Sony VAIO FX340K Laptop (P3-850MHz) for $500! ~ Good lord this is HOT, but is it legit?!

[crypticlogin]

Sorry, I was editing while you replied. Thanks for the info, and yeah, those half-invoice, half-sticker sheets are used by a few retailers.

 

[TurtleMan]

duh ... everyone knew about it.. SCAM ... big time .. 500 bux for it .. they must rob sony good..

 

[Rickten]

I keep thinking "If it sounds too good to be true, then its definetly a scam."

 

[Maverick215]

hrm... had hoped they would be closer 230 miles from me, abit far to just check them out...
anyways.. I wonder if these guys have a special license agreement for their lan party games.
Q3 specifically states in the agreement that you won't sell the game on a pay by play basis, which is what they are doing by charging 2.50 an hour to play. Of course they don't make any mention on what games they use, so it could be duke nukem3d for all I know

 

[cisco]

sounds like they day trade with the money (or buy drugs), either way kiss it goodbye before sending it to them .
good luck to the brave 500 anyway...

 

[dajeepster]

Hey Verby,
Send me a message and we'll hook up to compare notes. I'll probably be gone most of the morning... i'm heading down to the marketpro show in upper marlboro to see what goodies they have there

 

[AlphalphaPB]

<< THE LADY WAS TALKING IN JIVE! >>



LOL What's wrong with talking in jive? Heh.

I'd stay very far away from this deal. I also don't want to see a hundred ATers get burned when the company disappears. If you live next to the place, yeah, go and check it out, just to see what sort of business model the place runs on I bet it's "interesting".

I'm in Baltimore too, verby and dajeepster.

Good luck to all the brave souls that have jumped on the deal.

 

[Epsil0n00]

I live about 15 minutes from this place. I called them and they _claimed_ that they have no stock. i didn't understadn this at first because if they are making 500+ item orders then they must have a warehouse... but if the lappies are getting shipped directly from PCMall then it could be that GPS has no stock.

How they are pulling off this deal is anyone's guess... when I called they wouldn't tell me who their supplier is--they said it was their trade secret. They also said that I could come down in person and give them a $100 down payment on a $500 laptop, but I am not even sure I trust them enough to do this. A guy from my work just ordered one of the Sony laptops--> so we'll see if he gets his merchandise... if he does, I'll probably go up there and talk to them and give the $100 downpayment.

Also, it would be interesting to track on of the serial numbers on the laptops. Verby--what is the S/N on your laptop? I have the ability at work to track all exchanges and ownerships by serial number, so if you let me know what your S/N is I can see where it's been.

 

[elfbomber]

Can you just track computer serial numbers or can you track serial numbers for other electronic items? This would be interesting, to see if maybe the laptop has been stolen or not...
Or I guess, fell off a truck...

 

[technogeeky]

I'm not sure if anyone looked at this, but Verby swore by the shipping location.


The bill has a 440 area code listing on it. 440 is OHIO, NOT MARYLAND. THAT PICTURE IS FAKE!

 

[Verby]

s/n: 28338730 4401274, registered in my name thru sony on friday.

As for the phone number, no. it is not mine. if it were, i would have colored it out. the last thing i need is everyone callin me up.

Id bet that if you called that number, you would get gps computers. Pc mall ships to an address, not a phone number. Nobody has my phone number, not yahoo, not gps computers, not pcmall. and i dont plan on posting it in a public forum.

It seems that you guys are looking for some kinda character reference on me personally, and i will entertain ideas on how to do that, but i am not gonna just pour my life story (and personal information) into a forum such as this. Theres always gonna be questions as i dont know of any type of electronic media that cannot be altered in one way or another, but i personally am not selling a laptop, gps computers is (or claims to be). When deciding weather or not to enter a buisness deal with them, consider their background, not mine, just as i had to consider the background (or lack of at the time) of someone on yahoo warehouse named "fox_pro_2001".

