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wow this is unbelievable. THis guys going to be rich if someone actually pays up. Im sure theirs a lot of people just randomly bidding for fun. I emailed the guy directly n said he;s going to be a millionaire very lucky LoL.
 
This is stupid. If it's a real prototype then it's stolen property and both buyer and seller will be arrested. If it's not a real prototype then it's worthless.

I'm surprised eBay are allowing it.
 
This is stupid. If it's a real prototype then it's stolen property and both buyer and seller will be arrested. If it's not a real prototype then it's worthless.

I'm surprised eBay are allowing it.

Why would ebay care? They get paid twice no matter what.
 
Saw this earlier somewhere and thought it was a fake or something. Even so, who's buying this? A collector?

Good to see TIMN sourced though :)

The bidding is at $999,999 currently, so obviously someone is interested.
 
The bidding is at $999,999 currently, so obviously someone is interested.


Puleeze, this is common practice. When an obviously bogus or illegal auction is put up people use "throw away" accounts to bid it out of range. Nothing new here. It does not mean someone is interested in buying it! It means many are interested in blocking the auction and reporting the seller. Goes on all the time.

This is stolen property! Apple (or any other company) does not sell prototypes!!
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

$25,300?? Current bid. That's crazy.

Bad news for the guy who found an iPhone 4 prototype and sold it on instead of trying to return it to Apple. If there is a bid for $25,000 today, how much money would it have been worth before the iPhone was released?
 
Common, every year the same thing. Lets wait in patience for iPhone 5!!
 
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From the auction listing:

Due to non-legitimate bidders I am canceling "some" bidders and I am requesting all potential buyers to EMAIL ME FIRST. If you don't email me OR If you don't have "appropriate feedback" your bid will be cancelled. Thank you
Payment will not be accepted using paypal due to high fees and fraud. I WILL ONLY ACCEPT Cashier check and only after it clears I will then ship the item.
If you're not sure about buying PLEASE DON'T BID, ask questions. Thank you
This looks extremely suspect to me. Who would turn down the safeguards of paypal for an item as valuable as this. Unless the item is fake and the person wants to pawn off the fake with the buyer having no way of getting his money back. (or the seller just wants your money and has no intention of sending the product).

Ebay auctions like this disgust me.
 
And the auction is now taken down. I wonder if it was the seller or eBay?

It may have been

Payment will not be accepted using paypal due to high fees and fraud. I WILL ONLY ACCEPT Cashier check and only after it clears I will then ship the item.

rather than the item itself. eBay are militant about requiring PayPal. Basically, sell all the stolen goods you want, but don't diss PayPal.
 
Who would turn down the safeguards of paypal for an item as valuable as this

Paypal doesn't protect sellers worth a damn, especially on items over a few hundred dollars. That service has gotten progressively worse over the last few years. Everything I sell is either a hundred dollars or less, or a few thousand. On big-ticket items, I don't accept paypal. After the third time you get scammed for a couple grand, and paypal shrugs and says "sorry", you start finding other ways to sell.

And Batch is right, they make you accept paypals lousy service, and if you put any text in your auction stating you won't accept it, your auctions get taken down. You have to be more clever about it, like stating you'll reluctantly accept paypal, but will enthusiastically give a discount to buyers who use other more traditional forms of payment.
 
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It may have been



rather than the item itself. eBay are militant about requiring PayPal. Basically, sell all the stolen goods you want, but don't diss PayPal.

I agree, it probably was the seller's Paypal comment, and not the dubious nature of the phone itself...

I must say, it'd certainly be a cool thing to have, though not for several thousand dollars o.0
 
Can you explain?

On big-ticket items, I don't accept paypal. After the third time you get scammed for a couple grand, and paypal shrugs and says "sorry", you start finding other ways to sell.

Can you explain how you can get scammed on paypal as the seller? If the funds have arrived in your account as an instant payment (not echeck), then you are OK, no? Sorry I don' t see the scenario here. Thanks in advance for an explanation.
 
Can you explain how you can get scammed on paypal as the seller? If the funds have arrived in your account as an instant payment (not echeck), then you are OK, no? Sorry I don' t see the scenario here. Thanks in advance for an explanation.

The winning bidder can place a claim for any of various reasons, such as a stolen credit card for example. They wait after the item has shipped to do this. Paypal then instantly gives them a refund and you lose your item and your money.
 
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