The P-P-P-Powerbook
Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 11:46 am
I posted this over a year ago on the Users Forum, but I decided to post it here again for laughs. This is a hilarious prank that a guy named Jeff pulled on someone trying to scam a G4 Powerbook over eBay. It's a long read, but it's definitely worth it. Note that there are four pages of the story at the following link. It is definitely better to read the whole story, but I'll provide a spoiler story below if you do not wish to read it all. If you read the spoiler, still go to the website to view all the pictures. Cheers.
http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/
Spoiler:
http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/
Spoiler:
RaVNzCRoFT wrote:A man named Jeff (seller) is selling an Apple G4 Powerbook on eBay. No one wants to bid for it. When the sale is about to end, someone bids on it. This person lives in London, UK. This person is the Scammer.
Escrow is a site that allows one to put money into an account, like Paypal. The money for an item is placed in storage, and once the item has been recieved, the code is confirmed and the stored money is sent to the seller (Jeff). The Scammer, in this case, set up a fake Escrow site. One that looks like a normal one, but never sends the money to the seller. This man is 100% scam.
Our seller, Jeff, realizes that he is dealing with fraud. This is because of his knowledge of computers, and because the site looks very unprofessional. He posts about it on a forum he goes to, and people shoot back different ideas. Jeff wanted to send this man (Saral) something, but it sure as hell wouldn't be a G4 Powerbook. At least, not a real Powerbook.
So Jeff gets a response on his forum: Make a fake G4 using a white 3-ring binder. Draw on it with marker. Draw out connections, plugs, wires, and a monitor. Glue broken keyboard pieces on in random spots. Jeff loved the idea.
So he made this fake G4. He even established spies, from the forums, who lived in London. As it turns out, Saral owns an internet cafe. So Jeff's secret spies could use webcams to camp out at this cafe. It seemed like a sure-fire plan.
The spies kept a close watch for a FedEx truck. It finally came. Yet it wasn't carrying this "G4". Oh, and by the way. A normal G4's retail price is around $2000. And when Jeff brought his "G4" to the post office to be sent, he told the woman the binder's retail price was just that. So our Scammer here is actually paying over $300 tax...for a piece of crap.
After dealing with some difficulties with FedEx Premium delivery, the "P-P-P-Powerbook", as it was soon named, arrived at Saral's internet cafe. The secret spies, on their webcams, got ready to film a priceless reaction, when the cafe owner opened his package. Unfortunately, it was brought to the back of the store, where it could not be seen.
Strangely enough,Saral stopped replying to Jeff's emails once the package had gotten to London.
Strangely enough, Jeff's site that hosted this prank has gone down, and all signs of Jeff's existence have disappeared. Nobody knows what happened to him.
And that's how the Scammer was Scammed.
