BleepingComputer.com: Foreign eBay Hardware

Hello. I've been browsing upgrades for my laptop and found several foreign (Mostly Asian) distributes on eBay. I did the usual checks on feedback and what-not but still have to wonder are the parts legit or are they counterfeit? Does anyone have any purchasing experience with foreign hardware distributors?

Thanks,
Bug

What upgrades are we talking about, and how do their prices compare to American dealers?

This post has been edited by RainbowSix: 25 August 2010 - 11:42 AM

I found several good deals on processors from Taiwan. They are roughly half the price of what I have found on the American market.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-Core-I7-920XM-Ex...5811457?pt=CPUs

Do those prices include import duty?

That should be a consideration, I would think.

Louis

I looked around and couldn't find anything. I've never bought international and am unfamiliar with any additional taxes that would apply. Regardless, I would think buying international would still be much cheaper than domestic, IF they are legitimate pieces of hardware.

<<Regardless, I would think buying international would still be much cheaper than domestic,..>>

"Buying international" involves customs duties for U.S. citizens. The primary purpose of custom duties...is to discourage the very thing you describe and promote domestic trade.

But I am off-track...you want to buy, buy. But I would sure ask someone knowledgeable...before I purchased anything which has to come into the U.S. from another country. The terms of sale should cover such factors.

Louis

I too have been wary of buying foreign (outside of North America) because I have heard too many bad things about China (and some of its neighbors). I did however buy a GameBoy game from the UK (unlike console games, there were no compatibility concerns), a set of ceramic knives from Singapore (expensive, but I could tell its quality from the photo), and a plant triple-meter from Taiwan (inexpensive) and they all arrived relatively quickly, as advertised, and without surprise charges.

That said, I did purchase a few video games from someone in Hong Kong which I never got because eBay voided the transaction due to the seller being one of a ring of shill accounts for fraud (thankfully I did not pay immediately after I won it because I was waiting for them to combine the shipping, so I did not lose any money).

Therefore, in my experience, I usually treat buying things from foreign sellers the same as I do with buying things from the dollarstore: I only buy things that are cheap enough that I won’t mind if it turns out to be no good, and even then, I only buy things that I can verify are good on site—be it in store or on the web page—with a visual inspection (ie not electronics and stuff that I have to actually get and use to check).

Ive gotten some wonderful deals off ebay-my linux computer (the second one in my signature) was built almost entirely from parts I purchased off of ebay, and Ive gotten some horrible deals. Ill list examples of each, the biostar motherboard I got in my linux box is a LGA 775 board that will support either DDR2 or DDR3 depending on CPU used. It was sold as a "non-working" motherboard that visually was intact, it was sold as "non-working" due to the fact it hadnt been tested, and it was missing a heatsink over the phase changers. I bought it for $34, found a cheap, aftermarket heatsink, and it worked great, runs a little warm but other then that runs like charm.

Now, for the bad deal, I was looking for a IDE to Sata converter, and I wanted it from the US (I didnt want to order overseas) but all the ones on ebay said they were from hong kong. Now in the end, I probably would have ordered one from them if I hadnt found this one dealer, said "reliable US". Well, I didnt necessary have a problem ordering from hong kong, but if I could find a US dealer, that would be preferable, and the product was like 4 bucks. well, I ordered it, they charged $15 in shipping. That should have been my first clue. I got the product about 4 days later, so decent shipping time, however, the return address was "hong Kong" Now this made me mad, the seller lied about the location just to get people to buy from them. But you know im like, forgive and let give right? So I test it, and what do you know, didn't work. So I emailed the seller, and he offered to refund the purchase price of the product (not the shipping) provided I shipped it back to hong kong. Of course, Im already out 20 bucks, Im not spending 15 more dollars to get 4 bucks back, and then the guy got mad at me because I left him a negative review. . .

My point with this is ebay is a wonderful tool and you get some great deals on it, you can also lose money on it. I tend to get to competitive with it, and I end up paying a little to much for products so I don't do it much more, my best advice is, find the item that you want, find the one thats most likely to give you a quality one that works, find the retail value on that item, and what that item would cost used, and make sure you dont bid more for the item then you would pay for a new one-in fact its usually best if you decide before hand how much you want to pay for said item, and make sure you dont bid more then that. If you lost it, bid on the next most likely.

This post has been edited by the_patriot09: 26 August 2010 - 12:02 AM

I prefer Kijiji (now “eBay Classifieds” in the USA) to eBay when I can. Getting something locally has several advantages:

• You can see the item in person before purchasing
  
• (1b) You can often test it or have them demonstrate that it works
  
• You can get it faster
  
• You save money on shipping

There’s others as well like it being better for the environment, better for the local economy, making new contacts/friends (presumably with at least one common interest) in your own town, etc.

Normally if it is too good to be true it normally is. I have tried purchasing several things from Hong Kong and for the most part, it is a great deal probably because they make it there and because they ship it out a month later using snail mail, but, I have also purchased things that were rather cheap, free shipping and once I purchased the item was deleted, the seller was deleted and all contact was cut off.

Normally what you can do is contact the seller to provide proof of the item, why they are so cheap and even check the feedback which you have done already(not just positive/negative but also the comments people have posted about the quality of the item itself).