[Spamdumpster]

I'd love to get my hands on the Pearl, but I don't want to pay more than about $250. I'm happy with my 7130 and with Cingular, and I don't mind waiting 6 months or more to get a Pearl. On the other hand, I can get it unlocked for free if I can get my hands on one.

So I'm cruzing some less-reputable online auction sites (i.e., not ebay), and I come across a seller with 2 brand new, never been used, unlocked Pearls. There are no bids, the current price is $220, and the "buy-it-now" price is $240.

The seller registered on the site on Sept. 24, 2006, has no feedback, and has 7 other auctions all for multiple units of new t-mobile devices.

What do people think? Scammer trying to make some quick money? T-mobile employee grab a few devices from the store? Stolen?

[justin.culp]

imho.......stolen.

of course there is no way for me to know this...but....I'd stay safe and stay away.

[rambo47]

You buy, you pay, and you wait for delivery. And wait, and wait.......

[pnd4pnd]

if it walks and quacks like a duck, it is probably a .... duck

[kimm.yang]

don't mess with it...it's probably a scam

[kwang98131]

Wirelessly posted (8700 C: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry8700/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

Read thee feedback and contact seller through the account. If not use paypal and see what happens. Can't mess up if you have a paper trail and you real info listed ;) but DO NOT do any business internationally. That's just a headache waiting to happen.

[finch]

As always if it sounds to good to be true it usually is... Ask the seller for the PIN/IMEI on the side of the box or device and let him know you want to confirm the use with your carrier or if their active on a BIS account. If the seller bucks at that then its a dud. With the BB's I've bought from eBay the sellers had no issue offering up the details, in both cases they were unlocked and legit.

[alche]

You can find similar deals on CL, they are saying that they have 5 phones or 10 phones or 100 phones for reasonable prices.

I dealt with one recently for 2 nokia 9300is for $500. The only payment he accepted was money orders (what a coincidence). I asked him if he'd accept an escrow service if I paid the fees but he did not like that.

What that means: it is a pure scam.

If a buyer pays all the fees and seller declines to use an escrow service, there are no questions; you just avoid that dude as a seller.

Your thing is 99.999% scam. If you want to make sure about the remaining 00.001%, ask him about an escrow service fees paid by yourself...

[Spamdumpster]

Originally Posted by alche

I asked him if he'd accept an escrow service if I paid the fees but he did not like that.

I asked the same thing. The response "no sorry i only accept money orders and western union transfers only!!" Yeah, and I'm the former General Abu Dajubui from Nigeria.

Also, this afternoon, he was listed as a member since September 24, 2006. Now it says that he's been a member since "January 1, 1970."

That's pretty funny.

[Aroc]

Since 1970, eh? Well clearly he and al gore invented the internet.

Never send payment via Western Union, Money Order or anything else except PayPal. If they tell you the reason for not accepting Paypal is because of the applicable fees that eats up their seller's profit, tell him you will add that fees and pay it yourself (you can find fee information by accessing their website). If still not agreeable with that... JUST DON'T DO IT.