"Untested" isn't an eBay condition. Here's what the seller actually picked.

The one field the seller is actually bound by

The answer is the condition field. It's a structured choice from a list eBay supplies, and eBay publishes what each label means on its item conditions page. Everything else is prose the seller typed, and prose is where the hedges live.

Electronics is where that gap bites, because function doesn't photograph. A sweater's condition is in the pictures. A 1987 receiver's condition is a claim about a box you cannot hear.

Two labels carry the weight on used gear. Used describes an item that has been owned before and is fully operational. For parts or not working sets the opposite expectation and promises nothing. The labels available differ by category, so read the field on the listing in front of you.

One phrase deserves its own warning: powers on. It tests the power supply and the front panel LED. It doesn't test a laser, a tape transport, a tuner, a hard drive, a headphone jack, one input on a six-input amplifier, or anything that only fails once the unit warms up.

What the seller picked before typing untested

Untested appears nowhere in eBay's condition taxonomy, so the word reached the page after the seller had already chosen a real label. Go and read which one. On used gear the two live options are Used and For parts or not working. The listing red flags post works through the general version, including what happens when the field and the description disagree.

Be fair about why the word gets used. Plenty of sellers write untested because they honestly can't test the item: no matching supply for a dead brand, no speakers, no discs, no way to plug in eleven things from an estate clearance in a weekend. The word marks a gap in the record, not an accusation. That gap still matters, because untested has no agreed meaning on eBay and gives you no protection.

If the field says Used, the listing is making an operational promise the description is quietly walking back, and the feedback percentage won't settle it. Feedback measures how somebody handles transactions. It says nothing about whether a 1994 amplifier has been in a damp garage since 2003.

Bulging capacitors, and the years to watch for

The cause is a defective batch of electrolytic capacitors, and the era to be suspicious of runs roughly from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s. A bad electrolyte formula is widely documented to have spread across multiple capacitor manufacturers in that window, ending up in PC motherboards, monitors, consumer audio and video gear and some cameras. Gear from those years fails regardless of how carefully it was treated.

The top of an aluminum electrolytic capacitor is stamped with a vent score, a cross or K shaped groove pressed into the metal. On a healthy one that top is flat. On a failing one it domes upward and the score starts to open. On a failed one you'll find brown or rust colored crust at the base, on the board underneath, or down the side under a wrinkled sleeve.

The symptoms have a pattern too: no power at all, powers on and dies within seconds, instability only once the unit is warm, several clicking attempts before a screen lights, or a hum on audio gear that wasn't there when it was new.

A capacitor that dried out with age and a capacitor from that bad batch are two different problems.

A 1978 receiver that has never been recapped is a service job, not a scam. A 2003 monitor with three domed capacitors is a known defect. They're not worth the same money.

The photo to ask for: one shot square on to the board, close enough to read the printing on the capacitor tops, lit from an angle instead of direct flash, because flash flattens a dome until it disappears. Then a second along the plane of the board at capacitor height, where a bulge is easier to see. A seller may reasonably refuse to open a sealed item. It just means the era and the price are the whole decision.

The trap runs the other way too. Capacitors are cheap and they fail often, so "it just needs caps" is frequently true. It's still not a reason to pay a working unit price: the parts are the cheap half, the labor is the rest. Unless you can solder, an item that just needs caps is an item that doesn't work.

What should you ask a seller before buying used electronics?

Seven questions, sent as one message before you bid. What you're testing isn't the item. It's whether the seller has it in hand and has plugged it in.

1. What did you power it on with, and what did you see happen? A real answer names the supply and describes an outcome. "It lit up" isn't an outcome.
2. Can you send one photo of it running, showing something the unit produced? A boot screen, a menu, a lit display, a needle moving. Not a photo of a power light, which proves only that the power light works.
3. Is the original power supply included, and what is printed on it? Voltage, amperage, polarity and the connector. A proprietary supply for a dead brand can cost more than the item, and it's how a cheap purchase stops being cheap.
4. Can you open the battery compartment and photograph the contacts? White or blue green crust means a leaked alkaline cell, which eats springs and board traces and is often the real fault in anything portable.
5. What year is it, and can you photograph the board? For anything built in the capacitor window above, ask for both shots by name.
6. Has it been opened, repaired or recapped, and by whom? A serviced unit is usually worth more than an untouched one here, so anyone who has had work done will say so in detail.
7. How will it be packed, and what does it weigh packed? This is the question that decides whether the item survives the trip.

