Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

thequicksilver

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 19, 2004
789
17
Birmingham
I've removed this post because I'm not willing to have my integrity questioned over linking to a good deal.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_1.jpg
    Screenshot_1.jpg
    25.6 KB · Views: 178
Takumi said:
why hasn't this been locked yet?

What do you mean why hasn't this been locked yet? is there a known problem with the deal or are you surprised that Empire are selling them for this price?

I'm intrigued [by the offer] to say the least, as I'm after a nano to help convince myself of taking regular exercise before I end up like Cartman!! ;)
 
Hmmmmmmmm........all I see is a 2GB Nano for £199 which is about £65 more expensive than Apple. LOL 4GB for £249 - £70 more than Apple. :eek:

EDIT: Sorry found it now.
 
thequicksilver said:
So finding an hot, new, Apple product for 30% off the standard retail price deserves locking?

Thanks so much. I won't bother next time.

Have you bought one?
 
MacSA said:
Have you bought one?

Haven't decided. I do want a white one, but I was going to hold off until the summer when I could actually afford one. (I'm a student.)

£100 is a bit much for me to spend on a luxury right now, so I'm still thinking about it. My housemate who just spent £99.88 on a black 1GB nano is a bit peeved, however…
 
oh bum.

I was planning on picking up a 1gig nano in april.
this would be perfect...but totally unaffordable till my grant kicks in *le sigh*
ah well

thanks for sharing :)
 
Seems to work okay for me. Weird way of payment though... you have to set up an account with them rather than make one-off payments? Where's the catch? :confused:

EDIT: I note I had to enter two addresses to find out the price... I hope I don't get paper-spammed now!
 
thequicksilver said:
So finding an hot, new, Apple product for 30% off the standard retail price deserves locking?
Without commenting about this particular seller, who I know nothing about, other sales plans that offered deep discounts on 'hot' Apple products have turned out to be a scam in the end.

Apple's wholsale price on a Nano to a reseller (*even one that buys in 100 lots*) is about 5 - 8% below the retail. Resellers buying in 10,000 lots *may* get an extra 1 percent. Therefore any outfit selling at 30% off is either:

- selling at a loss, which is unsustainable
- selling used or stolen goods
- has another 'gotcha' in their scheme that extracts money - like 'rebates' that never arrive, or having to sign up for accounts or memberships that have hidden charges, or worst-case, permit identity theft or unauthorized withdrawls from your account
- is an outright scam where they will sell just enough at a loss to generate credibility, then take a shed load of prepaid orders, then fold their tent and disappear with the money.


AND: The reason why members are speculating why this thread hasn't been locked, is that the way that scam operators advertise their game is to go on online forums as a member, and say "I just got this great deal on an iPod at XYZ.com at 30% off". This is called shill posting.

Typically also there will be shill posts that address some of the healthy skepticism - such as "It took a while to deliver, but the seller was really great about it, They are having huge response to their sale and are hiring more staff to keep up. Even though it was 3 weeks late, when they shipped it they upgraded to overnight air ar no cost. I'm really happy blah blah."

This is of course grooming the market to expect a long delivery time for the hot deal products, which allows them at the end-game to collect payments on orders for a month or longer, before the first ones start making noises about non-delivery.

That is a classic scam scenario, and has been played many times.

You, whether knowingly or innocently, have stepped right into the profile of shill poster # one, IF this seller is shady, which I am not drawing any conclusion on yea or nay.
 
I'm at a loss, frankly.

Shill posters generally aren't:

• Established with 500+ posts on the forum, and been around for over 18 months.
• Members who link to their own personal homepage, a page which gives away explicit details as to their identity.
• Fully literate.
• Linking to established companies which are pretty well known in their country of origin. To offer a Canadian perspective (I have a friend in Toronto) this isn't quite, say, a Sears in scale, but it's well-known enough. My late grandmother had their catalogues delivered for a while.

Your posts on this forum Trevor are nearly always insightful Trevor, and I've gained much knowledge from them, but here I'm afraid you're totally off.

If I were a newbie linking to a site called something along the lines of "iPod nanos for £50 GENUINE LINK!!!!!!!" then I'd understand your scepticism, but here your lack of local knowledge has let you down.

But anyway, to avoid any further suspicion, I'm removing the details.
 
Just a quick note to back up the OP - Empire Direct is a well-established online/catalogue retailer in the UK. They generally target the lower-paid end of the market, and do a lot of business selling electronics products on weekly payment terms at quite a high APR. In the financial sector, I suppose it's what's called the 'sub prime' market.

