EDIT: Well their Facebook page is down now, hurrah!
You know the saying: “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is”.
So my friend wanted to upgrade from their iPhone to a Galaxy S9+.
Personally, I don’t really care much about getting brand new goods (exceptions exist), so off to the races!
Hopped on eBay, Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace to check for some sweet deals.
I found a few classifieds from a store called Masters iPhone - supposedly located in Western Australia.
They offered some pretty crazy prices for the S9+.
Only $750 for a 256GB model, which has a MSRP of around $1499.
Too good to be true, right? Yup. 100%.
So when talking to them, a few flags were immediately raised.
[Yellow] Warranty / Support
I asked about the S9+, but they kept hinting at Apple warranty.
[Purple] DOA
Australian Fairtrading says that the supplier is responsible if a product is dead on arrival. Yet they kept redirecting me to the ~Samsung~ Apple Store… They only claimed some responsibility after I asked.
[Green] Do they exist?
They sent me an address and an ABN, even saying that to prove that they’re real…
I should send someone to come and confirm. And so I did.
But before that, “We are real” - oh man I love that.
Anyway, and so I did…
So I jumped on AirTasker, and set up a posting to get someone to inspect.
My helper very kindly walked to the said address, and even went to talk around.
He sent a few photos, and safe to say - it didn’t exist.
I confronted the mobile store, and they were quite cocky with their response, saying that they’ve had many people who had successfully found the store.
Cool, thanks guys for offering to help give extra directions! Oh wait they didn’t!
Unfortunately, even though I wasn’t scammed, there are victims to this scandal…
That said, here are the profiles associated with this ‘business’:
facebook.com/kutcher96 - Kutcher JJ
facebook.com/robertmata8 - Robert Mata
facebook.com/ashish.yongang - Ashish Yonghang
facebook.com/gonzalo.gallardo.90857 - Gonzalo Gallardo
facebook.com/diwash.adhikari.79 - Diwash Adhikari
The Samsung S9+ 64GB MSRP is $1199 AUD
At the end, I ended getting a pristine quality S9+ for $800.
Decided to get one for myself too, and it even came with a screen protector and a really nice phone case!