its funny when people don't know...

...what they're selling

Just picked up a Logitech MX700 cordless/optical mouse at a garage sale for a dollar. At a seperate sale I bought a perfectly working (although scratched) Panasonic SL-SV550 cd player for 3 bucks.

Lets hear some amazing deals people have gotten whether it be on ebay, garage sales, or just screwing over corporate retailer chains.

I just bought a brand new 2004 Dodge Dakota, loaded, with a sticker price of $26,000 for about $19,000. :icon16:

A few years ago,I was an excavater operator.I was asked to quote to clean up a pile of accumulated garbage behind some industrial premises.I roughly guessed the cubic meterage for the job,estimated it at 4 decent truckloads,and quoted accordingly.The building's previous tennants had gone under,and the other users of the industrial park had been using the car park hidden behind the building as a free dump.

Anyhow,I rolled up with my excavator and truck and started loading out...until I dug into the pile and hit something very solid.With some delicate scoops of the bucket,I cleared a bit of space around the object,and found it was a complete and unused coil of 3mm sheet stainless steel,weighing in at just over a ton.I cleared some more of the garbage,and found another two,buried under a years worth of broken pallets and industrial waste.

So,being the semi-honest guy that I am,I bailed up the new tennant and confirmed that he wanted everything dumped...As soon as he said yes,was on the phone to a transport company,and the three rolls of stainless went into storage.A week later,after a few phone calls, the 4 tonnes of sheet were with an entrepreneur 6 hours drive away,and I had 6 thousand bucks in my pocket.

The guy was pretty slow paying his rubbish clearance bill,but I wasn't too worried..... :smokin:

Taranaki you clever clever mod. It's not fair, I don't have any interesting stories about ripping people off, the closest thing I have is one time I was buying a jacket for winter and it said $220 on the tag and when I went to pay for it it turned out to be $170. :disappoin :sly:

hey hey, taranaki didn't rip anyone off. The owner was asked if everything should be thrown away....

Up here in wonderland, a guy was installing a 318 dodge into a grand cherokee, and noticed that the intake manifold appeared broken inside. When he opened it up, he found that the intake had been busted open, and $250k USD was stuffed in there in foil packaging.

Unit that the engine came out of was a rollover, and the driver was killed on impact. So what does this guru do??? turns it over to the cops. UGH

Oh well...

T - thats one heck of a find you had. :iceslolan

I get in at the Cinema on a student ID.

That expired 2.5 years ago.

Hmmmm.

Hockey cards, man I feel almost sorry for the kid I got 5 cards with a combined value of probably $250 for less than 10 :D

u know i was hoping to sometime soon rip somebody off in a similar way u guys have all done. see i want to buy an mr2 but the problem is i dont have enough money b/c i work at taco bell and the pay is shitty and turbo mr2's are damn expensive, i was hoping to find a sweet old lady with an mr2 which her husband had prevously owned but died. i would tell her the milage was high the turbo was out (if she new there was a turbo) and then offer her a cheap low price which she would happely except and then i would be in my dream car. good huh?

I find a whole bunch of old matchbox cars for a few bucks, and they turn out to be worth almost $100..

I also got my SS for 18K with a sticker price of 23K.

I bought ten rolls of film, for 1.2 cents each! Though I guess I wasn't ripping them off.
I did once sell a moped that I bought for $60 for $90. And I got a Lawn Boy mower for free, and a snowblower because the owners did not think they worked - suckers!
And I bought several first edition Matchbox "Yesteryear" vehicles for $10 each, and later found out each one of them was worth between $40 and $60.

i made a bid for this:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11319&item=4127815148&rd=1&tc=photo

Don't know when the link will stop working.

