On some advice from these boards, we began listing pictures of identifying serial numbers of computers and other electronics on our listings which we thought may be helpful to combat buyer fraud in the future. However, that just backfired on us. One of our electronic items listed was actually remotely deactivated by the manufacturer as they only like their products sold through them or authorized Resellers. As an fyi, we bought the item in question through a very reputable company that holds "new open box" auctions along with a multi-million dollar retail business. I was not aware a company could actually legally do this if it was legitimately purchased and later resold. They received money when it was originally purchased. It seems equivalent to Walmart taking a product from a tag sale that is in new, open box condition (how many of us buy things we never use, and end up selling them in a tag sale), and telling the owner, sorry you cannot sell that again. It can only be sold through an authorized Reseller.
Not much we can do at this point, except refund buyer and never deal with this manufacturer or their products again because of this type of business practice, but figured I would share my story for others to consider the pros/cons of listing serial numbers of items that may be able to be "deactivated" by a manufacturer who obviously has entirely too much time on their hands to be searching eBay and Amazon for their products.
