Buying New or Re-certified

I have been selling both new and re-certified computers for a long time, 17 plus years now for new and at least five years for re-furb’s as they’re called. What’s the difference? Re-furb’s cost about $100 less on average for the same machine new. Oh, and the box they come in is usually a bit ratty. They carry the same warranty, work the same and the rate of return is the same. What is a re-furb? It’s a computer that was returned to the retailer for one of thousands of reasons from “It didn’t have xGB of hard drive space like I thought it would” to “I don’t like the color”. Rarely is a computer returned because of a hardware malfunction, it does happen, but the main reason for the returns are for other reasons. In the past five years I’ve had one ‘problem child’ re-furb system returned and one new system out of hundreds I’ve sold. My advice, if you want to save a significant amount of money, consider re-furb’s.