I have bought 100’s of $$$ worth of new cameras over the years that never took a picture or have taken 1000 pics a week of nothing that I’m considering buying refurbished cameras? Has anyone had any luck with them? I figured if I’m going to take a chance buying crap I might as well pay less for it!

I can't speak for the refurb trail cameras but I buy refurb stuff all the time and have never had a problem.
I got a refurb iphone three years ago and it works great
My 65" and 72" tv's were refurb and I've never had a problem.
I'm all about refurbished, blems and scratch and dent stuff. I save a lot and never have problems.

Unknowingly bought a couple. Worked fine.

Dad has a dozen or so refurb Moultries. Had one that lasted about a year and I think one more quit after 2-3 years. Others are still working just fine.

I bought a refurbished Stealthcam for about $50 and it still works great but I don't leave mine out for extended periods of time.

I'm not a fan of refurbished, but my cousins gets it regularly and I don't hear of him having too many issues. He did get some refurbished Moultrie's a few years back and as far as I know, they're still working.

I hear you on cams. I bought some of the Moultrie P180s and have sent every one back under warranty. One of them I got under their warranty has an issue right out of the box so I put it out and when I contact them want to see if I can just get my money back. I've ran a lot of cams and the two I've found most reliable have been Browning and Covert.

I have had several $200 -$300 cameras over the years. Most were good but they all seem to burn out over time. Lately I have went to the cheaper $50 - $70 cameras (Wildgame) and they seem to work fine form my needs. I run about 3 to 5 cameras nearly year around. Not looking for a portrait, just keeping track of what and how many are out there.

I’ve bought several refurb browning cameras off eBay. Come with 1 yr warranty.

Having worked for a company that did refurb work I can tell you that it can be a crap shoot. In the case of the product that I worked on, a group of items were torn down, cleaned and tested. Come re-assembly time refurb items were built from the bins of cleaned tested parts. when a certain component bin was empty then a new part was used. Some items get nearly all new innards and others are mostly used components. The used components were tested for functionality but durability was anyone's guess. The ones with nearly all new components lasted as well as a new item, the ones with lots of used not so much. Ya pays your money and ya takes your chances, depends if you're a gambler or not I'd say.

This confirms my suspicions, thanks! I get why they do it, it is a bit of a crapshoot though.

Bought refurbished in the past and they worked fine, but the new $99 Brownings work better.