buying a macbook pro off ebay a good idea?

Question

I am considering buying a mac book pro off eBay, i cant afford a brand new one so i figured eBay is my best bet. i need the laptop because i am going to be starting college soon, what are some things i should watch out for when buying a laptop off eBay?
have you ever bought a mac book from eBay,if so how was your experience?
i found one for 589.99 Apple Mac Book Pro Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz 4GB 250GB 13" MC374LL/A
its a 2010 model. i don't know much about mac book, i own a Ipad and a iPhone 5s but i never had a apple computer, i had a Toshiba laptop which crashed and stopped working so any information would be helpful
thank you in advance



check out the link below:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-MacBook-Pro-Core-2-Duo-2-4GHz-4GB-250GB-13-MC374LL-A-/121362378813?pt=Apple_Laptops&hash=item1c41c2f03d

Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz 4GB 250GB 13" MC374LL/A

Answer 1

Look for a seller that as a lot of good feedback as a seller, and check their feedback to see that many or most of the items that they got good feedback for were computers.



The seller of the item that you linked to has a 99.2% positive feedback, with 19579 total feedbacks left for them. You can't get much better than that. Most are probably for them as a seller, unless they buy a whole whole lot of stuff on eBay. I did not check.



If You don't buy that one or see one of theirs that is listed as an auction (click on the " See other items" link below their stellar username on the item page) that you may be able to get cheaper, use an eBay sniping service like hidbid to bid for you, it bids in the last few seconds, not giving manual "nibbling" bidders a time to react.



You can also use ebuyersedge to set up a saved eBay search, narrowing down the results you receive by price etc.

Answer 2

I think its a bad idea because you don't know where the seller got the item from. If it's black market and you have a problem with it, Apple won't fix it for you.

Answer 3

Too many variables that way, I would only buy from apple.com.