The worst deal of my life: this is my experience buying a second hand item (external hd) in Indonesia, through the two main website, OLX and Kaskus:
1) Since a small discount means still good money saved for the buyer, but very bad in percentage, second hand items are almost the same price as new one, and without warranty. Often they even sell it for an higher price of the new ones, because they are full of movies downloaded from internet that add value...;
2) They sell so fast you have to skyrocket to the seller before he is selling to somebody else;
3) My first missed attempt was after weeks of researches and contacts that didn't work out. After some extenuating hours contracting with a guy through sms, we eventually agree he gives me his home address and I jump on my bycicle to go on the other side of the city to pick it up.
Exactely on that moment I receive an sms saying that he just sold it to somebody else because he offered more, and I start to swear at him. He argues he was afraid I couldn't make it by bicycle to his house, so since he was afraid I could cancel the deal, he decided to cancel it instead...
4) More days pass and I become "desperate" starting to see also for options in other cities, increasing exponentially scam risk. And in fact the second attempt was with a guy with whom I spoke at the phone, and he was saying he was trustable, he was a father, etc. and to make me more relaxed he sent me a copy of his Id card to my email. I do reverse image search on Google, and I found out it was a fake ID, and he did already scam other people!
5) Yesterday I eventually contact another guy in the same city, we agree on a price really overpriced for the value, but I accept because he tells me he has also warranty. Once we meet (40 minutes by bicycle to go in the city) he eventually doesn't have any warranty, but he gives me his personal warranty!! F*$%!&K
I was so desperate (hard disk and camera memory cards full since weeks and starting travelling in a couple of days) that after doing some fast tests, I still took the Hard disk, since he looked a nice and trustable guy.
Moral of the story is that not to create a demand on the market, not to finance Coltan wars and smuggling, and not to produce extra electronic waste, I took a second hand HD without warranty, saving only 14% compared to a new one with warranty in a shop, and wasting weeks of daily reasearches and contacts.
Probably the worst deal of my life!
Davide Vadalà
