'Refurbished' Electronics, LOL

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I'm a regular visitor to Ebay recently, and I see some ridiculous stuff being sold as 'refurbished'. Just last week there was a laptop computer described as such, which had no operating system, hard drive, memory, wifi card, battery or charger, and at least a couple of other items were missing. The usual term for such an item is 'scrap', is it not?

I often see things like hard drives, RAM modules and even laptop batteries being sold as 'refurbished'. How do you refurbish a RAM stick, which in my experience either works or it doesn't? Or a mechanical hard drive - even a 500GB one these days is only worth about £15 max, and repairing a broken one would cost you a lot more than this in terms of time and parts. What on earth is a refurbished battery, LOL?

They clean off the dust and then sell it as refurbished because it sounds better than used. Few want to buy used stuff, but more are fine with buying refurbished stuff.

"Refurbished" implies currently functional condition with a reasonable expectation of continued functioning for at least a few months. What you describe is, as you say, scrap or spare parts.

If you have a dedicated battery pack for a certain devise , occasionally you can open them up and replace the standardized battery pack inside the brand specific casing of the battery pack , personally have not had good luck with refurbished battery packs .

I bet if you asked them what exactly they did to "refurbish" it, they'd go very quiet.... Sounds like a scam to catch out buyers who don't read the small print.

I bought a PC tower that was "refurbished" see also NOT the one shown in the picture instead one that looked like it had been used as a football with a hard drive that was making all the warning noises of being just about to die. Got my money back and moved on.

I won't buy refurb goods, only new where funds allow.

Batteries can actually be refurbished but it is rare anyone will go to those lengths as usually it is not worth refurbishing them unless they are larger so they are easier to work on and also cost more money. (E.g. larger 12v batteries intended for electric bicycles, wheelchairs etc).

I do get your point though. It is not referbished unless it has been stripped down and any faults repaired and rebuilt and tested, and it has to then be a complete working part, not a singlw piece of something that has just been cleaned.

In my hobby I see terms missused. For example, a model locomotive where the person has repinted it and described his efforts as "Scratchbuilt" when not one thing has changed other then the coat of paint.(I am not knocking the paint as painting can be a challenge in itself and does require a steady hand with skill).
The problem is that when I have correctly pointed out what scratchbuilding means I then get told off by many others who think I am being "Picky", when I never intended to criticize the persons work. I was merely trying to point out the correct term the person should use.
Ah well. I left them to it!

I buy most of my computers from Discount Electronics in Austin, Texas. discountelectronics.com I think.

I've never had a problem with anything I bought from them and if I did, they warranty their computers for a year.

^ I've made it several times, LOL.

Safest bet is probably to only buy refurbs from or done by the original manufacturers, not third parties. I don't buy refurbed computer parts piecemeal, but for general electronics, appliances, & full computers buying manufacturer refurbs has been as good as new non-refurbished.