Buying a used HDTV?

[Praxis]

I don't have a single HDTV in the house, because the parents feel no need to upgrade. I'd love to have a HDTV, as it'd give me incentive to get, say, an XBox 360 in the future, or Wii component cables, or just hook up my MacBook.

I'd kind of ruled it out; my part-time IT paid internship pays well enough, but I'm a penny-pincher and trying to put money away for the future. The only HDTVs in stores for under $1000 are 30" or below and really don't look much better than a SDTV in many cases (and don't have HD tuners, which is another $100-$200). So I just ruled it out with a shrug and a "I'll get one eventually" attitude.

I was poking around Craigslist and found quite a number of decent priced HDTVs. Several people in the area are moving and trying to sell off equipment or have moved and have no place for the new equipment or just have too much, etc.

I've found a number of 46"-60" HDTVs for $500-$700, usually with built in HD tuners. Most of them look like they are in good condition; at worst, cosmetic blemishes in the corner of the base where movers bumped them. Most are 1.5-3 years old.

A lot of them say "you can have it for $500 if you can move it".

It seems legitimate to me, but having Aspergers I tend to have a measure of gullibility when it comes to intentions


What are the dangers of buying an HDTV off of Craigslist, where you can meet the person and inspect the TV in person? If there is no scam danger, then what should I look for in the TV that would indicate sub-parity?

[General Zod]

When it comes to Craigslist stuff, I've had a bit of mixed success dealing with it. Most of the time you'll be expected to meet people at their homes to view the TVs (and any other large electronics). A good deal of these people actually are honest about what they're selling, but there's quite a few scammers out there. The ones that expect you to haul away are probably legit, just make sure you've got a truck and some friends to pick it up. (Since that means it'll typically be heavy).

If they're reputable they'll let you test out the equipment before you buy. So far all the reputable people I've bought stuff from will let me look at their items and test them out before I hand them cash. Some tend to be screwy with how they deal though, you can be in the middle of negotiating something via email and they'll say they sold it, which is a pain in the ass. Otherwise I haven't had any seriously bad experiences aside from one or two scammers that I quickly caught.

[InnocentBystander]

Bought and then resold a big CRT tv in this way, and it was pretty painless (32" crts are amazingly heavy, so there was some pain involved in moving it). That being said, I would not be comfortable paying that kind of money for something used. My roommates and I decided to watch slickdeals for the right deal, rather than buy used. It took months, but we got a great deal on a nice big 56" dlp (if you have the space, I'd suggest getting a DLP. Much cheaper). My only complaint is that my parent's old Tivo doesn't record stuff in high definition (not really a fault of the TV, of course), and none of us want to pay for the shitty cablevision dvr