Watch how the answers come back. That tells you as much as what's in them. A seller holding the item answers all seven in one reply, with photos attached.

Can you return something sold as for parts or not working?

No, not for the reason you probably want to. The label is the seller's stated expectation, so an item sold as for parts or not working that arrives not working matches its own listing, and item not as described is measured against the listing.

What's still on the table is a mismatch with everything else the listing said:

• The wrong item, or a different model from the one in the title.
• Missing something the listing promised. If the photos and text included the power supply, the remote or the cables, they are part of the description.
• Damage the listing did not disclose. A cracked case that appears in no photograph is not covered by the for parts label.

As-is is the same species of word as untested. It's seller shorthand and it isn't an eBay field, so it doesn't override the condition the seller selected. eBay's Money Back Guarantee runs 30 calendar days from delivery, per eBay's own policy page, and what it covers and the one action that voids it is worth reading before you need it.

One backstop doesn't exist here. Electronics are not among the six categories eBay's Authenticity Guarantee covers, so nobody inspects a used amplifier on the way to you, and the category by category breakdown shows what is in the program instead. An expansion into refurbished technology has been reported in secondary press but appears nowhere on eBay's own help pages, so treat it as unconfirmed and not as coverage. For the misdirection that does turn up here, the 2026 buyer scams post has the current tells.

Who pays when a heavy or fragile item arrives broken?

On paper the seller: an item that arrives broken is not the item the listing described, which is the ground the Money Back Guarantee stands on. In practice you also pay in time. Arranging the return of a broken 50 pound receiver is its own weekend, which is why people quietly absorb the loss instead, and why avoiding transit damage is worth more than winning an argument about it.

• Ask what it will be packed in, and ask them to take the batteries out. Double boxed, dense foam on all six sides, knobs and faceplate protected separately. A vague answer is an answer.
• Ask about the heavy part. A vintage receiver carries most of its weight in one transformer, and an unbraced transformer works loose in transit and takes the board with it. On socketed tube gear the tubes should travel out of the chassis.
• Add the shipping cost before you compare anything, because here it's calculated by weight and can be a third of the total.
• Read the item location, and treat local pickup as a feature. Standing at a powered outlet with the item is the only real test there is. Take an extension cord and whatever the thing plays.

Pay through eBay checkout before you collect, though. The Money Back Guarantee doesn't apply where any part of the payment happened outside eBay, so cash at the door buys you the test and costs you the protection. Collecting does move the clock in your favor: the 30 days count from the day you pick the item up instead of from a delivery scan.

Working out what used electronics are worth

There's no single dominant price guide for general vintage electronics. WorthPoint is the closest thing to one and it's paid, roughly $28.99 to $46.99 a month or roughly $259.99 to $449.99 a year depending on the plan. eBay's own sold filter is still the primary free tool and the one to reach for first.

One problem no guide solves: in this category the model number isn't the product. A serviced, recapped unit with its original supply and an untested one out of a storage locker share a title and a search result and nothing else, so a sold price you can't attach to a condition is close to noise.

Two things distort a comparison in this category. Lots and bundles: an untested lot of six radios sits in the same results as single working units and drags the comparison down. For parts listings: the correct price for what they are, and the wrong price for what you're buying.

Here's our part in this, and it's a narrow one. We compare asking prices, never sold prices, because we hold no sold-price data. Our search compares each listing against the asking prices of the other listings the same search returned, on eBay US. It needs at least five priced comparables before it will label anything, and it only calls something a HOT DEAL at 20 percent or more below the average of that set. The condition filter is the setting that matters here: set it to Good or Better and the for parts listings stop counting toward that average. Searching is free and needs no account. A watchlist needs a free one, and from the moment an item is on it we record its price forward, never backward, because nobody has eBay's history and we won't pretend otherwise.

The larger version of that question is in how to tell whether an eBay price is good. It's the same problem everywhere on eBay, just harder here, because what you're pricing is a claim about whether a box works.