Hi Everyone,
First of all, let me say that I found the ad on Craigslist.
I drove to the guy's house in Pasadena with a friend of mine, and when I began driivng around his neighborhood, I noticed that this didn't seem like the kind of neighborhood where a father would buy a top-of-the-line Quad for his son.
It was a lower-lower middle class neighborhood (emphasis on the lower), and I told my friend this immediately.
He and I decided to leave the cash in the car (the trunk).
We drove around his house, and I saw two friendly young people standing in the front driveway, and so I felt that it probably was o.k. to drive up to the house.
We parked about a block away, and saw basically people of lower incomes walking on the sidewalks of the residential area.
When we came to the house, the guy seemed friendly enough. His house was the best one in the neighborhood-- freshly painted, etc.
But, he asked us to sit on his porch, and he went out to the street and was liesurely buying fruit from an unmarked fruit truck that was parked in the street. He was taking his time, and my friend started to get nervous.
When we arrived in his house, he changed his story about why he wanted to sell the G5... He said that he and his friend had bought 10 G5s at an auction (from a company that was going out of business), and I basically knew right there that I wasn't going to feel safe buying the computer.
He had a sealed Quad box sitting in his dining room floor, and he had another one hooked up to a monitor, and said that this was the same kind of computer that was in the box.
I asked him if we could open the box and test the computer in the box, and he said that he couldn't do that, because the box was factory sealed (which it appeared to be), and that the hard drive was empty and not loaded with software. He said that if we opened the box, then I would have to commit to buying it.
He had emailed me before I came that the monitor that came with the computer was sold, but then when I arrived, he said that the guy who wanted to buy it did not show up.
He was telling me that he had given one of the computers to his children, and one minute after he said that, a cute young 9 year old came out and asked the man "Daddy, can you show me how to turn the computer on?"
He told her "just press this button, honey."
He then left the room with my friend and I there, and went to his daughter's room to "help her with the computer."
I certainly wouldn't have left two strangers in my livingroom with $6,000 worth of computer equipment and an open door.
At this point, I was looking for a polite and safe way to get out, and my friend and I were worried about our safety.
I told him that I wished him luck, but I didn't feel comfortable that he told me that he had to sell it because his son wanted a laptop, and then I discover that he bought 10 of them at an auction.
He replied that he did offer one of them to his son, but.... I didn't trust him since he was not honest about why he wanted to sell the computer. HE said in his ad that he was "Stuck" with the computer because his son didn't want it.
I shook his hand, smiled, wished him luck, and left the door, hoping that we wouldn't get ambushed by someone as we were walking to my car, and was hoping that my car was still there
After we were out of sight of the house, my friend and I began walking quickly towards my car.
My friend told me let's get in the driver's side of the car (because this muscle car with two Latino gang-banger types was driving slowly down the street towards us.
I unlocked the car, we got in quickly, and then I drove away and could finally relax
I am going to buy a refurbished Quad and 30" monitor from Apple
I think that probably someone had stolen the 10 Quads, and that he was the smooth-takinf front guy who was selling them.
I just didn't have a good feeling about the whole thing and was happy to get away.
Khashyar