We heartily recommended a refurbished Roomba yesterday as we’ve had great luck in the past purchasing reconditioned electronics. (Although, in retrospect, we haven’t bought very many reconditioned robots.) We did call Roomba yesterday to question what exactly their reconditioning process entailed and were told—not very reassuringly—that “all the broken parts are replaced.”

What we’re trying to say is sometimes a refurb is a clunker, and sometimes a clunker is just clunker by design. We can’t decide which it is in Lisa H’s case, but from the sound of it, the Gateway laptop she purchased sounds like a poor model all around.

I purchased a M4520GZ Gateway Laptop refurbished through Tiger Direct July of last year.
Maybe that was my first mistake.
When I received my laptop everything worked well except that my battery never charged.

So I called them and they sent me out a replacement battery which didn’t work.

I called them back explained the situation and sent the laptop for repair.
The laptop came back about 1 week later.
They had told me the LED [We think she might mean LCD. -Ed.] screen was replaced (I still don’t know why), they checked the motherboard, and it had been repaired.
The battery charged and all was working for about a week.

Then it stopped charging again.
So I called back and they requested that I send it back to have another look.
I did.
It was returned soon thereafter and nothing had changed.
The battery was still not charging.

At this point I was pretty upset because Tiger Direct would not refund my money because they said that it was Gateway’s responsibility (I hadn’t purchased a warranty past the one month mark from the date of purchase).

After talking with Gateway yet again, they told me it was their policy if something had been returned 3 times with no progress then they might replace it.
I ended up speaking to a nice person in the corporate office who said he would do the testing himself and replace the computer if necessary.

I sent it back the fourth time to him.
He then sent out a new refurbished laptop and guess what?
It worked!
At least for a little while.
About one month later I am having trouble with the AC
adapter making a connection with the laptop.

It is getting more and more difficult to charge the battery.
So much so I can’t move
the laptop while I am charging it.
I can definitely say I am not abusing the laptop or ac adapter/power cord in any way-I
only use the laptop at home for a few hours each night.
Corporate is suggesting I send this one back for more checking!!!!I send these laptops through the mail more than I use them!!!

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