 

[BSRdr]

Ok I personally would never send this company even a buck for these laptops. Something strange is going on with them, I think likely they are carded laptops, or part of an inside sales ring at pcmall possibly. But the phone number thing on the invoice I have seen many times before on drop ships.

When you order from a distributer ie Ingram Micro, Tech Data, or even PC Mall you simply have to provide the address and name of the person/company you are drop shipping to, not the phone number. So if PC Mall's accounting system has a phone number field in it, it likely just clones the field from the company placing the order onto the shipping information fields, I don't think that invoice is fake at all. I simply think it was either carded from pc mall, or someone works there with the ability to delete out orders from the database after they ship, or even someone from the outside has found a backdoor to their database and is manually deleting or changing item pricing data.

Once again I wouldn't order from this company period, but that invoice of Verby's looks like a legitimate drop ship invoice from a distributer, that phone number is a non issue.

 

[Racketear]

"HeHe speaking of naive.. This is no such thing as a Sony wholesaler Sony sells directly to retailers. The retailer markup on Sony products is between 3-8% depending on the retailer's sales volume. As a general rule, margins on computers and associated equipment is very small compared to other retail channels such as clothing, consumer electronics, or software (compute,Music, and video)."

3-8% thats funny. No store sells electronics on a markup of 3-8%. You think they would have 10% off at sears if they only made 3-8%.. Lol common wholesaler's markup is 4-12% dependingon the item. retailers is much higher I understand the principal of low markup, high volume, but most retailers make almost 50% markup or more on most electronics items. I used to be a purchaser for a small electronics chain. Maybe someone at a store told you this when you asked for a discount, but some items may even have up to 100% markup, or 2x wholesale compusa probably has their cables marked up 300%.

 

[elfbomber]

A few years ago, when I tried calling a Sony Outlet in my area, a number which I got from the Sony site, I got some guy's answering machine and when I called back later, he said that yup, he's a Sony Wholesaler, and it sounded like he was running this out of his garage....

 

[Wedesdo]

<< I can't believe that anyone actually considered this place(selling things for much less then their cost should be a giveaway). This is a new form of investment fraud: a bunch of people give them ~$500, they wait a few months, and then use the money that other people have sent in to order a laptop from PCMall for those who complain, threaten them, etc. After they get enough money saved up they will probably bail and leave all of the people waiting high and dry. >>


I think this is called CyberRebates...

 

[DaviDaVinci]

this is more entertaining then SPY GAMES (good movie)!!!!

 

[MatchBox]

I'm new, and maybe I'm out of line, but look again at the GPS invoice, on the GPS side - do you notice the PO#? Wire Transfer 12-13...aka December 13.

MatchBox

 

[Verby]

interestingly enough, this laptop came with a $100 mir, im gonna send away for it, pc mall (who shipped the laptop) is an authorized sony reseller, but i dont know if gps is.. Should be interesting to see if sony sends me $100, or if sony sends terry holmes $100, or if sony says "no, you bought this from gps and they arent on our list"..

Who knows, maybe i bought a 415.00 vaio

-Verb

 

[hk29]

bump ...

 

[soltrain]

wow. this is so deep.

I have my money on that they are really just a front for a bunch of carders.

 

[AnyMal]

Noone seems to notice that the price portion of the invoice was not shown. Hmmmmmmmm.... I wonder why....

 

[dude]

Packaging slips don't usually have invoices and certain companies don't always put the price in the shipment.

What is talking in Jive?

This is definately a card scam!

 

[Croton]

blah
just order one and stop talking.
hahahhha

 

[dman311]

i added their IM to my list,
they came on, i sent a msg, no response:

****** (11:44:22 AM): Hello, I would like to order a laptop
****** (11:51:45 AM): Does this lack of response mean that you no longer deal with laptops?

 

[profbobo]

So is Verby the only one to get this laptop? I'm ph33rin ordering from these mooks :/ 500 bucks is a lot of money to spend on nothing