Like many a penny-pinching geek, I’ve often been wowed by deals on refurbished gadgets. But I’ve heard the horror stories, too, and even lived through one: A dead-on-arrival Palm from Overstock.com, and a subsequent journey through the Nine Circles of customer-support Hell as I fought to recoup my $99. Oh, how I wish that home-theater guru Robert Silva had written his guide to buying refurbished goods before I took that fateful Palm plunge. Don’t make the same mistake — read Silva’s primer on the lingo of refurbs. His four-question “Are you being ripped off?” test is a must for cheapskates.
