DX selling used/refurbished phones as new - has anyone experienced this?

myisk on 29/05/2014 - 20:36

I bought a phone off dx.com which took almost two months to arrive. When it finally did arrive, I discovered that there are photos and music and other miscellaneous files from another user already on the device. From the date stamps on the photos, there's around 16 months between the earliest and the latest photo. If it was used, it's been used for quite awhile. It's probably a refurbished unit as the outside looks pretty new and the back cover is a little squeaky but the product page stated that it was brand new. I contacted DX and provided photos of the phone's gallery but they still claimed that it's brand new. They offered me $6 store credit as compensation to keep the phone, but I really don't want a refurbished phone. Is this a one-off or would it be likely to happen again with the same model? I saw that they now have stock in the AU warehouse so I'm thinking of asking for an exchange but I don't want to risk getting sent another refurbished unit. I also don't want to have to pay postage on their screw up so does anyone know if they'll refund postage if I return or exchange it? I'm very frustrated because I really needed a new phone as my current one is dying. If anyone has experienced this before any advice on what I should do would be appreciated.

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Comments

  • scrimshaw on 29/05/2014 - 21:02

    What's the model of the phone? Is it a branded device or is it a white label brand?

    And what were the contents of the gallery? On one such occasion I received a tablet that actually contained shots of the factory that it was produced in, including a video — but the tablet was sealed properly and had no actual evidence that it was used and repacked. I came to the conclusion that the photos were taken as part of the device hardware testing but the person probably forgot to format the flash memory.

    • altomic on 29/05/2014 - 21:37
      +3

      I bought a used phone off ebay from a seller who owned a pawn shop. It had photos of a fully naked 50-ish overweight man on it -full frontal nudity. and all his contacts. I was tempted to send off the photos to those people. I soon on-sold the phone (after factory reset)

    • myisk on 29/05/2014 - 21:40

      HTC brand. SKU 133419.

      There were more than 150 photos in the main image folder. Mostly kids and family photos. Although there were no extra apps visible on the phone, there are a lot of app-created folders like 'Tencent' 'youku' 'iReader' etc. There's a lot of random files on the phones. It has just under 10GB of usable storage and more than 9GB is filled with random files.

      • scrimshaw on 29/05/2014 - 22:50
        +1

        You got burnt! Insist on sending it back and getting a full refund. Otherwise open a Paypal dispute, and hope it works out. This phone is obviously second hand and was advertised as new.

        From previous experience, DX will pay for return shipping and the return address is somewhere in Sydney. So the return postage is the least of your concerns, it's whether Paypal will side with you and refund the cash.

        The item that you bought is also pretty old (it's a mobile phone released from 2011, so it's 3 years now). I'm surprised that you would buy a phone like that for over $200, when even phones bought locally would surpass the device in terms of specifications for the same price. If you can't return the phone, sell it off on gumtree and cut your losses, then buy a better phone locally (Huawei G526 is a much better phone, compatible with 4G network and will only cost you $90)

        • myisk on 30/05/2014 - 01:02

          I already had a paypal dispute open because it took so long to arrive. I should probably go change the reason for the dispute. They never even replied to it.

          Thanks for the recommendation but I'm really picky about what I want in a phone in some areas, which is why I bought that one. I wanted an HTC phone because I really like HTC sense. And I also wanted it to use a standard size sim so I can swap sims around (I'm still stubbornly clinging to the old sim size but they're getting harder to find). And it needed to work on WCDMA 850. It was one of the few phones I found which fit my criteria. The T-mobile version was cheaper on eBay but the carrier logo annoyed me and the languages were more limited and there was also the possibility of bloatware. But to update the android version on the Asian model, you have to manually update it with the T-mobile OS so there was probably no point buying that version. I may just buy one off eBay and deal with the logo. Hopefully I get a new one this time. And now I'm rambling. But this whole thing with the incredibly slow delivery, the almost non-existent communication (had to chase them up for a reply to my ticket) and the used-phone-masquerading-as-new has frustrated me so much.

          Thanks for your help.

        • Feepitee on 30/05/2014 - 09:19

          I would suggest obtaining a refund for this phone and perhaps looking for another HTC. I do agree that Sense is the best looking skin on Android, I prefer it even to stock, but you should look towards a Sense 6 device. This comes with Sense 3.6, which is quite outdated. The reason why I suggest that is that as of Sense 6, HTC has placed all of its core apps as separate APKs, allowing them to continue to update Sense without having to update Android on those phones, which provides a degree of futureproofing. However, the phones that have Sense 6 sadly use a micro or nano-sim, so you'll have to cut your sim down to size with a pair of scissors or request a smaller sim. The cheapest phones with Sense 6 currently would be the Desire 816 or One Mini, both of which can be obtained at around the $349 mark. If however, you must have a full size sim slot, the Desire 310 has a full size sim slot, newer and faster specifications and the WCDMA 850 band, but the camera is very poor and is stuck on a weird hybrid of Sense 5 and stock apps. The Desire 310 is current on sale at Dicksmith for $99 with a $75 unlock fee ($174 total) with free delivery.

      • blitz on 30/05/2014 - 00:13

        There were more than 150 photos in the main image folder. Mostly kids and family photos.

        Well they do a lot of testing.

        • myisk on 30/05/2014 - 01:06

          The tester was extremely thorough. Wonder how much 16 months of comprehensive testing would cost.

        • Mixhael on 30/05/2014 - 03:08

          That said, I seem to recall every now and then phones that have a photo of an assembly worker pre-loaded, presumably when they went to test the camera.

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