Used Gear stories....

[mklau]

You do not actually 'buy from eBay' but rather you buy from a seller who is listed on eBay. Which means that you cannot make relevant generalisations about how it is to buy from eBay. My experience is that the Asian sellers from South Korea, Hong Kong and Continental China are very professional and reliable. I recently got the 85mm L 'refurbished' from Hong Kong. I could not find any signs of use on it no matter how closely I looked. It back focused on my 5DIII which was an easy thing to fix.
I would not buy a used 24-70mm f/2.8 unless it had a recent certificate from a Canon workshop.
The 24mm, 35mm and the 100-400mm L lenses I bought second hand from local people. All in mint condition, no problems.

The episode with a Wacom tablet taught me never to buy anything with 'no returns accepted'. It was a mistake.
B&H delivers here to Réunion and I have found things cheaper there than on the eBay listings. They are very good in what they do.

No Amazon shop from any country delivers electronics of photographic equipment here, only books, posters and DVDs.

Do not do business with a French internet seller if you can avoid it. Try to avoid the services of the French Post as well. The French can complicate quite obvious things to issues that you just want to cancel everything and get your money back. This is my personal experience with returns disappearing and items stolen.

My eBay experience is positive. You get a good idea of the seller from his feedback page. The price level correlates well with the amount of customers watching.

I second to the comment about dealing with French seller. On ebay I brought a old medium format film camera (waited couple weeks), but the camera was dropped and bottom was demaged. The item was shipped back but the seller said never received. Ebay and Paypal wouldn't step in because the package is not trackable. Lesson learn cost me $250.

 

[DRR]

For lower cost items (<$400, of course this is only "lower cost" relative to other camera gear) I'm fine trying ebay or CL or whatever.

I've learned that above that, it's best to have some level of guarantee or return policy. It's difficult, sometimes impossible, to fully test a piece of gear when you're taking test shots sitting at Starbucks. Or from ebay, you don't get a chance to test at all! Then what, you're out $250+ to have the item repaired?

Better to pay a small premium for the item refurbished or from a quality used vendor (KEH, BH, Adorama, etc) that has an established return policy and you usually get a warranty on it in addition (30 day, 90 day, 1 year)

When you buy used off forums or ebay or CL, you're depending on the honor of a stranger. Which is not always going to be bad... but an increased risk.