Nexo Reuso, one of Brazil’s largest sellers of refurbished computers, pulled 12,400 laptops from sale on Saturday after a buyer in Recife discovered that his newly purchased machine carried a device-level ban tied to its former owner. The move sharply escalates a dispute that began in April, when customers first reported being blocked from an online competition platform despite using newly created accounts.
The company says checks have confirmed that 4,600 of the laptops were blocked by Vértice Arena, a fictional esports platform, after their earlier users were penalised for cheating. Another 7,800 machines are being checked; the remaining units were quarantined because they shared the same supply batches. Nexo Reuso says the computers still work for ordinary tasks.
A check that halted sales
The issue reached a wider audience on 22 September, when Mía Berríos, a Recife customer who paid R$4,800 (about €800) for a refurbished laptop, tried to use it for a local online tournament. The platform rejected her account before she had played, showing a device restriction. She sent the result to the retailer’s customer service team, which then ran checks across its stock.
“I bought a clean machine, but the system treated me as if I had done something wrong before I even started,” Berríos said. She had expected a replacement within days; instead, the company asked her to keep the laptop and said it would contact her after checking its records. Berríos has since received a full refund.
Ibrahim C. Will, Nexo Reuso’s chief operating officer, said the company had not known that the platform’s restriction followed the computer rather than the account. “We believed a factory reset and a new user profile were enough to return a device to a clean sale,” he said. “That assumption has cost us trust and stopped a quarter of our current stock from reaching customers.”
The Recife discovery triggered a manual count at the company’s three warehouses, in Recife, São Paulo and Curitiba. By Saturday evening, Nexo Reuso had stopped deliveries and cancelled online listings for all 12,400 machines. Will said the company had already received 3,100 customer complaints and expected the total to pass 5,000 this week.
Refunds and a costly fix
The R$46 million reserve will cover refunds, replacements and inspection costs, Will said. Customers can request their money back or choose a replacement from a different batch. The firm has also asked Vértice Arena to review the device bans, but the platform has not said whether it will remove any restrictions.
Jazmín A. Sisneros, a consumer adviser who has helped buyers file complaints with a Pernambuco state consumer office, said the resale company should disclose whether a device has platform restrictions before taking payment. “A laptop can still open spreadsheets and browse the web, but a buyer deserves to know if a key feature they expect is unavailable,” she said. The office has received 86 complaints since Friday.
Joško Božič-Primožič, a digital identity researcher consulted by the company, said the restriction appeared to remain attached to a device identifier after the former owner’s account was removed. He said only the platform could confirm how its system matched machines to past activity. Nexo Reuso has paused purchases from two suppliers while it checks the devices’ ownership histories.
For customers, the immediate question is whether a replacement will arrive before the holiday shopping rush. Nexo Reuso says it will publish an online eligibility checker by 9 October, but has not given a date for returning the quarantined laptops to sale. Berríos, who has kept her refunded computer, says she now uses it for work only.
