"Refurbished".
On Friday, I bought a "refurbished" portable air conditioner. On line.
Here's the deal. A while back, I put a window AC unit in the spare room.
To keep the foster kittens cool, doncha know. SHUT IT.
And ... well ... we had a couple of really hot days last week, and stepping into that cool, cool spare room? Was awesome. And I was feeling guilty, depriving my OWN cats of AC, while the fosters basked in cool comfort. SHUT IT AGAIN.
I thought about getting another window unit, for either my bedroom or the living room, but I hated to lose a window to the air conditioner. So I started looking into portable units. They are not, I discovered, really all that "portable", but the only window space they use is the space for the drainage vent, so ...
I started pricing them out. The cheapest model that could reasonably be expected to do the job was up around three hundred bucks, which ... no. Nope. And as it turns out, upstate New York is not exactly a hotspot for air conditioner sales, so I couldn't even FIND a local store that carried them.
Time to turn to the internet! Where doing a simple thing like pricing out an air conditioner can suck up just as much time as you want it to, which in my case turned out to be half a day.
Which is where we come to "refurbished". I kept seeing these Best Buy air conditioners that were a hundred bucks less than at the other stores. Because they were "refurbished". It turns out that when someone returns an air conditioner to Best Buy, either because it doesn't fit in their window or it doesn't work right or they're just really, really stupid, it goes back to the Best Buy warehouse, where they test it, fix anything that's wrong, and then sell it at a discount. In the case of the air conditioner, an over-thirty-percent discount. The unit still comes with a warranty, and you can still return it, but it's cheaper than buying a brand new unit.
So I bought one. Which will be shipped to my local Best Buy store in the next few days at no charge. They will call me when it gets there and I will go and pick it up and somehow I feel like there is some giant catch to this someplace, that I am reprising my role as the Village Idiot for buying a "refurbished" air conditioner, but I guess we'll find out in a few days, won't we?
Stay tuned ... and in the meantime, if anyone has any stories about (a) "refurbished" or (b) Best Buy, feel free to regale me with 'em in the comments.
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9 comments:
If it has a warranty what do you have to lose? I think it is a great idea!
I buy refurbished all the time. All my TV sets and vacuum cleaners are refurbished. Once an item has been taken out of the store, it can no longer legally be sold as new, so the vast majority of refurbished stuff is buyer's remorse returns. Your chances of having a problem is pretty much equal to the chance of a problem with a new item.
Now, Best Buy? There are a lot of people who don't like BB, but I think it has more to do with the salespeople than with the stock they sell.
Have you been channeling Jim and Tammy Bakker? Everyone's most beloved (i.e.,laugh riot) evangelists? And their air-conditioned doggie house?
I'm sure the air conditioner will be fine...the BB people are backing it up. Though, I have to wonder what words were discarded by their ad people before the word "refurbished" was settled on. For example, there are no more "used" cars, just "previously owned" or "previously enjoyed".....Ginny
I think you're probably going to be pleased in the long run.
The only thing I've bought refurbished from BB is an alarm clock that plays the radio and my iPod. It was regularly about $60 and I got it for $20. Works just fine. Good luck with your a/c.
I've bought refurbished items - no big deal.
Portable a/c units now - I can tell you that they are *not* meant to run 24/7 for a full year :)
The building managers at our work set one of these portable a/c units up in our server room, and in another suite's server room upstairs - they both ran for just over a year, and they both died within weeks of each other - when the repairman came in to look at it, he said they're meant for occasional use, not to run all the time.
Your mileage may vary - hopefully it does the job for you!
Well, I'm glad to know I didn't fall for the Best Buy equivalent of a Nigerian banking scam. Now we'll just have to wait for the thing to get here.
And Anonymous, thanks for the advice! The house doesn't really heat up until late afternoon, so I'll only be running it a few hours a day, to cool things off. Hopefully I won't burn it out too quick.
And of course, since you bought an air conditioner, it's gotten markedly cooler in Upstate NY. Thank YOU! (I buy refurb all the time...never a problem.)
- bridgett
You know, bridgett, I was out in the backyard last night and I swear it felt like September. grrrr.
I guess buying an AC unit and then having the weather turn cool is the equivalent of washing your car to make it rain.
Hmmm ... maybe I've got a future as a weather-changer!
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