I only bid on listings with terrible photos

This is my secret for 3 years, now I share because I got too many servers already

The logic: when the seller he takes photo with potato, my VPS it crashed from excitement because no one else bids!!! Less competition = more fast deals.

Last month I won Dell R740 from some guy who photographed it in his BATHROOM. Caramba! The server it had 2x Gold 6248R, 256GB RAM, 8x 1.92TB SSD. I paid $45. Forty-five!!! The listing he said "old computer, dont know if works." Nossa, it works more fast than my Contabo dedi that I pay €45/month.

Tips:
- search "server" + "dont know" + "as-is"
- avoid listings with rack photos, professional lighting, spec sheets
- best photos: blurry, vertical video screenshot, carpet background, cat in frame
- ask no questions, bid in last 10 seconds

Who else try this? My last win was 2U Supermicro with water stain in photo, he works perfect, just needed new fan.

CarlosBilby gets it. The worse the photo. The better the deal. I've been doing this for years. Especially with estate sales. You know the ones. "electronics from office closing". Photographed on a folding table at 6am. With flash glare. Half the drives still in caddies. Nobody knows what they have.

My best was a HostHatch chassis — https://hosthatch.com. Listed as "metal box heavy". $12. Had 4x E5-2680v4. 512GB. The seller he included rails because "you might need these".

The bathtub thing though. That's next level. Five dots for that...

The strategy is genius! I bid only on listings with short description, bad english, worst photos

Server red with stains = big discount
Drives many with unknown caddies = probable treasure

My best win: InterServer 4U listed "computer loud, heats house" for $23! The CPUs were E5-2697v3, RAM 384GB. I sell the motherboard, keep chassis for ZFS box. Profit $180!

You should verify the backplane, sometimes SAS ports are broken. But for that money you get practice in repair