What is Factory Refurbished Monitor means?

  • Thread starter Thread starter saturnlee
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I am interested in buying this lcd monitor from ebay last month. Just
before i buy it,I found out the seller bought a lot of dead monitors
from other sellers. Therefore i didnot buy it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=114197&item=120024114419

Question: What is Factory Refurbished Monitor means?
Click to expand...

Repair was done by the people who made it. Think of it as top of the
line as far as refurbs go. Except your descripton doesn't SOUND like
he's Factory anybody. He's a guy who buys dead monitors and repairs
them with other dead monitors. He may be good at his work, but... the
avdert, if described as a *factory* refurb would be misleading. And
therefor I wouldn't trust this person.
 
Question: What is Factory Refurbished Monitor means?
Does it mean used monitor or monitor that is returned by customer?
Any bad experience with refurbished monitor?
Click to expand...

Refurb means used, we checked it works properly, and if it didnt we
fixed it. Oh and we cleaned it if needed.

Ebay means item descriptions may be optimistic. It may well just be a
used monitor.


NT
 
I am interested in buying this lcd monitor from ebay last month. Just
before i buy it,I found out the seller bought a lot of dead monitors
from other sellers. Therefore i didnot buy it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=114197&item=120024114419

Question: What is Factory Refurbished Monitor means?
Click to expand...

It was at one point purchased by a customer, and for some reason
(defective, didn't meet his standards, just changed his mind, etc)
returned it. It was tested by the factory that originally made it, if
it didn't pass Quality Control (QC), it was repaired or rebuilt. It
was tested again by the original factory's QC. It passed and here it
is now.
Does it mean used monitor or monitor that is returned by customer?
Click to expand...

Yes. Used, but not very much, as it would have been returned by a
customer fairly early in its lifetime.
Any bad experience with refurbished monitor?
Click to expand...

Depends.

You just need to know exactly what you're getting before plunking down
the money. First thing is that the warranty on a refurbed monitor is
far shorter than a factory new unit. Typically anywhere from 14 days
to a 90 days.

Second thing to note is the grade of the monitor. I don't think
they're standard grades. It's what all the local shops use to
describe refurbs that they sell, and it seems to be common. If in
doubt, ask the seller.

A grade A refurb means that the monitor passed ALL of the factory's QC
inspections and is supposed to be as good as a monitor that rolled off
the assembly line. It did pass all the same QC tests. Of course,
it's assumed it passed all those tests the first time it rolled out of
the factory as a new monitor too. Most of the time, I guess these
units got sent back because someone changed their mind or didn't like
the colour or whatever. However, since the same monitor made it past
QC at the factory when it first rolled off the assembly line as new,
it could mean that it has an intermittent problem that doesn't show up
all the time and QC didn't catch it -- you take the same risk with a
new monitor. The only real issue, I guess is whether you can live
with the shorter warranty -- which usually is handled by a third party
company, not the original manufacturer.

A Grade B refurb means that the monitor has one minor flaw that may
affect aesthetics, but is otherwise functioning. The definition
varies, as some shops allow more than one flaw for this grade. For
monitors and TVs, this would be something like a small scratch in the
display surface, an uneven patch in the antiglare coating or the
number of dead pixels is a bit more than acceptable to totally pass
QC. Something that might bug a picky user, but not otherwise affect
functionality.

A Grade C refurb isn't seen too often. It means that it has a fairly
noticeable flaw or has more than the accepted number of minor flaws
for it to make Grade B. It still works, and these are dirt cheap if
you can live with the flaws. The type of flaws would be stuff like
what's described in the grade B section above, but there'd be more of
them, or they'd be bigger.

For B & C grade monitors, you really have to inspect it in person to
see if the flaws are acceptable to you. The flaws are typically
outlined in the unit's documentation, so the shop usually knows
exactly what they are and you can ask to have them pointed out. As
you'd be apprised of those flaws, you wouldn't be able to return it if
you found you couldn't deal with them later, so you really have to
check it out in person and be sure you can live with them before you
buy.
 
Question: What is Factory Refurbished Monitor means?
Click to expand...

It means that you shouldn't buy it if it does not come with, at
a minimum, a 90 day no questions asked money back guarantee,
including all the shipping costs you paid. "Refurbished" has no
standard definition.

-- Bob Day
http://bobday.vze.com
 
I am interested in buying this lcd monitor from ebay last month. Just
before i buy it,I found out the seller bought a lot of dead monitors
from other sellers. Therefore i didnot buy it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=114197&item=120024114419

Question: What is Factory Refurbished Monitor means?
Does it mean used monitor or monitor that is returned by customer?
Any bad experience with refurbished monitor?
Click to expand...


items like this are a gamble on ebay.

Factory refurbished items should carry a warranty, ask to
get the item serial # and a factory refurbished warranty
statement, and if you feel like checking on it, contact the
manufacturer with this info to confirm the origin.

Since you saw the seller buying dead monitors, it does look
really suspicious and I'd probably avoid it, BUT, it could
be this guy not only repairs, but returns warranted monitors
to the manufacturer and receives back the replacement in
turn.

Most important might be his reputation and what warranty he
provides, and whether he covers return shipping on DOA
stuff- I'd not want to get stuck paying to ship a monitor
back if it was cheap and refurb or used in the first place.
 
