My ebay experience

After tons of complaining from friends about my phone's poor mike and sound quality, I finally gave in and decided to change my phone. I went to the verizon store to check out a few phones I was interested in. I just thought it would be really cool to have a wifi phone which could track my calendar events too. The Audiovox phones caught my eye. Though a bit bulky, I still liked it. Since my phone was an added line to a family plan and it was a free phone which was still in contract, I knew I would have to spend a lot of money from my pocket for such a phone. The requirements I put for the phone I wanted didn't help the price much either. I learnt that without a new contract I would have to spend close to $550 for the latest Audiovox phone.  Knowing it was way too expensive and out of what I planned, disappointed and disheartened I returned home to search online and compare the prices. My search did lead me to ebay where I could find all kinds of phones - used, new, barely used, dented etc. I do have friends who have had bad experiences with ebay dealers and especially with phones. I knew I had to be really careful buying a phone from a dealer and I had to do some research on the dealer and his rating before actually buying. However, when I decided I wanted only a new phone, I had only limited my choices even more. The price I saw was truly astounding. It was for $165 only. I felt this was relatively very cheap and quickly went through the reviews for the dealer. There were a few complains too about the condition of the phones the customers received and a 98.9% positive feedback was what I was looking at. Also I learnt they would take back or exchange the defective pieces that were returned within a week. That I thought was excellent. Allured by the phone and its price I purchased it. I was in for more surprises. 

I recieved the phone in a couple of days through priority mail. I tried putting on the battery and it was working fine though the phone was draining battery and it ultimately switched off. This is where the problems started. I started charging and when I tried starting it, the screen started to flicker. I took it to a nearby verizon store to see if it was a problem with the charger or with the phone though I knew against my hopes that it was the phone which had the problem. The verizon store guys let me know that this was something very common with ebay sellers. It did send a chill down my spine. Well, I had no option but to contact the dealer and ask him to replace the defective phone. They asked me to send it back through priority mail again and they sent me another phone in a couple of days. This phone did not seem to have any problem atleast that was obvious to the eye. It charged fine. I infact drained the battery completely to test if it behaved like the defective one and if they really replaced it. It didn't have that problem. However, I tried to activate the phone online at the verizon site. For some reason, it didn't let me do so. So, I again went to the verizon store and asked them what the problem was this time. They told me the ESN number on the back of the phone was different from the actual ESN number which could be found somewhere in the phone settings. They helped me with the activation though not completely. They told me it would be complete in a few minutes. I came back home only to know it wasn't. I called the customer care this time and talked to a quite  intelligent guy from tech support. He tried to help me with the activation for an hour before he admitted that had no clue why it wasn't working. While he was trying to learn more about the phone and placed me on hold, I tried exploring and playing with the settings of the phone and got it to work. After some knowledge transfer to the tech support guy I hung up. The phone seemed to and seems to work fine. It is almost like using a windows laptop and no wonder they call it a pocket PC.

At the end of the deal I ended up pretty confused. Would I recommend somebody to buy from ebay or would I not? Its a tough question to answer. It did put me through some hassle but it works now and it is really cheap. Call me cynical, but I sometimes still wonder when the phone  is going to stop working. Afterall everything seems to have a reason and something should explain its low cost. Don't you think? Anyways, I am happy with the phone for now. They even gave me the shipping expenses. I would recommend people to do their research before buying anything from ebay. Afterall a little bit of homework wouldn't hurt. Happy with the phone and the ebay experience, here I blog.