I did find half a dozen or so that seemed suspicious, but as someone pointed out, requesting escrow is a sure way to weed out someone who doesn't intend to send you the product.
Many honest sellers do not accept Escrow.
Too bad, those are honest sellers I won't deal with. I'd rather it be their loss than mine. Caveat Emptor.
ALMOST ALL GOOD DEALS for NEWER Powerbooks are scams. The ones that are not have prices close to the ones you find in a retail shop.
These are not 'good' deals...they're 'unbelievable' deals.
'Too good to be true' deals.
'Good deals' are a refurbished iBook at Smalldog for $200 less than retail, or a 1-year old powerbook sold for $350 less by a now-starving recent graduate.
Good deals are not a 17" powerbook for $2000...
Like any con since the time Ogg was conned out of extra rocks by Igg the con-caveman, the inherent greed of the mark is their downfall and the con-man's profit.
Just think.
People are successfully selling powerbooks at or near retail prices...why would this person wish to sell to you at such an enormous discount?
If these were legitimate sales, this person could ask, for example, $2800 or $3000 for a new 17" Powerbook instead of $2000 and make nearly $1000 more!
No, the point of these people asking such a low price is to engage your greed to the detriment of your brain, to satisfy that ages-old human impulse to get something for nothing, to get 'lucky' for once.
To produce that flood of adrenaline we get when we think we're going to get such a good deal that we're blinded and don't look at it rationally.
Like, you know, maybe *this time* that gentleman in Nigeria really does have $48 million in his bank he wishes to move discreetly out of the country.
(I have read accounts of people who got swindled in these Nigerian scams where they actually say "I knew these were a scam, but it was such a lot of money, I was willing to take a chance on it being real this time."
'Take a chance'...think about it, as if it were a gamble they could win.)
It's the same ingrained instinct that produces gambling as a universal feature in human cultures...we all do it, and until it's not ingrained anymore, con artists will flourish.
-- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group
Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs
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