Considering buying a MacBook Pro off Craigslist, what are some tips to avoid scams?

[peapody]

Lots of good advice above. I would suggest a meeting place nestled deep in a starbucks or panera bread or something like that. Form a checklist of what you need to test:

1. Condition of machine
2. Turning on computer
3. Screen
4. About this Mac
5. Check wireless
6. Check sound
7. Check superdrive
8. Change wallpaper backgrounds to check screen for spots/dead pixels
9. Check battery - install coconut battery if needed
10. Check Apple Care status from the serial from the about this mac
11. Check specs to make sure they match the offer

 

[oldtime]

I recently bought a MBP at a nearly too good to be true price off of CL. Here's what I did to make sure I wasn't being scammed:

-Interacted w/ seller via email, text, and phone to set up a time to meet in a public place, haggle about price, etc.
-Met him at a coffee shop, and told him I wanted to thoroughly test drive the machine. He was totally okay with this (if he wasn't I would've walked away). What I checked:

• Cosmetics
• Battery health
• All ports
• Superdrive
• Headphone jack
• Speakers
• Boot and shutdown times
• Screen for dead pixels
• Bluetooth
• WiFi
• Keyboard (make sure all keys are functional)
• Backlight
• Trackpad condition/functionality
• iSight
• About this Mac specs (do they match w/ what you thought they were?)
• Serial # verification / cross ref w/ stolen mac databases online
• His reason for selling cheaply (if it's at all sketchy, back out).
• Receipt (if he didn't have one, I would've backed out).
• Hardware test
• "Smell test" (does the guy give you a bad feeling or not? Use your instincts. I honestly felt 100% better after talking with my seller for 5 minutes. He wasn't nervous or fidgety at all and told me to go ahead and do whatever I wanted to check things out. Of course it helped that he'd given his full name, phone number, university email, etc., already. He was very forthcoming about everything.)

 

[thekev]

Thanks!

Really prefer to stay under $900... found this one from a legitimate seller online (lots of positive reviews of the retailer)

Thoughts?

http://dallas.craigslist.org/ndf/syd/3343655706.html

Bam Liquidation

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=bamliquidation&ftab=AllFeedback

It's not so much the year. It's that you're looking at a Core 2 era machine. $800 is quite a lot to spend on one at this point. It matters a little less if you're okay with not always running the latest versions of things.