Ruminations of an Expatriate

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Thursday, August 30th, 2007...11:06 am

Mercado Libre Linksys Purchase

One of my wireless routers recently quit working so I did a bit of internet research to determine what type of router I should look for; logged onto Mercado Libre, Latin America’s Ebay affiliate; and located the router which I wanted, a Linksys WRT54G.

I placed the order, was promptly contacted by the vendor, deposited the funds in the vendor’s bank account, and two days later received the router all in good order. I have discovered that one may find electronic products through Mercado Libre much less expensively than those available in stores here. Relative to the router, most stores here do not have routers that operate on the faster 802.11g wireless protocol and the prices charged by those that do are 40% - 50% more than I paid.

The cost of the router, together with the delivery charge, was right in the neighborhood of the costs, less shipping, I encountered when I searched Yahoo Shopping for USA prices. Shipping prices from the USA to hear are quite high and mail delivery is unreliable, thus ordering from the USA was never a consideration.

I experienced a bit of difficulty establishing an internet connection through the new router so I logged into the Live Chat section of the Linksys support site and within seconds received a response. I explained the problem I was having, the service person asked a couple of questions, and I heard no more .

I finally figured out that I had an incorrect setting in my laptop and everything is now working fine.

This morning I received a call from Linksys support to ask if I had resolved the problem and to apologize for the disconnected live chat session.

Having purchased through Mercado Libre three times with no problems I recommend it as a source for electronic goods and if you’re in the market for a router, or such, I can attest to the great technical assistance service Linksys provides.

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