PSA for Buying Night Vision/Thermal Equipment

When buying ‘new’ gear, please take the time to find out some pertinent info:

1. Who is selling it and what is their role in the sale?
2. Who is building the equipment and what qualifications do they have?
3. What are the warranty and return terms?

I was recently asked to check a pair of goggles over that had been purchased by an individual from a ‘dealer’. The individual had some concerns with a few things and shipped them to me. Upon inspecting them I discovered several used parts, pieces missing (o-rings etc) and poor workmanship. The tubes performed terribly on my test set and I opened them up to discover a pair of Russian Gen 2 WP tubes (believed to be Ekran) and not the L3 WP Filmless that they were sold as.

If anyone has any concerns regarding an item they have bought I would be happy to help and can walk through what ‘red flags’ to look for at ryan@nightlongind.com.