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Where are these eBay iPhones coming from?

jlwillia said:
What do you mean eBay and Apple are "sensitive" with iPhone sales? Sensitive in what way? Like they would investigate how in the hell (are they going to edit that?) so many people are selling mass quantities of iPhones? Because that obviously hasn't happened.

And what do you mean the "strait forward approach"? You mean buying each one from a different person and amassing large quantities this way? I could see a few people taking this approach, but it seems unlikely that all sellers that have large quantities of iPhones would actually think this was worth the time requirement.

Just my thoughts anyway....
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eBay is actively monitoring iPhone sale is fact. Within 2-3 weeks of July 11th launch, eBay actually updated guideline for iPhone specific sales. Apple is always watching, that itself has long track history. So for those guys to be selling massive quantity of iPhones, I don't see any other way but buying them legit. If they fell out of a truck, Apple will know. If they were ordered through some ficticious business, they will know.

Buying them straight forward was applied in the beginning for several iPhone sellers on eBay. In fact, I have heard story of a guy who buys batch of iPhones at a margin from people who were exploiting loopholes to buy them at subsidized price in California, and to sell them oversea.

I am speculating like yourself, but I am pretty certain that Apple is monitoring those sellers. If they are not legit, they will be squashed sooner or later.
 
eBay is actively monitoring iPhone sale is fact. Within 2-3 weeks of July 11th launch, eBay actually updated guideline for iPhone specific sales. Apple is always watching, that itself has long track history. So for those guys to be selling massive quantity of iPhones, I don't see any other way but buying them legit. If they fell out of a truck, Apple will know. If they were ordered through some ficticious business, they will know.

Buying them straight forward was applied in the beginning for several iPhone sellers on eBay. In fact, I have heard story of a guy who buys batch of iPhones at a margin from people who were exploiting loopholes to buy them at subsidized price in California, and to sell them oversea.

I am speculating like yourself, but I am pretty certain that Apple is monitoring those sellers. If they are not legit, they will be squashed sooner or later.
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I couldn't agree more. eBay has always monitored sales on things like Playstations, xboxs and mobile phones and they introduced a new guideline for sellers with large quantities to provide evidence that they have stock in hand and are not trying to scam people for their money. They have worked along side local law enforement for some time to stop crooks selling lorry loads of stolen hardware.

I think until someone comes forward that is able to get iPhones in bulk we will simply never find out how its done. Probably because it is a loophole and one that can be plugged if exploited too much.
 
CocoaPuffs said:
. If they were ordered through some ficticious business, they will know.
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I agree with everything in your post. However, what if the businesses weren't "fictitious"? What if they are legit companies that ordered mass quantities and then realized they purchased too many or decided to use another smartphone? To me, this seems not only possible, but actually likely. I still think bmwpowere36m3 was on to something...
 
I have been wondering about this for a while. There was someone on my local craigslist that was selling an iPhone 3G every week or so, so I emailed him to see where he was getting them. I am not sure how accurate the information he gave me is but he was getting them from http://www.membersupply.com/ I don't want to spend the $29.95 to find out if it is legit or not.
 
The answers is easy...

For some time now not only iphones other things being bought at Shipping arrival points. For example a shipment boat comes and the guys at the bay just get 1-2 out of one big box. This is why there are always been resported loss at shipments and other things like shipment miss calculation.

I remember when there was a big spread of laptop being getting at bay because someone got a connection with a ship port guy.

Maybe i am wrong, maybe they are getting it using another method... but in my experience i know several people with connection at the dock that they already got iphones, laptops and other things in their range for a little less of the retail price.
 
preguntonontrac said:
The answers is easy...

For some time now not only iphones other things being bought at Shipping arrival points. For example a shipment boat comes and the guys at the bay just get 1-2 out of one big box. This is why there are always been resported loss at shipments and other things like shipment miss calculation.

I remember when there was a big spread of laptop being getting at bay because someone got a connection with a ship port guy.

Maybe i am wrong, maybe they are getting it using another method... but in my experience i know several people with connection at the dock that they already got iphones, laptops and other things in their range for a little less of the retail price.
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Only thing Apple has to do is to purchase a phone from of these buyers and check the origin of the phone through IMEI. If the phone was never registered in the system to sell, I am sure that would raise some red flags. It just seems too unlikely for any theory that involves obtaining phones through loss or theft.

I agree with the theory of exploiting FAN account loophole or perhaps story of an overzealous sales rep allowing multiple phones to be bought in their FAN account. But no matter what, Apple will be able to trace to the origin of the purchase and if they didn't like something, they can squash it.
 
preguntonontrac said:
The answers is easy...

For some time now not only iphones other things being bought at Shipping arrival points. For example a shipment boat comes and the guys at the bay just get 1-2 out of one big box. This is why there are always been resported loss at shipments and other things like shipment miss calculation.

I remember when there was a big spread of laptop being getting at bay because someone got a connection with a ship port guy.

