vB Easy Archive - Ebay problem

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Ebay problem
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Posted by: ur_lame_lameo

Well I'm in desperate need of a phone and my dad doesn't want to pay the retail price on a palm treo so I'm in the process of buying a phone off ebay and I'm wondering what are some things I can do to gurantee the phone to work questions I should ask the person. I know to ask about the ESN but what are some other concerns I should be looking out for. I'm not to fond of buying a product expecially a used one at that over line.

Posted by: lmcjipo

Quote:

Originally Posted by ur_lame_lameo

Well I'm in desperate need of a phone and my dad doesn't want to pay the retail price on a palm treo so I'm in the process of buying a phone off ebay and I'm wondering what are some things I can do to gurantee the phone to work questions I should ask the person. I know to ask about the ESN but what are some other concerns I should be looking out for. I'm not to fond of buying a product expecially a used one at that over line.

The first question I would ask you is are you going to be using GSM or CDMA?

If you use GSM, here are two of the things to look for when asking questions on Ebay for a Treo.
1) Is it with your current service provider or unlocked? If it is with another service provider (locked), it will not work with your service provider before getting it unlocked, and
2) What is the condition of it?

If it is CDMA, I've never used a CDMA Treo and I'm not sure how the CDMA works in other countries but in Canada, the 2 major CDMA companies (Telus and Bell) will not activate another company's CDMA phone on their network regardless of whether they have/sell the same model phone so make sure you know that your CDMA provider will and won't allow. With CDMA, you also have to make sure that it is not stolen/blacklisted (more so than with GSM) but that depends on the service carrier.

My final note is regarding purchasing from Ebay and not directly about purchasing a Palm phone and that is make sure that you feel comfortable with the seller. If the seller has a high satisfaction rating, look at some of the items that he sold before he decided to sell the item that you're interested in buying. If he sold something like paperclips previously and has a ### (100%) satisfaction rating and then sells an expensive item, I would stay away from the seller. I also read the comments from the seller/buyer in transactions. If the seller seems to retaliate with negative feedback or posts insults after getting negative feedback, I also generally stay away.

Posted by: kocoman

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D052; Blazer/4.5) 16;320x320)

if its a cdma phone with bad esn you can change it into a good one.

Posted by: gggplaya

Quote:

Originally Posted by kocoman

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D052; Blazer/4.5) 16;320x320)

if its a cdma phone with bad esn you can change it into a good one.

Not as easy as you make it sound, and you also need an ESN that is good and valid.

I bought my treo 700p off ebay for $230. Superb condition and it's worked great until i spilled soda on it. Seller had 100% feedback and has sold higher priced items before. Make sure you look for these things and you won't get burned on ebay. It's not worth it to ruin a 100% seller feedback with many transaction on ebay.

Posted by: Journeyjeans

To check feedback, I suggest using the FireFox browser plug-in Feedbackfox. It will allow you to see all of the seller's negative and neutral feedback at a glance, as well as positive if you want. Invaluable.

~Journey

Posted by: addiarmadar

If ur trying to get a CDMA treo 650 for sprint, ur screwed for They no longer activate those. If ur GSM, get the unbranded version for it had the lastest firmware and the most stable. However, the key with getting the unbradned GSM phone from ebay is make sure its UNBRANDED rather than unlocked. Most of them sold om ebay are just unlocked ATT Treo 650s using a softhack to unlockem and somtimes a hard reset will hose ur ability to use the phone. Make sure that phone is UNBRANDED and ask for the first 4 characters of the SN#. If its PTGG, its unbranded for ALL unbranded Treo 650s SN#s are PTGG. If its not, their playin ya.