Refurb.io: My Experiences

My first dealings with Refurb.io was 2 years ago when I ordered a refurbished Thinkpad T420 laptop.  I normally stay far away from anything refurbished but I heard some good things regarding the quality of the goods.  They  pride themselves on offering grade A refurbished equipment with a genuine Windows license.

The order was placed and delivered within a reasonable time.  I was quite impressed with the status of the laptop as it looked very lightly used cosmetically and the battery only had several charges on it.

Flash forward 2 years later and I was looking for another T420 so I decided to order another one with the only difference being that it was outfitted with 8 gigabytes of ram.

My experiences were totally different this time as I actually had to deal with their customer service.

The timeline is as follows:

2017-07-22

• order placed for Thinkpad T420 i5 2520m 2.5GHz, 8GB Ram, 320GB HDD, Windows 10 Professional laptop

2017-07-26

• inquired about shipping status and was told it would be shipping on the 26/27

2017-07-27

• item received
• laptop has the following issues:
• power supply barrel connector has green corrosion all over it indicating improper storage of the unit and laptop
• the hard disk contained the slim version of hard disk (7mm) along with custom rails instead of the standard size hard disk (9.5mm) with appropriate rails
• touchpad and buttons texture completely worn off due to extreme use and abuse
• laptop lid and palmrest covered with a plastic skin that would serve no other purpose than to hide defects
• the windows 10 pro refurbished key has had the scratch-off portion already removed indicating tampering
• the 2 installed memory sticks are missing the fru (field replacement unit) sticker indicating non-genuine parts
• battery has some blemishes and a cycle count well over 200 indicating very heavy usage
• called 1-844-573-3872 numerous times with no answers and voicemail was full
• email sent 2pm indicating issues
• received email at 4:21pm wanting proof of purchase, serial numbers of the unit and photos
• email sent at 4:54pm with all requested information explicitly asking for refund and prepaid shipping label

2017-07-28

• called 1-844-573-3872 numerous times with no answer and received an automated prompt asking to leave a message for a random mailbox number
• called 1-844-573-3872 spoke to a represenative about rma process around 2:30pm
• email received with rma instructions and prepaid shipping label shortly thereafter
• shipped via canada post

2017-07-31

• delivered and signed at destination at 11:47am

2017-08-09

• email sent asking about refund status at 11:02pm
• previous rma email stated 5-7 business days for a refund yet still no refund issued

2017-08-14

• no response to my email
• launched paypal dispute 12:09am
• seller refunded at 1:11pm

2017-08-16

• refund processed by my bank

Based on my experience it would seem that there is a single person who is in their customer service department.  The fact that their voicemail isn't even setup to announce a business name is very unprofessional.  This number is extremely hit or miss and tends to err on the side of miss 95% of the time.

Refurb.io seems to be the retail facing frontend of CNB Computers.

I was very pleased with my original order 2 years ago but since this last order I will not be dealing with them again.