Classifieds scams?

[John Garza (3665)]

(11-08-2024 06:20 AM)Idnarn Wrote:  

(11-08-2024 05:14 AM)John Garza (3665) Wrote:  And there are other scammers out there. Sometimes you see a rare HP for sale at an extreme price. Maybe someone is hoping to hook a gullible person (or a desperate one). There recently was an HP-9100 in Budapest going for roughly ten times what it should.

-J

This is the way of the world. As long as they're selling something legitimate and not square root of a negative bridge, if the buyer gets what they want and pays the quoted price, it's not a scam. You are right that the buyer may be gullible, or may want the object so much that they're willing to pay the quoted price anyway. But it is no scam if the buyer gets what he ordered.

Gold ETFs quote gold at the same price as physical gold. There is no way every buyer can ever get physical gold for it - there is just not enough gold above ground for the exchange traded gold. It is paper gold. Are buyers gullible? (It's a larger market than physical gold.) Could be. Is it all a scam? No. The buyer gets exactly what they bought - paper gold.

https://www.bullionstar.com/gold-univers...-mechanics

This only works if all parties know the true market price going into the deal. Which may not be the case for newbie HP collectors with heavy pockets and super-rare machines.

It also brings to mind several 'American Picker' TV episodes where savvy junk/collectible dealers snag valuable items for pennies on the dollar from unsuspecting senior citizens. True, the sellers agreed to the price - but they were uninformed as to the true value. And IMHO, they were 'scammed'.

-J