These days people tend to buy what is new and hip, upgrading their old electronics to the new slick, high tech version. That is part of our economy, in with the new and out with the old. But sometimes we want to live up those nostalgic feeling and live old memories. So we then go to website like Amazon and Ebay looking for our past. When we finally find what we are looking for we are left with nothing but horror. People are literally selling us good old memories at black market prices. Most of the times they only rise the price of the new items since they are new and rare, that I can see. But when the price an item that is way over the MSRP and it is also used, that is where I draw the line. last month I was looking to buy a Codebreaker for the PS2 so I searched Amazon for the item. The results I found was what I would call highway robbery. The prices for new was high but that was to be expected. But what i didn't expect was that one seller wanted 300 dollars for their codebreaker. The codebreaker originally cost only 30 to 40 dollars NEW in the store, so that is a ten times price increase. But hey that is a mint Item so that is expected at times. What got on my nerves though was a bunch of sellers wanted to sell the USED items that high too. I seen most to be 50 to 70 dollars but one item was 150 dollars, and it wasn't even in good condition. We want to but these items to use, not to lock away and let it collect dust. These does not just infect outdate software, these is also a problem with hardware too.
Many times I seen listings on craigslist, Amazon, and ebay for PS3 60GB and 80GB systems and they want a kings ransom for it. Selling those items for a little more then the other versions is exceptable but when you try to sell it higher then a brand new system, you are crossing the line. Some of those sellers say that they paided six or seven hundred for it when they came out, but they need to remember once thing with electronics, the value goes down over time, and this is true for used items. (not always true for sealed items though, bet you can make a small fortune with an original sealed atari) These brings up another issue with people selling used electronics, when they upgrade years later, they try to sell it with its original or pretty close original price. I have seen this many times over the years cause I like to buy gently used electronics, it is cheaper or at least it is suppose to be cheaper. The biggest offenders are Rear Projection TV's, Tablet PC's (not the ipads or androids), computers, flat panel TV's and video game systems. Most of the time they say it was barely used, in a non smoker home, we kept it in great condition or any other phrase saying that it was barely used or touched. But the sad fact is the item is 5 to 10 years old, whither you used it or not time will do its toll on it. Also that is open promises when in fact when we get the item it can just break down.
So I strongly think we need a blue book for all electronics, if you agree comment back.
