That $300 multimeter I bought off eBay was a total dud.

I picked up this used Fluke from a seller online thinking I was getting a steal for half the retail price. Got it in the mail and it looked fine on the outside but the readings were all over the place. I hooked it up to a known good power supply and it was showing 2 volts off. Tried calibrating it myself with the manual but that just made it worse. Ended up sending it to a shop and they said the board was fried inside. So now I'm out the $300 plus another $50 for the diagnostic fee. Has anyone else gotten burned buying used test gear from random sellers?

2 comments

2 Comments

elizabethmason1mo ago

I read somewhere that a lot of those discounted Flukes on eBay are actually factory rejects that got smuggled out... makes sense if the board was already fried. Some sellers just buy pallets of returned gear and flip it without testing anything. Next time I'd ask for a video of it working before handing over any cash.

janah831mo ago

Factory seconds are real but not always smuggled. Fluke has a known variation in their quality control where units that fail one calibration parameter get pulled and sold through secondary channels with a "not for resale" sticker inside. I bought a 179 that way years ago, turns out it was off by 0.3% on DC volts past their spec but still perfectly fine for electrical work. The real problem is you never know if the defect is something tiny like that or a full on dead board until you power it up.