would you buy a mobile phone on ebay

Would you buy a phone on ebay?

I need to get a new mobile phone. I am going on to a corparate plan so I want it network free.

there seem to be lots BNIP on ebay for significanly less than the retail price.

My other option is to buy a prepaid and pay to have it unlocked, but this will cost more than buying the phone I want, on ebay.

..... Nope!!!!

we bought a 2nd hand one as a spare ph been great, no problems with it, was unlocked etc and no sim but did the job

My hubby did, it was someone else's nearly new phone and it's lovely, works well, no problems. Wouldn't be keen to buy from o/seas, he bought a second phone from HongKong and it had the wrong software on it. Had to pay to get it reconfigured, ended up not really being a bargain.

I bought by mobile BNIP of ebay. It was an Austalian seller. It works perfectly and had 12 months warranty.

ozstar - do you know which seller it was? can you PM me the name?

my dp bought his phone off ebay.. i think it was from an overseas seller. we paid $200. and it works fine!

Shel has bought two new mobile phones on ebay (both from hong kong *gasp*!) and the only problem she had was whe she bought the second phone the seller forgot to put a usb cable in, which was easily sorted out and we got the cable. [We had some problems afterwards with the seller, but there was nothing wrong with the phone]

It's not too risky as long as you know what you want and read the fine print. Some phones on ebay are locked to a particular network, and charge extra to unlock so make sure you read everything and make sure its unlocked. Make sure they offer registered post and postal insurance. Check out the postage costs, because usually thats where they catch you. Make sure it comes with a charger, usb cable, battery, driver disk for the computer. If it is from overseas, make sure they throw in an Australian adaptor, because their phone chargers are often overseas plugs. And make sure the software is in english (i had this problem with an MP3 player i bought from china!), had to pay them extra for english software!

Good luck!

No i wouldn't buy another phone off ebay.

DH bought a Nokia from ebay about 18 months ago, he thought it was great til it started playing up a few months later and he realised that the battery wasn't a proper Nokia battery, it just had Nokia stickers on it to make it look like one. The battery was no good, so we wont be buying any more phones from ebay. We can't remeber the seller sorry

DD bought a new phone from a seller on ebay who we bought our navman from so we trusted them. The phone is great and not locked to a network BUT we forgot to check that it would work on 3G network who she has her sim with so its useless to us!! (2 blondes should never do this without checking thoroughly LOL) Regardless of our stuff up I would definitely say ebay! BTW if you want a cheap samsung slide phone in pink PM me!!!

Rayray I have PM'd you the seller.

Thanks heaps guys I have the seller sorted, now just to do some homework and choose a phone!

I would - I sold a brand new one (that I won) on ebay...
I would probably think twice about a used phone - but a new one would for sure

I only buy my phones from ebay,because you get a bargain

Never had a problem with them and ive bought about 7 diffrent phones over the last couple of years

I have bought a mobile on ebay. It wasnt locked to any network so I just put my own sim in it.
I never had any problems with it at all. I think I'd only buy from with Australia though, but thats just me.

I bought mine from China I think, the only issue is it has an overseas wall plug with an Australian adapter rather than a normal Australian one.

we have bought heaps of phones off ebay and only been stung once.
Just make sure u look at their feed back score. the one we got that was bad i forgot to check the feedback score as it looked like and was told it was a brand new phone. but once we got it the box was all faded the screen on the phone was scratched and there were dirty ringtones on it that had been downloaded 3months b4 i bought the phone. the seller would not admit to it being a referbished phone but i still got 100% of my money back. but there was alot of people that had the same problem and left neg feedback about it.

so yeah just check the feedback and make sure it is a power seller. even after having this trouble with the one phone i will still buy phones.

thanks guys.

hey mrsmac, is your DD with 3? Did she get a new phone yet?

I have brought a few phones off ebay!!

I prefer to pay that little extra more to get it from a AUS seller. The two sellers i have used are fantastic!!! really helpful.