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.