Buying thing on Ebay from China or Korea - Is it worth it?

Sometimes you don't mind waiting 10-20 days for something that costs up to 75% less than your local store. But in the back of your mind you always wonder why its cheaper? Mostly because it stuff that is defective- as in did not pass quality checks for the destination country or region. Other members sell very good fakes or grey items(sold via the original factories back door) My favourite heheh.

I recently bought a Linksys SPA3102 router to link my home analogue telephone, telecom and do some clever routing based on my VoIP accounts and telco packages.. basically I wanted to dial South Africa and make it route my call via my telco to an access number using my unlimited landlines minutes, dump the number to the VoIP access and use up my free international land line minutes... Wow. Free- (well 10 Euro every 3-6 month) depends on usage and all that. Still better than Euro for minuteness or normal charges.

So I ordered it form China for £30 instead of £55 at ebuyer. I made sure its the original by looking at the photos- fakes have some noticeable differences. I got it 10 days later, whoohoo!

I spend 3 hours trying to set it up Arrrr. then another 3 days communicating with China. So i got bored and opened it (using skill off course not to void warranty =:] ) Inspected it form the top. Everything looks good ...

I just asked my self what the heck is going on - Why does it not register my telephone. I decide to remove the PCB and check if something fried from the bottom ...

DAMMIT! Water damage. It must have got flooded in a warehouse and got sold of in a spply chain and nobody noticed .. until it got to me.

So I am sending it back after another 5 days of technical support (because I cannot admit to opening it) but I already opted in to spend £20 more and get one from ebuyer - then alter get a refund agter 60 days most likely.

So even though it was a legitimate item, packed well and delivered quickly. Customer service is going to be hell now :) Ehhh... all that to save a bit of dosh.