is it safe to buy used from ebay?

Oct 6, 2017
120
0
4,690
in a month or two i'll have enough cash to throw at a new gaming rig, and i wanted to know if anybody here had bad or uncomfortable experiances purchasing used pc parts like ram and gpu from ebay?

the parts i'm looking to snatch are a gtx 1080 ti and some plain old 16gb ddr ram

do people get scammed often on ebay? will i die?!
 
Solution


Just remember this:
You're not buying from ebay, but rather from some random dude.

Investigate the seller more than the item.
 
of course i'll examin the tiniest most minute detailes of a sellers profile before purchasing a 7 0 0 $ item from him.

and ebay and paypal do play a role if u get scammed hard on their site... all that buyers proctection jazz?

have u ever purchased an used item from ebay?
 
Here is the bad on buying on EBAY. Unless you buy from an AUTHORIZED re-seller, anything you buy will NOT have a manufacturers warranty. Your only recourse if the equipment you buy is defective is through the Ebay seller. He could sell you a defective card, then claim that it was working when he shipped it to you. For a $700.00 dollar video card, I would want a manufacturer's warranty.
YMMV!
 
Ebay is usually pretty safe, you just have to be smart about it, just like on Craigslist. If you buy a "GTX 1080 ti" for $200 from a guy with barely any feedback, then you only have yourself to blame when you just get an empty box.

I've bought many used parts on ebay and only had one part fail, but it was a hard drive in a laptop that had shipping damage (not the seller's fault)

That being said, I wouldn't buy parts that new. The cheapest GTX 1080 Ti is $700 on Ebay when for $40-50 more you could get an EVGA one from Amazon new with warranty and have a little more peace of mind:

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/gwJkcf/evga-geforce-gtx-1080-ti-11gb-sc-black-edition-video-card-11g-p4-6393-kr

 
Just be careful and you will be fine. I buy and sell on eBay all the time.

However one thing to keep in mind is make sure the discount on what you are buying is worth the cost. The cost being that you are not buying from any sort of authorized seller, so you will not have a warranty.

Personally unless I'm saving well over $100 on a $700 GPU, I would reconsider buying from eBay.
 
Ive bought many a part on ebay to repair legacy PC's. However, i enjoy the peace of mind that comes with a manufacturers warranty when spending big bucks on single components. If you are going to install a 3rd party cooler on the 1080ti then warranty is a moot point...
 


on ebay i saw auctions pass for 640$-650$ on cards that otherwise would have cost 760$-780$ and for my already overly streched budget that is a true bargain...

one thing about paypals buyers protection, if i understood right, they say they don't refund you if an item you bought is not working properly, actually here is a screenshot of what i mean, take a look

https://screenshots.firefox.com/IpwD2PJKTqZa7IIu/www.paypal.com

are they basically saying that if you buy a faulty item u'r basically on ur own?

 


yeah definetly, you know...i'm on a relatively tight budget and i have this "gtx1080 ti scratch that i need to... well scratch" so i have to consider making some sacrifices to reduce the costs a bit u know

quick question: do manifacturers warranties cover a second owner like ever?



 


That depends 100% on the specific manufacturer, and sometimes the specific item.
Some transferable, most not.

For an expensive part like that, and it's a recent release, and it's only $50-$100 off?
I wouldn't.

I use ebay for stuff I absolutely cannot get elsewhere. A rear window latch for a 20 year old truck, for instance.
ebay was easier than going to the junkyard and maybe finding one and pulling it.

New(ish) PC parts? No.
 
I'll agree with the others here. You're taking a large risk buying a part like this from a seller rather than an actual store and you need to get a substantial discount for that risk you're adding. $50-$100 on a $700 purchase is nowhere near a fair price for the additional risk you absorb. If $100 is a dealbreaker for you, then how much will it cost you if that thing dies over the next few years and you don't have the security blanket of a warranty?

Also, you will die eventually, but so will all of us, sadly. But it likely won't be from buying a dead 1080ti.
 


I think XFX used to do a transferable warranty years ago, otherwise no, nobody does that anymore, ever.

Honestly GPUs and Hard drives are the two top things we get failures on here (with power supplies being a close third). Cut your budget a bit and buy a new 1080 or 1070. If you don't have a 1440p or 4k monitor a 1080ti is a waste anyway.
 


jeez that's pretty scary, but i read online that a lot of people do purchase used gpu's from ebay and they never had a problem... and if the item is "significantly not as described" then u have a money back guarantee either from paypal if u payed using paypal or ebay.

also i know it's crazy to get a 1080 ti when i own a 1080p 60hrz monitor, but that's just temporary...
 


The Paypal guarantee doesn't do anything when the GPU suddenly dies in a month and you don't have a manufacturer's warranty.

You're going to buy a 1080ti and a monitor for a 1080ti, but then suddenly decide to save $100 for the enormous risk of getting a second-hand one? It's like buying a Ferrari but then deciding you don't have the money to fix the brakes or pay for car insurance. It's your money and your risk, of course, but this is an overflowing helping of bad idea.
 


"but i read online..."
As always, you have to look at the source of that text with a critical eye.
Who wrote that, and why?
 


yeah i know it's risky but how often does a graphic card just stop working out of the blue for no reason at all really?

i never owned a good graphic card so i have no idea but i bet not that often... right?

also the monitor will come 5 6 month later
 


CPUs rarely fail. GPUs on the other hand, do regularly fail. And it's riskier when it's not new from a reputable retailer and you don't know how a GPU has been treated.

As I said, you're free to make any decision you want. There's no law that says you have to consider good advice.
 
Solution