Hello
I have joined this forum today to let you know my iPad 2 purchase experience.
I live in the UK, but found myself on a nice break in Boston MA this weekend.
I went along to the Apple store in Cambridgeside Galleria - i chose to visit this store after reading that they have been getting daily deliveries on this forum.
It was about 5pm on friday 18th March and the Apple representative said that they were out of ipads, and that a line had formed outside from 5:30 that morning, and that they will have more ipads tomorrow (saturday) but that it was 1st come 1st served.
He suggested that i give them a call to see if there are any remaining in stock on the Saturday morning.
Instead, considering that my brain and sleep pattern was pretty much stuck in UK time, I deciced instead to get there for 6am and wait.
Upon arrival 6:10am there were around 25 people already waiting in line. very shortly after this a guy came along the line stating that he was waiting at the store the previous day and that the store had recieved about 16 iPad2s and that he was going to buy 2 of them, he offered his 'spare' ipad for $150 premium. as far as i could see nobody there took him up on his offer.
at around 7:30am the apple employees arrived and went into the store, at 8:15am, with the line of people stretching out if sight behind me, two of the employees came out of the shop and went along the with little white cards.. these cards represented all of the iPad2s in stock 1 for each iPad listing colour and specification..
By the time they had got to me I there were 2 ipads left available both Black 64gb Verizon. i took a card. and a girl took the other.
The 100 or so people behind were sent away.
The lucky few were asked to form a new line in a less obstructive area, we gathered together and started chatting. I managed to do a deal with another of the people in the winners circle to swap this to White 64gb WiFi.
And, this is what i found out...
There are organised gangs of buyers visiting apple stores and making pre orders at best buy outlets all over MA. and i guess the USA.
In the case of apple stores ,the organiser will get there early (like 4.30 am) go along the line of waiters asking them to buy 2 (if they was going to get 1) and pay them $40 to do so, and in addition he would give them the means to pay using a LOT of pre paid VISA and mall gift cards.
He explained that this is so that apple, best buy etc cannot track the number of items that he and his teams were getting.
He also explained that the AT&T 3G models are very very scarce and that he would pay $500 premium for them and still make money.
The guy stated that he did this for 4 months last year, and supplemented it with iphone 4's, he said that he will do exactly the same this year with iphone 5s.
He makes a fortune, and good on him for finding a loophole but its such a shame for all of us genuine apple-nerds that this practice goes on and stops us from getting near to a new ipad at launch time without literally loosing sleep.
Oh, the iPad 2 is beautiful by the way.. i got the orange smart cover..
I have joined this forum today to let you know my iPad 2 purchase experience.
I live in the UK, but found myself on a nice break in Boston MA this weekend.
I went along to the Apple store in Cambridgeside Galleria - i chose to visit this store after reading that they have been getting daily deliveries on this forum.
It was about 5pm on friday 18th March and the Apple representative said that they were out of ipads, and that a line had formed outside from 5:30 that morning, and that they will have more ipads tomorrow (saturday) but that it was 1st come 1st served.
He suggested that i give them a call to see if there are any remaining in stock on the Saturday morning.
Instead, considering that my brain and sleep pattern was pretty much stuck in UK time, I deciced instead to get there for 6am and wait.
Upon arrival 6:10am there were around 25 people already waiting in line. very shortly after this a guy came along the line stating that he was waiting at the store the previous day and that the store had recieved about 16 iPad2s and that he was going to buy 2 of them, he offered his 'spare' ipad for $150 premium. as far as i could see nobody there took him up on his offer.
at around 7:30am the apple employees arrived and went into the store, at 8:15am, with the line of people stretching out if sight behind me, two of the employees came out of the shop and went along the with little white cards.. these cards represented all of the iPad2s in stock 1 for each iPad listing colour and specification..
By the time they had got to me I there were 2 ipads left available both Black 64gb Verizon. i took a card. and a girl took the other.
The 100 or so people behind were sent away.
The lucky few were asked to form a new line in a less obstructive area, we gathered together and started chatting. I managed to do a deal with another of the people in the winners circle to swap this to White 64gb WiFi.
And, this is what i found out...
There are organised gangs of buyers visiting apple stores and making pre orders at best buy outlets all over MA. and i guess the USA.
In the case of apple stores ,the organiser will get there early (like 4.30 am) go along the line of waiters asking them to buy 2 (if they was going to get 1) and pay them $40 to do so, and in addition he would give them the means to pay using a LOT of pre paid VISA and mall gift cards.
He explained that this is so that apple, best buy etc cannot track the number of items that he and his teams were getting.
He also explained that the AT&T 3G models are very very scarce and that he would pay $500 premium for them and still make money.
The guy stated that he did this for 4 months last year, and supplemented it with iphone 4's, he said that he will do exactly the same this year with iphone 5s.
He makes a fortune, and good on him for finding a loophole but its such a shame for all of us genuine apple-nerds that this practice goes on and stops us from getting near to a new ipad at launch time without literally loosing sleep.
Oh, the iPad 2 is beautiful by the way.. i got the orange smart cover..