eCost

Full review
Overall, the experience was positive. The product (a Western Digital portable harddrive) was in stock and the price was good (about 10% lower than other places I checked). The length of time between placing my order (on a Friday night) and the product shipping (on Tuesday morning) was a bit long and there were no e-mail updates to keep me posted.

When the product arrived, it was in a plain WD box--sealed with WD security tape. When I opened the box, the drive was packed well inside. No manuals were inside; just the drive. The drive didn't have any physical defects, but I did notice that the serial number plate indicated that the drive had been "recertified" by WD. I was somewhat annoyed by this since nothing on the eCost.com site had said anything about this drive being a recertified/refurbished unit. I am not a fan of buying refurbished units since I have had some bad experiences in the past. But I plugged the drive in and it worked flawlessly.

I sent a followup e-mail to eCost.com telling them that I was not happy about the drive being a recertified model, nothing on their website about that, etc. I received a reply back several days later with their standard "We're sorry you had an issue. Please feel free to contact Customer Service, blah, blah, blah". I didn't bother since I have seen the same e-mail message included here in numerous reviews.

Bottom line: I would probably order from eCost.com again, but I would probably call and ask them if a product is recertified before I placed the order.