumpet]

I'm not one for buying second hand tech. Generally I tend to give it away because there's no real warranty or coverage.

However i'm in the market for a specific graphics card, and there's one for sale on Ebay that looks in extremely good condition and the seller has 100% positive feedback with nearly a hundred positive reviews in the last 12 months.

However the story with it says that the item was purchased second hand on the grounds that it was tested working, but the purchaser didn't realise it wouldn't fit in his case, so therefore has no way of verifying etc.

So the card is at a steal of a price, but i'm not really willing to risk it. The card could have been abused or simply DOA etc. But he is too far away for me to travel.

However, I've sent a message to the gentleman potentially offering a solution if the card fails to sell, and that would be to sort out an agreement through Paypal with buyer/seller protection for me to benchmark the card and see if it works okay, etc. Though I have advised him to see if a local store will test the card for him, and to sell locally.

Now, honestly I don't expect he'd accept, as it's risky for him too.

But I'm interested if there are any recommended benchmarking tools for checking used cards with (not furmark, I don't want to damage it), or if anyone has any recommended advice for how to handle situations like this, for either buyer or seller, or any other ideas.

Many thanks.

 

[Headfoot]

I think you're too worried about it by far. eBay vastly favors buyers over sellers now, so you'd be covered by them if something went wrong. Even more so, I've bought tons of second hand cards and 100% of it has worked fine. Most of it I bought off this forum where the folks are techy, some I bought off of ebay. The only time I have ever gotten screwed on ebay is when I bought from a Joe Shmoe type with less than 10 reviews who was some fly by night con guy, and that was like 10 years ago now.

The only really real difference is you dont get a warranty on used cards, so you have to work out how much in terms of $$$ you value that.

For video cards they get obsolete so fast you only really need it to work for 5 years at most.

 

[Crumpet]

I would have just gone for it but he has refunds disabled.

 

[Zanovar]

Tred carefully for sure hate that place

 

[Elixer]

OP, can you tell us what specific card is this?
Depending on what card it is, there may be better options, that seeing if this will work out, and then possibly be burnt my having a DOA item.

 

[Crumpet]

It's a Sapphire R9 390 8gb.

Just trying to get my hands on one for around £150.

I've got a perfectly reasonable GTX970 now, but i'm not looking to upgrade from it just yet, i'll be upgrading to Vega when it arrives. HOWEVER, i'm also splashing out on Ryzen in the next X weeks, and i've arranged to donate my Intel+nvidia system to a friend so he can game with his son, helped him build the kids pc before christmas. So i'm just looking for a reasonable card to tide me over until Vega drops, then i'll just give the "new" gpu to a friend.

 

[Newbian]

I would have just gone for it but he has refunds disabled.

That doesn't matter as ebay will get you your money back if you return it.

Sellers can say whatever they want but it doesn't matter if it violates ebays tos.

 

[UsandThem]

That doesn't matter as ebay will get you your money back if you return it.

Sellers can say whatever they want but it doesn't matter if it violates ebays tos.

+1

I used to sell headphones on there quite a bit. They were new and sealed, no used ones. I did not accept returns (guaranteed new, authentic, and non-DOA). I selected this policy in Ebay's drop-down menu.

So basically a guy bought a pair, and used them for about a month. He even made a Youtube review video on them (which I provided to Ebay and Paypal), and then wanted to return them because he didn't like them. Ebay and Paypal forced me to refund all of his money after he filed a dispute.

It was the last time I sold anything on Ebay. A buyer can return anything, for any reason, regardless of the auction terms.

 

[alcoholbob]

+1

I used to sell headphones on there quite a bit. They were new and sealed, no used ones. I did not accept returns (guaranteed new, authentic, and non-DOA). I selected this policy in Ebay's drop-down menu.

So basically a guy bought a pair, and used them for about a month. He even made a Youtube review video on them (which I provided to Ebay and Paypal), and then wanted to return them because he didn't like them. Ebay and Paypal forced me to refund all of his money after he filed a dispute.

It was the last time I sold anything on Ebay. A buyer can return anything, for any reason, regardless of the auction terms.

The way ebay is set up, the best way to dissuade returns is to accept returns under your return policy, but have buyers pay return shipping and limit return period to 14 days or so.

 

[MrTeal]

The way ebay is set up, the best way to dissuade returns is to accept returns under your return policy, but have buyers pay return shipping and limit return period to 14 days or so.

That's probably a better way to do it, but I would guess that even then eBay would force you to pay return shipping. I sold a 7990 on eBay last summer, and three weeks after the buyer got it he filed for a return while I was away on vacation. When I got back the next week he'd already escalated to a claim, and after trying to walk him through some quick troubleshooting I provided him a return shipping label and told him I'd refund him when I received the card back. He still hadn't shipped it 4 days later, and eBay closed the case in his favor and took a full refund including original shipping from my Paypal account.
Luckily he eventually shipped it back to me and it works fine, though he didn't send back the original packaging or accessories. eBay and Paypal still charged me the auction and paypal fees.

I wouldn't sell a GPU on eBay if it was the last place I could do so. I'd rather toss it in a dumpster first.

 

[Crumpet]

Damn, that's rough..

 

[Newbian]

The way ebay is set up, the best way to dissuade returns is to accept returns under your return policy, but have buyers pay return shipping and limit return period to 14 days or so.

The problem is if the item is not as advertised, in this case a working gpu, then it's up to the seller to pay for shipping according to ebay rules and you can't enforce your own like that in either situations as ebay also has a set date limit on returns.

The issue here is buyers can simply report an item as "not as described" and usually get a full refund plus free shipping back if the seller wants it back otherwise they will be able to keep it.

 

[UsandThem]

The issue here is buyers can simply report an item as "not as described" and usually get a full refund plus free shipping back if the seller wants it back otherwise they will be able to keep it.

This what happened in my situation. The buyer contacted me after using it for 28 days I believe, and asked to return it for a full refund. I declined and said I don't accept returns, and linked him back to the auction where that was stated.

About 5 minutes later, I received an automated email from eBay stating he reported it as "item not as described".

During the early days of Ebay, there were some scuzzy sellers who ripped people off. In an effort to grow their company they added a lot of buyer protections. However, like any program in existence, some people improperly take advantage of it and ruin it.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I wouldn't sell a GPU on eBay if it was the last place I could do so. I'd rather toss it in a dumpster first.

This is true for about 99% of the things that I _could_ sell, but it's just not worth the hassle for a few bucks. Bigger ticket items, sure. But the vast majority of things get donated to Goodwill, recycled or trashed.