Need advice on a 23inch ACD purchased on ebay

[SDLSteve]

I purchased a used 23 inch ACD at the end of last month from a seller who had described it as being almost a year old. I paid $655. I checked the serial number and it was under warranty until March 28th and even called apple to verify this. When I purchased applecare, I found out that the monitor was three years old not one.

I contacted the seller and asked for a partial refund due to the age (most monitors out of a year old were going anywhere between $450-$500.

The seller declined.

I opened a dispute on paypal and they agreed with me.

I again asked the seller if they would consider a partial refund and again declined under the idea that the monitor is in great condition and age shouldn't be a factor.

I'm resigned to shipping it back.

Am I right in this matter or wrong? How would you have handled it?

 

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

You have a point. The item wasn't as advertised. Despite what they say 3 years old is not the same as 1 year old. I'd report them to Ebay. Good luck with this.

 

[J&JPolangin]

...how did apple let you add apple care to an ~3 year old item?

 

[MistaBungle]

If he claimed "almost a year old" to me, that means UNDER a year. "About" a year would be used if it was over a year but within a reasonable amount of months.

This is crazy.

But I'm also shocked to hear that Apple let you add AppleCare to it. In my understanding, that would only happen if the 3 years is NOT up and your Apple Care is for the remaining little bit of the third year.

 

[SDLSteve]

I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. I purchased applecare and attempted to apply it to the monitor and wasn't able to. That's how I found out it was 3 years old instead of the one.

 

[miles01110]

Ship it back, get a refund, then get a monitor that has a price that coincides with its value.

Lucky you caught it though- I'd say definitely report the seller to whoever you can.

 

[suburbia]

That is clearly fraudulent of the seller to advertise owning the ACD for under 1 year if he had it for 3 or more years.

However, I've read somewhere on this site that because the ACD haven't been updated since approx. 3 years ago, that the serial # shows that the unit is technically 3 years old, when, it is in fact, new.

Since you were able to purchase AC for the ACD, I would conclude this is the case. But contact Apple and clarify with them for certain.

 

[California]

Hmmm. You should get a refund and buy mine. I just sent my 23" ACD in for a replacement under Applecare and they sent me a new one. Only eligible for under a year of Applecare now. Let me know. Have original packing, boxes Apple sent brand new cords, powerbrick as well.

 

[SDLSteve]

Like I said, paypal sided with me and I'm returning the monitor tomorrow for a full refund.

I just wanted to see what you all thought of the scenario. I bought it for $650 and asked for a $200 discount after finding out it was 3 years old (nothing was wrong with it, I just felt spending $650 for an out-of-warranty monitor was a bad move seeing how I could get a refurbed for $750).

 

[miles01110]

I bought it for $650 and asked for a $200 discount after finding out it was 3 years old (nothing was wrong with it, I just felt spending $650 for an out-of-warranty monitor was a bad move seeing how I could get a refurbed for $750).

I think that's a perfectly reasonable stance to take.

 

[J&JPolangin]

I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. I purchased applecare and attempted to apply it to the monitor and wasn't able to. That's how I found out it was 3 years old instead of the one.

...good thing you caught it, can you also return the apple care so you're not stuck with that expense?

 

[SDLSteve]

I went ahead and bought a refurbed off of apple's store and applied it to it.

 

[peskaa]

That is clearly fraudulent of the seller to advertise owning the ACD for under 1 year if he had it for 3 or more years.

However, I've read somewhere on this site that because the ACD haven't been updated since approx. 3 years ago, that the serial # shows that the unit is technically 3 years old, when, it is in fact, new.

Since you were able to purchase AC for the ACD, I would conclude this is the case. But contact Apple and clarify with them for certain.

Apple haven't updated the cases, but the internal specs have changed slightly over the years (brightness/contrast etc). There's three models of 23" DVI ACDs out there, the 2A5 (2004-2006), 2A6 (2006-2007) and 2A7 (2007-2008) models. The first three letters of your ACD serial number hence give you a rough idea of age. If you got a "new" 23" ACD now (ie: from Apple's supply of displays for warranty) it'll be of the 2A7 series.