Experiences buying used cartridges

I had one very positive and one very negative experience buying used. The bad one was for a cart that (sounds like the stock description) had "low hours" and "functioned perfectly". It couldn't make a clean sound to save its life. I made the mistake of going back and forth with this guy until I was past the point of return (although I'm not sure if I would have ever really gotten my money back, given the way this guy was slipping his way through the email back-n-forth). The thing is he had a perfect rating up to that point.

I wound up sending the cart to SS. The stylus was shot and it also was in need of a serious cleaning. In the long run it cost me well beyond what I was planning to spend on that go around, but it now works beautifully. The other purchase could not have been more different - that cart was received in exactly the condition advertised, but based on my bad experience I'm not sure if I'd buy used again.

I have bought lightly used cartridges directly through the distributer
Fantastic ZYX service from Mehran at Sora Sounds

Qdrone the problem is that if a certain amount of time goes by you cannot leave feedback for a transaction. I believe this is why GRGaudio ignored my first three or four emails.  By the time I had it looked at and verified that it was toast I could not leave feedback. And I'm sure he's pulled this on quite a few others as well. I don't know the guy personally but I just want to warn others about him so they don't get burned. Right now he has a Linn archiv b up for sale. Supposedly has 250 hours on it. It is 25 to 30-year-old cartridge with only 250 hours on it??!!  Come on give me a break, that's only 10 hours a year. And this is not an isolated example. Pretty much all of his cartridges he has ever sold have been listed as 300 hours or less. And a lot of them have been 20 to 30 years old. 

Sold several on Audiogon, but would never buy used!

Never had a buyer complaint.

I just heard from another CAM member who was sold a defective cartridge from GRG audio. He was sold a different cartridge then was pictured in the ad, it had a different serial number, and it had a totally defective suspension. He sent it back and received a few emails over a few months that Greg was going to fix it and send it to him but he never got anything back and Greg stopped responding to his emails.  Thankfully CAM has moderation that review the case and booted GRG Audio off of CAM.  However this a small consolation to the gentleman who is now out almost $1000 and has no cartridge.  If you do not want to get ripped off do not buy from this guy he sells hundreds of cartridges and apparently none of them have over 300 hours.  This stretches the logical bounds of credibility in and of itself.  Then he has a track record of completely ignoring people when there is a problem.  I'm sure only one out of 20 cartridges is completely defective but still do you want to support someone like this?  And if you are the one out of 20 then you have been completely ripped off for thousands of dollars and have absolutely no recourse.