Reconditioned?

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 00:29:21 UTC, "Bob L." <bob_lally@prophezine.com> wrote:

> Hi:
>
> We have a V220 and V180 each with a problem. Cingular said they would
> ship
> 2 phones and I should return the non-working phones.
>
> The two phones I just received have a "reconditioned" label on them. Is
> this a standard practice? The V220 I have is 1 yr old and the V180 is
> about
> 6 months old.
>
> Can I demand new phones instead of reconditioned?
>
> Thanks for the advice.
>
> Bob

The phones you want replaced may not be available "new" in the vendors
stock. In that case, they are still trying to satisfy your replacement
request with "reconditioned" phones. These are likely repaired, or
otherwise returned items that have been checked out and made available
as working phones. Manufacturers have to lable or otherwise notify the
customer when such items are re-sold in this manner. They could be
perfectly new phones or truely repaired items.

You may have an option to demand "new" phones, but they may not
be available. Read on.

I've not had this done with phones, though I've had it done with
digital cameras. In my case, a damaged camera was sent in to Kodak
for what was likly a time consuming repair. They offered to replace
the damaged item with the same style camera (no longer sold) at a
certain price or replace it with the latest and greatest model for
a bit more. As they were of the same design I took the newer model.
If I had opted for an identical item that was not a repair of the
same unit, my repaired camera could later be resold as reconditioned.
This is often preferable as the turn-around time for the "repair"
is much better. If parts of my returned camera were used to repair
or create other cameras they would be labeled as reconditioned.

This is just like a car sale and repair. A "new" item has just
never been sold, but could have been used as a demo or just unsold
for a long period. If however the car is bought, not taken off
the lot, and the buyer backs out for some reason, the car becomes
a reconditioned item. Car dealerships have many colorful terms
to describe shades of grey, but you get the idea. You might be
able to ask the phone provider about the history of the
reconditioned items, if that matters to you.

David