Why are T43p's selling so cheap on eBay?

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Pablo
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Why are T43p's selling so cheap on eBay?

#1 Post by Pablo » Mon Jul 18, 2005 9:01 pm

Dumb question from a newbie, but I can't help noticing how inexpensive some NIB T43p's are going for on eBay! What's the catch? Looks like legit PowerSellers so no reason to suspect you won't get a notebook. Is it related to the Lenovo/IBM thing??

Just wondering why I paid $1400 more :))

+pablo

JHEM
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#2 Post by JHEM » Mon Jul 18, 2005 9:09 pm

99% of them are scams!

If a NIB T43p sells for US$3K everywhere, do you really think that someone would sell one on eBay for half that amount and lose $1500?

If a seller will only accept bank transfer or Western Union as payment, RUN, do not walk, to the nearest exit.

Regards,

James
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keku
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#3 Post by keku » Mon Jul 18, 2005 9:39 pm

I know one guy paid 2300 but didn't receive anything.
so beware

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#4 Post by blee321 » Mon Jul 18, 2005 9:56 pm

wow what a chump... thats just dumb.

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#5 Post by nirvana0001 » Mon Jul 18, 2005 10:38 pm

check their feedback.
the price that you saw might be for bidding, not "buy it now".
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Pablo
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#6 Post by Pablo » Tue Jul 19, 2005 5:23 am

Well its true that there are some evil people and I haven't personally experienced any fraud, but these are legit offers, check out the sellers. And why would there be so many "suckers" entering bids? Not likely these are scams, but real deals. I'm watching a couple of bids for T43p's (with the 760 processor though). It seems like Lenovo dropping the prices and flooding the market with the last batch of "IBM Thinkpads" to me.. but I don't know jack :)

+pablo

Christian
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#7 Post by Christian » Tue Jul 19, 2005 6:48 am

A friend of mine has bought several low-cost T43's on eBay from Germany and used them in Denmark. They only charge ~$40 to change the keyboard to a danish one. The T43s he's got looks genuine to me. I think some of them is from companies that buy like a 100 of them and the company that sells them to them buy an extra load at low cost to re-sell.

The ones im talking about is not half price, but 500-600$ cheaper than in Denmark or any other retail price.

/Christian
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#8 Post by Steve007 » Tue Jul 19, 2005 7:28 am

JHEM wrote:99% of them are scams!

If a NIB T43p sells for US$3K everywhere, do you really think that someone would sell one on eBay for half that amount and lose $1500?

If a seller will only accept bank transfer or Western Union as payment, RUN, do not walk, to the nearest exit.

Regards,

James
99%? Not true. There's always T43's going on the eBay UK website for £900-£1500 and they retail for at least £1900-£2500 normally. I know people who have bought them and they are the real deal.

I'm not sure how these guys get hold of the T43's, but bare in mind that even the top of the line T42's cost about $400-$600 each to produce you can see why they are sold cheaply.

On another note, do you know that the mini PCI wireless cards only cost $4 to make?
(2373-G3G) T40p/P-M 1.6GHz/1GB/60GB/14.1 SXGA/64MB ATI Fire GL 9000/CDRW-DVD/Cisco 802.11b/WinXP Pro SP2

(2373-8TG) T42/P-M 735/1GB/40GB/14.1 XGA/32MB ATI Radeon 7500/CDRW-DVD/Intel 802.11bg/WinXP Pro SP2

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#9 Post by JHEM » Tue Jul 19, 2005 9:40 am

Steve007 wrote:99%? Not true.
That statement was in reference to dirt-cheap, NIB, top of the line T43p systems being offered on eBay.

The cheapest T43p I see on eBay at the moment is a 2687-D5U offered at BIN US$2499 from a seller in Vancouver, BC. All of the other offerings are over US$3K, with one exception in an ongoing auction for a machine described as "new" that I have serious reservations about.

If you want to amuse yourself, search US eBay for completed listings for a T43p, sort them by price and see how many either have a seller or buyer who is "no longer registered". I noticed one T43p for offer in the UK, but it's BIN at GBP 1,949.00 (Approximately US $3,415.23)!

If there truly were legitimate offerings of NIB T43p machines on eBay for half price or less, trust me when I tell you that people like me, Bruce, RayBay and several other resellers I can think of would be snatching them up and reselling them to our clients.

If an offer is too good to believe, there's probably a [censored] good reason!

Regards,

James
James at thinkpads dot com
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Pablo
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#10 Post by Pablo » Tue Jul 19, 2005 3:52 pm

I think you are right. There were (4) offerings yesterday starting at $699.00 for T43P's. In the description, they indicated that you could contact someone by email and buy one for $1000! But last I checked, those deals have either expired (were 1 day listings) or have been removed from eBay. Wild stuff!

+pablo

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