From a Norwegian Buyer

[squidman]

Beware used arlo products repackaged and resold as new!

Regards from snowy Norway!

Our 2 biggest electronics retailers have the abhorrent practice of repackaging used electronics returns (Expert.no and Lefdal.no), not checking them, and reselling them as new.  Yes it is fraud (selling used products is allowed as long they're clearly labelled, but of course better for the bottom line if they don't) and illegal in x number ways.

So long story short...purchased arlo 2-cam system from expert.no in Bergen at full price of 3400 NOK (ok price, usd price + 25% VAT), but then of course nothing would work.  2 days later on phone/mobile to philipines, Netgear customer support finally gets a hold of previous owner who had returned it under warranty, and transfers the serial numbers to me, and lo and behold, am able to actually register, product, the cams actually work, base station works, and all is wonderful! 

Extremely pleased so far with the concept and product so far (one cam 4 stories down in my shed attached to the condo which has no electricity or water, but around 20k at least in skis etc!).

However begs the question (apart from Norwegian resellers being crooks...which is nothing new...)...where can I get 3rd or fourth cam which has not been previously owned? Netgear is aware of this of course! having had to transfer ownership, prbly not for the first time, but perusing forums, the CAMS as well as the system are tied to an owner. So this becomes a problem, as at this moment have no faith in resellers not sending repackaged used items...which cannot be connected, and then the 2-3 days on the phone to netgear in the philippines...

Sorry! That really got up my nose to the extent contacted a lawyer, but once the system was working...well all was good. Any ideas? Remember based in Norway, so even ordering from say US, have shipping then total that then 1.25x (25% tax) on top...so no savings. However at this point no faith in Norwegian resellers...cannot trust them not to repackage returns and resell as new. Well documented practice here unfortunately.

Any help appreciated...

May you have tight lines, lots of pow, etc etc! 

[TomMac]

really have no idea as to where you can get another camera that is "new"... we have many stores that sell them as a single item ( about $159 US )

But, the good news, is the cameras don't keep any info or serial numbers in them... you can take any camera new or used ( of course if its functional ) and sync it to a base... ( cams can only be sync'ed to one base at a time )

hope this helps

for me tight lines are carving into a mountain road on a fast motorcycle !  🙂

[squidman]

Hi mate..

Not into motocross, more offpiste skiing and such, but to each his own.  

My understanding is that even the cameras (wow I hope you keep this public! viewable!) are also tied to a customer once sold, so if say a customer returns it under warranty, and the reseller (my case) simply fixes up the packaging a bit and resells it as new, the next customer won't be able to tie it to a base station. Correct me if I'm wrong, but 3 days of emails and phone calls to netgear support suggests that the arlo system is tied to one customer once sold, and the id needs to be revoked and transferred to the new customer...and ditto the extra cams. But I can ask my super-duper! customer support rep at netgear who got me out of a real bind for the answer...in any case a reprehensible practice (and very illegal here and most likely in the US/Canada etc!)...

[squidman]

By 'new' I meant not returned by a customer and resold as new...yes I'm after the additional (single) cams of course....! Should be obvious from the initial email. Still love the concept..just not the resellers! Come down hard on them I say (uhhmmm...say retailers indulging in very dodgy practices...like aforementioned...cut them off and stop doing business with them...that would be a start!)...

[TomMac]

>My understanding is that even the cameras (wow I hope you keep this public! viewable!) are also tied to a customer once sold, so if say a customer returns it under warranty, and the reseller (my case) simply fixes up the packaging a bit and resells it as new, the next customer won't be able to tie it to a base station. Correct me if I'm wrong, <

Yes, the base is registered to a serial number and that number to a person when the account is activated....

To my knowledge, the cameras are NOT... Now, I know they have a MAC addess to sync with the bases but I believe any camera could be sync'ed with any other base provided it is a registered base....

I will try to verify this with netgear and respond back.

[TomMac]

---

TomMac wrote:

>My understanding is that even the cameras (wow I hope you keep this public! viewable!) are also tied to a customer once sold, so if say a customer returns it under warranty, and the reseller (my case) simply fixes up the packaging a bit and resells it as new, the next customer won't be able to tie it to a base station. Correct me if I'm wrong, <

Yes, the base is registered to a serial number and that number to a person when the account is activated....

To my knowledge, the cameras are NOT... Now, I know they have a MAC addess to sync with the bases but I believe any camera could be sync'ed with any other base provided it is a registered base....

I will try to verify this with netgear and respond back.

---

Ok...  made a phone call and the answer is yes they are linked.

( I misunderstood as the older Vuezones cameras were not at all linked and believed that the new arlos worked the same way )

The cameras have MACs and serial number that get tied into into a base when the cameras are sync'ed.  The BASE serial number is tied to an account and the cameras will show as linked to that account in the servers database ( which is how the data re cameras is logged ).

So if a base with cameras is registered to a person and the person returns it to a store, there may be trouble attempting to resync the camera to a "new' base as the server database may have them tied to another base.

If you get a 'used' camera, netgear can clear it but you'll prob have to make a call for that to happen.

If you buy a new unused camera, then there's no problem as it was never linked to a base account.

[DanielT]

Hello Folks,

A small point of clarification:

A camera synced to base station A can be synced to base station B with little more than pressing Sync on base station B and the camera. I just tested it.

DanielT

Netgear Arlo Customer Support

[TomMac]

---

DanielT wrote:

A small point of clarification:

A camera synced to base station A can be synced to base station B with little more than pressing Sync on base station B and the camera. I just tested it.

DanielT

Netgear Arlo Customer Support

---

Daniel...

tks Daniel for the test...

That was my original understanding and I had posted as such.... I made a call to NG and was advise that if the cam is assigned to another base that it may not work sync'ing to another ( in the above case the base/cams were returned to store after use, the store resold as new )

If your sure, which the testing did, then I guess we go back to my first statement.  In that case I wonder why Squidman had such problems... cause of out of US??

[DanielT]

If a base station's Serial number is active on someone's account, it won't be available for registration on a different account. I surmise that's the problem he was having.

Thanks for your contributions, TomMac-- you're an asset to this Community with all your valuable posts.

DanielT

Netgear Arlo Customer Support