I entered the world of buying refurbished goods a few years ago when I scored a refurbished TV/DVR. It worked great, and I never had to use the warranty that came with it. In fact, it's still working today, 5 years later. Soon after that purchase, I bought a refurbished DVR and then a refurbished vacuum cleaner. Never had a problem; in fact, when I had problems setting up the DVR with my existing stereo system, I called the manufacturer and it made no difference to them that the unit was refurbished. HOWEVER. In August 2006 I purchased a refurbished 30 GB iPod. I'd been lusting after the video iPod for sometime and felt a bit smug when I found one for around $200. I bought it, as well as a 3rd party, 3 year extended warranty. Well, the thing stopped working June 7. I checked the Apple website to see if I could get it fixed under the original manufacturer's one-year warranty, but according to their records, my iPod had been purchased in MAY. So I turned to my 3rd party warranty. I was told that my third-party warranty could not kick in until the Apple warranty ran out. They would not even at my iPod it until a) they changed my warranty for the correct date (which took 72 hours!) and b) I was able to rule out the possibility that the battery was simply dead since battery issues are not covered under the warranty.

While I was waiting for the warranty's date to be changed, I decided to try to check out the possible battery issue. I live at least 2 hours from the closest Apple store and it's very inconvenient to get there.  I called the Apple customer service line, where I found out that if I had bought my iPod from an AUTHORIZED RESELLER my Apple warranty would've been honored from the date that I bought the iPod, not when my reseller bought it.   I generated a service request for a battery issue on the Apple website and got instructions on how to mail my iPod for service. It was now June 14. A week later later I checked the Apple website for the repair status and I found out that my iPod was being returned unrepaired to me because there was something wrong besides the battery issue. A few days later I received my broken iPod. Now it was June 26th. So, back to the third-party warranty company.

I was told that it would take another 24 hours for a supervisor to give my iPod clearance for repair *because* I bought it on eBay! This is apparantly standard practice for this third-party warranty company. I emailed my confirmation of the winning bid as well as my receipt from Paypal, but got not answer within 24 hours as promised. I had to finally call the company myself, and was then given clearance to send in my iPod. The date was now June 28,  a full three weeks since my iPod  stopped working. I was more than a bit miffed that it had taken this long to even send in my iPod, so I also wrote a letter of complaint to the warranty's headquarters.

On July 3, I got a call from the headquarters' customer service department. The man was extremely apologetic about the repair taking so long, and told me that I would be reimbursed for the full price of my iPod, since it would be too expensive to repair. I was fine with that, and even kind of happy! My iPod by now had a few scratches and I was happy to hang up, and go to the Apple website and buy an APPLE refurbished iPod for $50 dollars less than a new one: and I also bought an APPLE extended warranty. Almost as soon as I had clicked the final sale button on the Apple website, the man from headquarters called back and told me that he had just found out why my warranty had taken so long to be honored. Apparently, my warranty had been sold to a different company, and despite what he had told me before, I would have to get back my broken iPod and send it in to this other company! I had HAD it by this time, and I just told him that it was unacceptable as well as a few other things. After putting me on hold, I was assured that my money would be refunded as promised. I hope this is a happy ending to a long story. We'll know in three weeks whether or not I receive a check.

  To make a long story short and useful, here's my advice on buying refurbished goods, especially electronics:


a) Is the re-seller an authorized re-seller? This could be more or less important I suppose depending on how long you expect to use the product, or how expensive it is to replace. Buying from an authorized reseller may also allow you to buy an extended warranty from the manufacturer so you won't even have to deal with a 3rd party warranty.
b) Will the manufacturer's warranty be honored from the date "you" buy it, or from the date the original purchaser - the reseller - bought it? This shouldn't even be an issue if you buy it from an authorized re-seller but check anyway.
THEN, if you decide to buy from a non-authorized reseller and/or 3rd party warranty:
c) If you purchase a 3rd party warranty, be sure the date on it reflects the date you bought it, not the reseller
d) Does the third party warranty have special rules because you bought it from eBay?

So be careful out there! I love the refurbished goods that I've bought that WORK. But I'll be more careful in the future.