Maybe i am wrong, maybe they are getting it using another method... but in my experience i know several people with connection at the dock that they already got iphones, laptops and other things in their range for a little less of the retail price.
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I don't think this is possible at all. If a big company like Apple or AT&T had a shipment of iPhones and like a handful of those boxes were already open when they arrived they would simply refuse them and ask why they were open on arrival. I know I wouldn't accept a parcel if it was already open. Just seems too far fetched to me. I would also class this as theft and as CocoaPuffs said, they could simply check the IMEI numbers and find the stolen handsets and disable them far too easily.
 
CocoaPuffs said:
It's quite simple. They must have figured out a loophole in Apple/AT&T system that allows them to purchase these phone at discounted price of $199/$299 and exploited it.
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This type of thing happens in other markets. Its called diverting. Typically what happens is that a distributor (I am not sure if Apple uses a 3rd party distributor or it is a wholy owned Apple entity) will sell product outside of the intended channel. So, for example my friend works at such a distributor. He sells me the phones for a few bucks over his cost. I take phones put them on ebay for slightly above normal retail and make profit.

I am sure that Apple and At&t try to track down and eliminate this practice but as it grows it starts to go global. Another example. Import/export company takes phones destined for one place and diverts them back to US. Since these are not officially "on the books" for Apple or At&t, they make it into other peoples hands and eventually onto Ebay.

Probably not exactly the way it works, but my guess is that it is pretty close or at least plausable.
 
I doubt that is happening with most of the eBay iPhones. Most of the people selling iPhones are from many different parts of the country, let alone the world.
 
kAoTiX said:
I don't think this is possible at all. If a big company like Apple or AT&T had a shipment of iPhones and like a handful of those boxes were already open when they arrived they would simply refuse them and ask why they were open on arrival. I know I wouldn't accept a parcel if it was already open. Just seems too far fetched to me. I would also class this as theft and as CocoaPuffs said, they could simply check the IMEI numbers and find the stolen handsets and disable them far too easily.
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Also very difficult as the containers are sealed with a serialized lock. If you cut off the lock and replace it, it will not match the serial number on the paperwork and it will easily be traceable back to the port/terminal. Its very unlikely that someone is grabbing a few boxes off of a shipping container or air freight shipment.
 
nickspohn said:
I doubt that is happening with most of the eBay iPhones. Most of the people selling iPhones are from many different parts of the country, let alone the world.
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Why would people from different parts of the country have anything to do with diverting? As I said, it can easily happen on a global scale. Here is another example to provide more perspective.
The iphone is not selling well in India. Based on demand in other parts of the world, it is possible that way more phones than what was actually needed went to India. Those entities in India are going to look for some way to unload the excess supply. Those phones eventually find their way back to the US and end up on Ebay or those electronic shops in NYC. They also find their way to other countries as well.
 
I got an iPhone 3G in Hong Kong. Perhaps they are coming from places like that?
 
mojohanna said:
This type of thing happens in other markets. Its called diverting. Typically what happens is that a distributor (I am not sure if Apple uses a 3rd party distributor or it is a wholy owned Apple entity) will sell product outside of the intended channel. So, for example my friend works at such a distributor. He sells me the phones for a few bucks over his cost. I take phones put them on ebay for slightly above normal retail and make profit.

I am sure that Apple and At&t try to track down and eliminate this practice but as it grows it starts to go global. Another example. Import/export company takes phones destined for one place and diverts them back to US. Since these are not officially "on the books" for Apple or At&t, they make it into other peoples hands and eventually onto Ebay.

Probably not exactly the way it works, but my guess is that it is pretty close or at least plausable.
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Yeah and yes not sure if its happening with iphone but like i said here it happens a lot on computer and small electronic devices like ps3 xbox etc...

Just pointing a possibility.
 
CocoaPuffs said:
This would trigger red flags in many ways. Both eBay and Apple are quite sensitive with iPhone sales.

I am willing to bet that these sellers are taking the straight forward approach and making small margins for their effort. It's really matter of doing the math.
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exactly. a margin of $100 sounds right to me. i highly doubt these sellers are making typical retail margins. small margin + large quantities sold = a healthy amount of NOP.
 
Apple iPhone 3G 16GB Unlocked for USD 250 ???

Hi,
i noticed there are alot of ads on the Internet by this lady...

Could this be true or it's just another scam? Just google her name plus email address, and you'll get many links to her ads.
 
fendol said:
She's the head of a company and using Gmail? She doesn't have money to buy a $9 domain and get a web domain based email.

...I'm probably being a little hard here when I remember that I saw for more than once architect offices and the likes with a Gmail. Does that look professional to you? What I'm saying here, just watchout ;):apple:
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you do know that guy was a troll and spamming BS right?
 
i would think that most of them came from over seas stores some how. Maybe a country or store that slipped through monitoring or a cell provider with a cheap termination fee or something like that.
 
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