Of course I can completely understand CanadaRAM's point of view, but being in the UK I can tell you that it's a legit firm and not a scam.

In terms of the pricing, well, there seem to be a few deals floating around in the UK on iPods at the moment - PC World and Dixons offering £25 iTunes prepaid cards for every Nano sold, eBuyer knocking out 5G iPods for £189 (£30 off Apple RRP). This could well be just another example. Channel clearing, perhaps?

Scepticism to protect fellow MR members is healthy, but in this case I think the OP has got a bit of a rough deal.


Chris
 
CanadaRAM said:
Without commenting about this particular seller, who I know nothing about, other sales plans that offered deep discounts on 'hot' Apple products have turned out to be a scam in the end.

Apple's wholsale price on a Nano to a reseller (*even one that buys in 100 lots*) is about 5 - 8% below the retail. Resellers buying in 10,000 lots *may* get an extra 1 percent. Therefore any outfit selling at 30% off is either:

- selling at a loss, which is unsustainable
- selling used or stolen goods
- has another 'gotcha' in their scheme that extracts money - like 'rebates' that never arrive, or having to sign up for accounts or memberships that have hidden charges, or worst-case, permit identity theft or unauthorized withdrawls from your account
- is an outright scam where they will sell just enough at a loss to generate credibility, then take a shed load of prepaid orders, then fold their tent and disappear with the money.


AND: The reason why members are speculating why this thread hasn't been locked, is that the way that scam operators advertise their game is to go on online forums as a member, and say "I just got this great deal on an iPod at XYZ.com at 30% off". This is called shill posting.

Typically also there will be shill posts that address some of the healthy skepticism - such as "It took a while to deliver, but the seller was really great about it, They are having huge response to their sale and are hiring more staff to keep up. Even though it was 3 weeks late, when they shipped it they upgraded to overnight air ar no cost. I'm really happy blah blah."

This is of course grooming the market to expect a long delivery time for the hot deal products, which allows them at the end-game to collect payments on orders for a month or longer, before the first ones start making noises about non-delivery.

That is a classic scam scenario, and has been played many times.

You, whether knowingly or innocently, have stepped right into the profile of shill poster # one, IF this seller is shady, which I am not drawing any conclusion on yea or nay.
A little fact checking wouldn't go amiss before posting something like this!
 
CanadaRAM said:
...this particular seller, who I know nothing about....

Case dismissed.

Have you looked at the retailer's website? It's somewhat an elaborate "scam" if you believe because they spent a hell of a long time on this website...
 
Ignore my earlier post. Just ordered with no problems. As thequicksilver has removed the info due to people questioning his integrity, I am happy to repost them for the benefit of other users on this forum who would like to purchase a discounted nano.

Go to www.empirestores.co.uk and in the search box enter FR7966

In the order code box enter PJ1658

The above will get you a Black 2GB Nano for £99.

Thanks for the info thequicksilver and other people on this forum should check their facts before calling into question another members integrity when all they are trying to do is pass on a genuine offer to other members:rolleyes:
 
Ordered mine on Monday night...it arrived this morning.

sealed, perfect...new, not a refurb, comes with a case, so a new version and the invoice was £99.

PERFECT!!

so perfect I planned to pick up a couple more but the website says currently out of stock.
 
Big thanks to thequicksilver for providing the info regarding this steal of a deal.

I placed my order last Thursday [30th] and received a confirmation e-mail pretty much straight away - called Empire on the 31st to see what was going on; they apologised for the delay but due to me being a new customer there would be a slight delay in receiving the goods.

And yesterday [6th] I was over the moon to find a nice shiny black iPod nano waiting for me when I arrived home from work - all for the paltry sum of £99.00! Regular price for a 2gigger is £139.00 or £128.08 with student discount...

The only thing I was concerned about was the fact that the 'courier' left the package outside stuffed behind our water-but; now, it's a quiet estate I live on but none-the-less you can't going leaving the likes of iPod's lying around for goodness sake!!! Despite the fact it was all wrapped up in a padded-bag, it was still evident there were goods from Empire in there... It could easily have been anyones...

The last time I followed a deal was for an uber cheap 20" ACD -- everything went fantastic and then for some reason Dixons [the re-seller] decided to cancel my order without actually making me aware! So with that in mind I'm very happy to have received an Apple deal such as this...

So, once again, to thequicksilver... nice work fella! ;)
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.