I must be one of the fortunate who had a successful experience with eCost. I made an order for 3 itesm: Navigon GPS, Netgear Wireless N Router and Wireless PCMCIA Network Card. All items were refurbished and sold at a good price point.  
 
The items arrived in a relatively short time (4 or 5 days)well packed and in two packages. All items are currently being used and are operating as expected. There was a rebate offered on one item which has not been received but also the timeframe published has not yet been reached. Have the fingers crossed on this one!  
 
Overall my experience has been good. Of course have not had need to deal with customer service either which many indicate is the problem. I will use this emerchant again if their price is right or until they give me reason not to.

I ordered two 1TB Seagate internal hard drives (manufacturer recertified).  
 
The drives were improperly packaged for shipping, arriving naked (no foam or packaging other than static-free sleeve) inside a single 11x8 bubblewrap-backed manilla envelope.  
 
One drive was DOA and both had minor cosmetic damage to the plastic surrounding the power connectors. The other drive initially passed seagate tools tests, but failed within 6 days of receipt.  
 
Despite the shipping error which probably caused the failures, ecost refused to replace or accept the items back citing a special policy for seagate recertified products that was not disclosed anywhere during the purchase product.  
 
Seagate would require me to ship the products to them properly shipped in protective foam packaging at my expense OR pay $19.99 each for seagate to advance ship replacement drives.  
 
I consider it unacceptable for the drives to be shipped to me in a manner that would not be acceptable as a warranty return to the manufacturer.  
 
I tried all resonable efforts to resolve with ecost including speaking to a supervisor and with seagate on the phone. I have disputed the charges with my credit card company. I have also asked seagate to follow up with me regarding this retailer's improper shipping of their products.

Return policies for defective items is very horrible. I am required to purchase another item before I can even return the defect one. The VCR/DVD was a remanufacured item from phillips and I call them to try to resolve the problem, but the serial # is invalid so they will not help me. I am require to go through Ecost, per Phillips.  
I will also be required to pay for shipping to return the item and the new item as well. I have already paid for shipping on the first item. This could cost me more than the defective item is worth  
Be very careful when ordering items from them, because if it is defective, you will not get any help from them.  
Also from past experince don't get anything that has a rebate, twice I have ordered items that had rebates, but I never got the money from them, even though I followed all the directions. Ecost has ended up costing me more and being a big rip off!! don't order from them unless you want to take your chances.

I ordered a refurbished monitor/TV for a pretty good price. It arrived pretty fast, but with a big hole gouged in the side of the box (DHL's fault most likely), and very poorly packed (the stand was rattling around loose in the box, not wrapped or padded at all, and caused it to get scratched a little).  
 
The item was also a "Grade B" item, which wasn't disclosed on the site.

This review was modified by its author, Destro, on 11/12/08 8:59 PM.

I ordered 50 Headphones in one order. The shipping rate is 45 dollors which is OK for me.  
Several days later they told me the 50 headphones order has been shipped. I waited until I received them, there is only 4 in the box, then they emailed me saying that the 46 headphones has been canceled. I end up paying 45 dollars shipping for the 4 headphone, each of which cost only 16.99.

Item was listed as "In Stock" on the website the day I placed my order. Shortly thereafter I received and email indicating the item had been back-ordered. After checking the website for the next 48 hours the item was still listed as in-stock; even after speaking with a rep and "we do not have an estimated time of arrival on this order". As I write this it is still 'in-stock'  
 
Update 11/11/08 - The order has now been shipped. In talking with some friends it seems that this issue is a common one with eCost and is unfortunate that they cannot update their website in realtime or at best provide better shipping details than "we don't know".

This review was modified by its author, Stoliv, on 11/11/08 7:53 AM.

I've been looking for a Laptop for weeks. Got tired of building desktops. Every ad in the Daily papers gets my attention. I even walked into somw well known stores to checked hands on. At night I surf the internet like everybody else. Well, eCost caught my eyes with their prices. This HP laptop was $300 under the lowest price I could find. After looking close, I figured out it was refurbished, wasn't easy to find. The $20 rebate was the only clue. Well, I bite the bullet and ordered one. Then I found "Resllerrating.com, I started to worried. I was thinking the worst. Got my confirmation and my tracking info. It came 3 days late. The box was well wrapped. Inside was my HP lapton, looked brand new! Turned it on, been using it ever since. Going on 3 days now. Still runs great. I guess I lucked out, Thanks eCost!

On 10/20/08, I ordered a Magellan GPS that my husband had been wanting. I paid through PayPay and thought the GPS would be on its way here. Now, however, on November 6th, I find that ecost canceled my order. I have no idea why they canceled it and I was not notified. The order just remained pending on PayPal. I do not believe that I will ever again trust ecost enough to order from them. There are a lot of other sellers out there, and I'm sure I can find one who follows through.

WORST retailer out there. I purchased a SKYFI3 XM radio and received it very quickly. The radio was defective and I contacted ecost and was told to do a replacement order and I would then be sent a RA number to return the defective radio for a refund. I have had the new radio a week and still cannot get an RA number to return the defective one. Unfortunately, I cannot get a reply from ecost. As far as the rebate goes, it hasn't been long enough to get it back, but according to their lack of customer service, I'm sure it's doubtful also. So, now I have paid for 2 radio, of which one works. Stay away from this company.  
 
UPDATE(11/13/08).....I talked to another person at ecost after my original complaint and they corrected the problem while I was on the phone and sent the free return label through my email..I'm sure it's like any other company, there are going to be a few individuals that will not help, but the last ecost representative was most helpful and sent my full refund to my account..I wouldn't let the bad reviews steer you away from a good deal on ecost...they seem like they try to solve the issues..  
 
thanks

This review was modified by its author, swf, on 11/13/08 8:31 AM.

I have ordered from ECOST several times and never had a problem. This time was no exception. I ordered FRESHMAPS for my Navigon GPS. This retails for around $50 everywhere except ECOST who was selling it for $20.  
 
Usually something that sounds too good to be true is but in this case it was true. The item shipped out quickly. My only disappointment was in shipping cost and time of delivery. The delivery charge was $9.95. The item shipped in an envelope and could have been mailed for 1/4 of the cost.  
 
Also, it shipped DHL/US Mail combo so it took 7 days to get to me. If they had shipped a different method at a lower cost, it would have been a perfect transaction.  
 
Because their price was so low, Their high shipping charge + the price of the item was still lower than the rest. If it had been another item whose cost was more in line with other retailers, ECOST would not have gotten the sale because their shipping charges would have made them too expensive.

Terrible product support. Product arrived DOA and they wanted me to either buy a new one or return the old one for a 20% "restocking fee". What a hassle. Should have read the fine print before ordering. This is what I get from not using Newegg. I won't be using ecost again.

This review was modified by its author, isnoop, on 11/5/08 4:31 PM.