[titchyyyy]

I feel confident in my abilities to get this done but I’m also nervous for the monetary factor / fear that it won’t be refunded.

Maybe start off with other companies for lesser priced item(s) (<$500) and build your way up. Once you get a refund for an item with one company, sell it locally / online and then do another item for <$1000 and so on until you've reached the price of the lens you want?

This way, regardless if the SE fails (which it shouldn't do) for the lens, you'll have paid nothing for it anyway. If you do successfully SE the lens, you'll leave your self with a lot of spare cash to SE in the future and you'll have the item you want.

I remember starting from a £500 bank balance. Now I'm up close to £20k in profits and still have consoles, phones, computers, monitors, speakers, sound systems in my possession that I would never have been able to afford before.

Quite a good idea honestly. Debating just going for the camera and seeing what happens using a credit card and if it doesn't work for whatever reason, just starting to do this and work my way back up.

Give it a go! Let us know how it goes if you do.