OLX Experience - Vacuum Cleaner

[OnMyWay]

A few months ago I started thinking about getting a new and better vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter.  We have a cheapy canister vacuum that is terrible and a small shop vac that is fairly strong and versatile.  However, both don't have great filtration of the the air exhaust, and dump a lot of fine dust into the air, so I wanted to get a good upright with a HEPA filter.  My two young kids and I are really battling allergies this year and this is part of my plan to knock down the allergens in the house.

There are not many upright vacs here and none to be found in our area.  I had seen some name brand imported ones at some larger SMs, maybe MOA, and I would guess they were very pricey.  I was on OLX a few weeks ago and searched for "upright vacuum".  There was only one and it was being advertised as brand new from a "shop" on OLX.  She mentioned that it was imported from AU and had rave reviews.  So I was able to find it online, and it did indeed have good reviews and a lot of publicity on news programs.  Selling retail for only 89 AU (p3400, USD 63), it was a K-mart vacuum, and they were all the rage, selling out in all the stores.  It was often compared to Dyson, which sells for hundreds more.

Here is one of the reviews I found:

What the lady describes, asthmatic / allergy prone and then getting chest colds / infections, is basically what I have been going through.  My kids, similar but not quite as bad.

We have 3 area rugs that are perhaps part of the problem.  The kids play on them a lot and our old vacuums don't work well on them.  So I decided to take a chance on this "brand new" one advertised on OLX for only p3000.  I had low expectations because the price was lower than AU retail.  My wife chatted with the seller and she assured her that everything was AOK (after trying to talk her into another vacuum that had terrible reviews!) and even included the shipping cost from Manila on Victory Liner.  She even shipped it Sunday before we paid for it Monday morning at BPI, and she promised a 6 month warranty.

So we picked it up at VL Monday and everything looked fine:

As I unpacked it, everything appeared to be fine, but then I noticed a little dirt in the canister, and a little bit around the brush.  It obviously was not brand new.  I called my wife in and she then noticed that the power cord had electric tape wrapped on about a foot long section.  Next to the tape on the cord I could see where the external rubber of the cord had been scraped and the part under the tape had probably been scraped worse.  I didn't take the tape off.

Oh well, let's see how it works.  We have a black short pile area rug that collects sand and dust, and we can't get it clean with the other vacs.  We keep it under another area rug as extra padding.  Wow, this new vac sucked and brushed that carpet until it was super clean, and there was a few inches of dust, sand and crap in the canister!  And I never noticed any dust flying around causing me to sneeze, etc.

So, for p3000, even though it is not quite new, I will keep it.  I haven't told our "honest" seller about the issues yet.  I suspect that she bought it somewhere like HMR and then resold it.  I would bet her other products in her "shop" are the same.  Store returns, etc.

 

[expatuk2014]

Home and co is a HMR brand,we went to HMR santa Rosa on Saturday with the intention of buying a cd Radio player, and a rechargeable vacumn, and a DAB Radio, we found 1 of each the wife askeda member of staff to test them working , and not one worked! So 3 sales lost to them ! We are going to HMR Sucat this saturday might have more luck there! If not it will back to our fav japan surplus stores !

 

[OnMyWay]

Home and Co. is a K-mart Australia line of products.  Many items at HMR are returns that they bought from big retail chains.

I said there were no upright vacuums in our area but I should have checked HMR!  Generally I have a bad taste for HMR but sometimes I find a hidden gem among the piles of junk!

[Dave Hounddriver]

10 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

I was on OLX

I stopped using them a couple of years ago due to lack of integrity of the sellers on there and it seemed like the site was protecting the bad sellers.  Looks like same old, same old. As always, YMMV.  I believe it is a great site if you are going to meet with the seller and buy face to face.

Hope your vacuum works well, even though it is used. 

[Jollygoodfellow]

8 hours ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Hope your vacuum works well, even though it is used. 

May have been used as a demo model but the tape on the cord is strange. 

[OnMyWay]

2 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

May have been used as a demo model but the tape on the cord is strange. 

I suspect it was a return.  The cord is taped right where it would go down and get caught / damaged by the brush; 3-4 feet from the beginning of the cord.  I found out right away that you do have to control the cord or you can easily run over it.  Someone probably ran over over the cord the first time they used it and took it right back to K-mart.

[Jollygoodfellow]

1 hour ago, OnMyWay said:

I suspect it was a return.  The cord is taped right where it would go down and get caught / damaged by the brush; 3-4 feet from the beginning of the cord.  I found out right away that you do have to control the cord or you can easily run over it.  Someone probably ran over over the cord the first time they used it and took it right back to K-mart.

There are two issues with this topic that need addressing. First do you feel like a sucker for buying it and two, is it a good sucker that the first sucker bought.  

[OnMyWay]

1 hour ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

There are two issues with this topic that need addressing. First do you feel like a sucker for buying it and two, is it a good sucker that the first sucker bought.  

It's a darn good sucker; the best sucker I have ever had!

[marine6357]

5 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

It's a darn good sucker; the best sucker I have ever had!

That's the trouble with vacuums when they work the suck but when they dont they blow.

[Gerald Glatt]

23 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

It's a darn good sucker; the best sucker I have ever had!

mine was in 1968-70 in Trier Germany