MCheu said:
It was at one point purchased by a customer, and for some reason
(defective, didn't meet his standards, just changed his mind, etc)
returned it. It was tested by the factory that originally made it, if
it didn't pass Quality Control (QC), it was repaired or rebuilt. It
was tested again by the original factory's QC. It passed and here it
is now.


Yes. Used, but not very much, as it would have been returned by a
customer fairly early in its lifetime.
Click to expand...

While theres plenty of that around I dont think I've ever seen it
described as refurb. Here at least refurb always means old used stuff
in good condition.


NT
 
I am interested in buying this lcd monitor from ebay last month. Just
before i buy it,I found out the seller bought a lot of dead monitors
from other sellers. Therefore i didnot buy it.

Question: What is Factory Refurbished Monitor means?
Anything.

Does it mean used monitor or monitor that is returned by customer?
Click to expand...

Anything.

I was told by Japanese monitor makers "refurbished" includes used
returns, unused returns, unused overstock, and repaired products.
Repairs range anywhere from the bare minimum needed to restore
operation, to thorough rebuilding that also includes new components
even for those that are functioning perfectly normally but that are
known to have high failure rates. The best refurbishments will also
include testing the circuit boards with a "bed of needles" machine that
measures several parameters during operation and flags any
abnormalities. Monitors refurbished this way can be more reliable than
brand new ones. But rarely do even the best manufacturers perform the
latter operations, and the chief hardware engineer for one monitor
reseller (often mistaken for a manufacturer) admitted that their
refurbished products were merely repaired because doing anything more
was uneconomical.

You also have to check the definition of "factory," which may be
nothing more than a salvage shop that buy used products by the cubic
yard or pound and weeds out those that work and that don't have too
much cosmetic damage. Some salvagers will have minimum-cost repairs
done - resoldering, bad capacitors, video cables, or resistors
replaced, transistors, ICs, or diodes often replaced with used those
stripped from other monitors (those parts probably won't fail and may
actually be better than replacements, many which are counterfeit).
Some defects may fixed by merely making adjustments (such as increasing
the picture height or brightness) rather than by replacing failing
capacitors, and those fixes don't often last long.
Any bad experience with refurbished monitor?
Click to expand...

Only some CRT monitors. A Hitachi-refurbished one looked rather used
cosmetically and didn't have very good convergence (alignment of the
colors relative to one another - misconvergence results in rainbow
fringes around characters) wasn't very good, but the refurbished Sony
Trinitrons I've seen at work looked like new and lasted a long time.

My worst experience was with Panasonic, which was not only incompetent
but also dishonest. For my own brand new E70g monitor, they sent me 3
bad monitors in a row. The original one had bad red convergence
(Panasonic: "I don't know what convergence are."). The replacements:

Refurb #1: Spot killer started to fail a few months. Panasonic tech
support couldn't tell me if this was normal (some CRT monitors and TVs
don't even have spot killers).

Refurb #2: Not only were 2 ground wires from the CRT ground left
dangling and not connected to the AC power cord ground, but the monitor
had been dropped at the factory (base cracked) BEFORE being placed in
the shipping carton, and Panasonic tried to blame UPS for the damage.

Refurb #3: A different model, E70i. Before I bought my E70g,
Panasonic said the 2 models were identical, and the "g" meant
"government." But the factory repair manuals, which I bought, showed
completely different circuitry. My used and semi-repaired E70i had:

a) a 2" gouge in the front bezel that had been badly repaired.

b) a fairly large piece of metal missing from the inside. It
went under the main power transformer and was an RF or
anti-electrocution safety shield, and this monitor caused
more radio & TV interference than any other I've used.

c) a picture that would randomly tilt and suddenly change
brightness, with the left 1-2" of the screen being brighter
or dimmer than the right side and a wiggling line running
down the 2 parts. Both symptoms would come and go
when I tapped on the monitor, indicating a bad connection,
probably an unsoldered capacitor for the CRT heater,
which in this design would affect the tilt electomagnet.

Panasonic did pay for all the shipping but eventually wanted their
legal dept. to look at the monitor, and all my subsequent
communications with Panasonic were routed through that dept. and its
screaming maniacs. Panasonic not only lied to me but also lied to the
Better Business Bureau (www.bbb.org - note that Panasonic has an
unsatisfactory rating) and the New Jersey attorney general's office.

Caveat emptor when buying any refurbished products. I wouldn't buy
refurbished unless the price was lower than for the cheapest brand new
product, and in almost all cases I'd rather buy brand new no-name than
refurbished premium brand.
 
I am interested in buying this lcd monitor from ebay last month. Just
before i buy it,I found out the seller bought a lot of dead monitors
from other sellers. Therefore i did not buy it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=114197&item=120024114419
Click to expand...

The $90 "buy it now" price for a mere 15" LCD with 23ms response time
and only analog input is rather high now, especially considering that
19" brand-new ones are often $150 with rebate.

Find out how HP refurbishes their products, and if they only speak in
generalities and claim they thoroughly inspect everything and make all
needed repairs, then don't buy because everybody "thoroughly" inspects
everything and makes all "needed" repairs.
 
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