November 23, 2004

• It's a way of getting people to shill out $5 for instructions that they believe will get them an ipod (not all the nice pictures to make one believe that it's true). In reality it is probably a glorified pyramid scheme or some sort of wholesale lot buy into that will require you to do a lot of work and give out even more money with no guarantee of ever getting said product. A good example would be me selling these instructions online and then someone buys them and my instructions are to sell these exact instructions to 75 other people for $5 a pop, thus having enough money to buy an ipod. Nobody has to do any work and a fool is born everyday to buy up things like this. It's the more pathetic and dishonest side of eBay selling.
• Then again, you're right, that's a whole lot of money so it doesn't seem like the typical $5 for email w/ instructions deal. I'm not sure why anyone would fork out that kind of money without a guarantee, so maybe they are either naive or know something we don't. Monkeys?
• There is no free lunch
• He has zero feedback. He's also charging $10 on S+H for a sheet of paper. Definitely a scam.
• "Winning bid: US $227.50" "Winning bidder: 6586john" Poor John!
• There's one born every minute. That guy is going to be so disappointed. We'll have to keep an eye on ipodshere's reviews a few days down the track, see what John has to say.
• Oh, and if you click the link below the main iPod image and look at the URL, the referrer is a Michael Morris, apparently. Maybe that's how he gets his freebie. Edit: It's easy to find the guy, if you go to the place in his email address and do a basic directory search. So I hope he's not ripping someone off too badly.
• Thanks for posting that, stray. Just posted a question about this on the Ebay policy board. We'll see if they do anything about it. Sometimes, if enough people make a stink about something on the boards, eBay will act. This is generally a better technique than contacting them directly, which usually yields no result at all.
• Scam.
• Contacting them seems to work just fine, actually. I stumbled upon a scam involving a large number of fake accounts selling bogus products (e.g. instructions for where to buy a Powerbook) and giving each other five-star reviews. I informed eBay. Although they don't tell you the outcome of their investigations, the offending auctions and accounts were gone a day and a half later.
• I once "won" an ebay auction for a set of language videos. The guy emailed me a website where I could have found them for free on my own. I got my money back.
• I saw something just like this a few weeks ago for a GameCube or Xbox or one of those gaming consoles. I can't remember if it was the same seller, but I wouldn't doubt it...
• They must have improved the process ThreeDay. A couple years ago, I had a problem with a seller that had grossly misrepresented something in his TOS (to the point where it was nearly counterfeit merchandise) and was threating negative feedback for me and unwilling to work out the problem. I got no response directly from eBay after two weeks of trying. In fact, only got action from them after I posted the complaint on one of the community discussion boards, where a moderator read it and escalated up the chain of command. I'm glad to know, that they have improved that part of their business.
• Winning bid: US $227.50 Cost per item: US $45.50 each (Not sold individually) You get STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS on how to get a 20GB iPod ABSOLUTELY FREE. This item is BRAND NEW, unopened, and comes with FULL manufacturer's warranties! This is not a scam, a hoax, or some silly pyramid scheme. This is NOT ILLEGAL in any way. This is the REAL DEAL folks! Click the links at the bottom of this auction for proof. WTF?!?
• It seems that it is somehow related to sites freeipods.com. I'm still not sure what to think of that site. We had a discussion on that site earlier and I happened to sign up but I'm still working on referals (link is in the profile...god I hate myself). There have been true stories of that working so who knows. I'm not sure how this ties in to the ebay scheme though but he is most likely selling referals or something of that nature.
• Freeipods.com is (IMO) legitimate. I mean, it WORKS, it's just...a bit more work perhaps than they show it to be, and forces you to become a hack for them (sorry genial, I'll click on your linky, 'kay? *smooches*). This ebay guy seems to be selling the STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS on how to get a 20GB iPod ABSOLUTELY FREE from FreeiPod. He has the links on the bottom of his page to legitimate news articles on the FreeiPods site, hoping that the names BBC and CNN, etc, will lend him credibility. Judging by how much money he made yesterday, I'd say that a lot of people got suckered. This auction isn't the only one by him. Yesterday and today I'd estimate he has another thirty to forty of the exact same thing.
• Update: the seller is no longer a registered user, or has been NARU'ed as we call it. This means that the auction results are voided and that buyers are not obligated to pay the seller for the "free iPods", and the seller is banned from making future listings.
• Whoop whoop! I'd noticed that he was no longer registered-- wasn't sure what that meant. Thanks Tommy!
• Thanks are also due to psmealey!
• FancyPlansAndPantsToMatch: May I tell you how much I like your name? I'll bet you have a top hat, cane, and white hankie to go with. Such a distinguished Monkey /swoon
• Damn, you found me out, Wolof. Oh, well... nothing sinister here. I always hated my unimaginitive user name, which I'd lived with on MeFi for twy years. When MeFi finally reopened regs, I decided to list under a new name, and did the same here at MoFi, just to keep things consistent.