Like most photographers (excepting those who are lucky enough to get sponsored or those who are independently wealthy) I am always on the lookout for opportunities to get the best gear I can for the least amount of money. I have found out that there is a good way and a bad way to go about this and very recently had the distinction made very clear to me.
I'll start with the right way. Use an established, well respected gear reseller like Keh, Adorama, B&H, or your local camera store. These guys know what they are doing and want to maintain their good reputations. I haven't done much business with the other big two, but I have made several purchases from KEH and they are easy to deal with and very conservative with their rating system.
The wrong way. Unless you are an experienced camera technician, I don't recommend ebay, amazon, or craigslist. Ebay/Amazon I haven't even tried out, because buying used gear sight unseen always seemed to me like too much of a gamble and I haven't been willing to roll those dice. I have made two major gear purchases from craigslist and both turned out to be lemons despite my best efforts to protect myself:
Purchase two: You will see the reason for the reverse order shortly. I bought a used Nikon 24-70mm F2.8 from CL for about 1/3 less than I would have paid new. Guy's excuse for selling was that he was switching to Canon. He did mention that the soon ring was a little sticky. I put it on the camera, tried shots wide open, stopped all the way down, and middle apertures at both ends and the middle of the zoom range, they all looked fine on the camera LCD, so I paid him, took the lens and went my merry way. Wasn't able to tell until I got home and looked at the images 100% on the computer that none of them were sharp. Thought maybe I needed to custom focus adjust for the camera/lens combo, tried that, nothing worked. Eventually took the lens in and had to get it serviced and repaired to the tune of $500. As it worked out, I wound up paying the same total that I would have paid to get the lens brand new initially, so at least in that respect I broke even, but after lesson two I decided that I would never shop CL again for photo gear.
Purchase one: This is actually the reason I made purchase two, because I didn't realize I had gotten screwed basically until today, even though I bought this lens on CL over two years ago. Actually, since I have gotten a lot of mileage out of this lens, guess I can't really say I got screwed, but I really didn't realize what I had missed until today. The first lens I got on CL was a 70-200mm/F2.8 VR I lens. I got it for about 1/2 the price of new, guy selling it said it was because he was upgrading to the VRII. I put it on the camera, shot it at a range of apertures and focal lengths, everything worked fine. I have used the lens a lot and gotten awesome stuff with it. The first issue I noticed with this lens was last August, when I shot a soccer tournament and realized the lens would not work with teleconverters that it was supposed to work with. Based on conversations with some other shooters, I figured this was just a one off thing, apparently not uncommon. Recently the lens developed a new issue, it would occasionally just decided to stop autofocusing. At first it was really sporadic, then at the speed light workshop last week it started happening every 10th frame or so, really annoying. I knew it had to be the lens since it happened on both Excalibur and the D800. So last week I shipped it up to Nikon. They said it was a bent mount and quoted my $432. I sucked it up and paid, and just got it back this afternoon. Turns out there was more to it than the initial report. I slapped the lens on the camera and started to play, focus was awesome, if anything faster and smoother than before, everything was great, except there was this weird whining noise that the lens had never made before. I tried both bodies with no change. I thought it was weird that Nikon would send it back to me with a flaw so obvious, so I did a little goggling. Turns out that the noise I was hearing for the first time was the Vibration Reduction motor system working, which apparently had not worked for as long as I had owned the lens. I hadn't noticed the lack of a sound I didn't know was supposed to be there, and since this is the only VR lens I own I had nothing to compare it to. So even though the lens had functioned well for me, it had been crippled for the entire time I had been using it. It was shooting pretty sharp even with slower shutter speeds before, can't wait to see how it really performs now that is back to factory condition. And I guess it still didn't cost me much more than it would have to have bought it new or refurbished originally, and I also bet it will now work with the teleconverter.
But twice bitten, forever shy. No more CL for me, I obviously am not equipped to properly evaluate used gear, so I will stick to buying from people who are and provide a warranty with their used gear.
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