But when it does, it was a full stereo system 2.1ch sound system, for 1 dollar (AUD)

lol, my mom luvs garage sales, we go, buy stuff, and if we dont want it, we get all the stuff from the past summer of buying, and sell it for more and we make a lot of money from it actually.

just last week i got a 200$ paintball gun from a kid for 40$, because he thought it was broken, but the c02 valve thing was just upside down, and it werks perfectly now, i also found an old schwinn stingray bike, vintage and perfect condition, and it had the shift o matic thing on the bar right infront, so its kinda like shifting with a car, and i looked later on, and brand new these are worth 200$, we got it for 30$, i also got a bmx bike for 40$, last year, vintage alva skateboard, also mint condition, that was last year,mountain board, with brakes and all, for 50$, MBS is the company for that and that was last year, gas rc car, 40$, i think it was sold brand new for 200$but kinda old, that was two years ago, and we got the first scooter that the company misquito made which is a couple years old, but since they came out with newer models people got rid of the older ones, so this one is a want for many people, that was last year, and a 50cc motorcycle, back in 1994, for 300$, which is an amazing deal since it was made the year before we bought it, and we still own that, my brother bought a subaru legacy, i tihnk 1991 or somethin like that, for 500$, no rust, which is amazing for an old car out here, and it ran perfectly after my moms boyfriend/mechanic put 20$ into it, that was last year, stereo system for 20$, last year again.

i cant really list everything that i've found that is great, but i've gotten some really amazing deals, chances are if its somethin cool and people own them, i've seen, or bought it from a garage sale, ask me if i own something else and i might.

My son once went to a high end second hand store and bought a nice leather jacket for $10.00. Got home and found a $20.00 bill in one of the pockets.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3674808397&ssPageName=ADME:X:ON:AU:2

Just bought these. For about $800-900au less than RRP. :cheers:

My brother bought a set of Rapidograph pens at a yard sale for a dollar. He tricked me into buying them for $8. I thought I had gotten screwed...until they sold on eBay for $78.

My work has given me 5 or 6 "broken" 17 and 19" monitors, some of which weren't broken and others of which were easily fixed. :)

PS2 controller broke. So I bought a new one, put the broke one in the box and said it didn't work. And got my money back.

I know a ton of people back in high school that would buy Playstations and put phone books in em and return them. One guy I know had like 20 some-odd Playstations.

Here's one thought for you. If a deal sounds too good to be true it may because it is...

I know someone who purchased something on an amazing deal for a piece of audio visual gear - shelled out hard-earned cash for it, loved using and it was their pride and joy.

... and then about 3 months later had a knock on the front door. It was two representatives of the NZ Police, the item he had purchased at a significant if cheaper than expected price had "literally fallen off the back of a truck" ie it was hot. The thief had been caught and to try and reduce his sentence had spilled his guts to the police. This included where the items had been sold to and with the proceeds no where to be seen, the Police merely recovered the stolen goods.

Now, the Police could have technically picked off a few folk for receiving stolen goods but given that the price wasn't ridiculous (although very very cheap compared to MSRP) there were no charges laid - still meant that the several hundred dollars disappeared down the gurgler though...

It is a legit purchase then no dice but in kiwiland we have a thing called the PPSR (Private Property Securities Register) which among other things notes all of the charges (ie what is secured in the way of loans against chattels). So before you buy anything significant even second-hand you may want to have a look at it - lest the repo men turn up one evening for your refrigerator because the previous owner still owes on the finance contract...

My dad got a John Deere riding mower for free along with a 42 inch snowblower attachment (which gets used EVERY winter) and a 42 inch tiller attachment. A friend of the family had just gotten a new mower and he didn't need the other so he just gave it to my dad.

My mom bought some crocks at a garage sale for like 20 or 30 bones, and it turns out a couple of them are worth at least 1k.

I myself have yet to encounter any great deals/finds.

I bought my rx-7 for $2250, blue book at $3050, some old guy wrecked into me, I got $1900 from his insurance company, and get to keep the car with the original title, all it needs is a new front bumper and fender and the bar in fron of the headlights bent in a little so the headlight wont go all the way down... so I'll fix that for less than a grand, and sell the car for $2500+

so basically I spent $2250 for the car, and saved $800 right there, then got $1900 for about $1000 worth of damage, and can sell the car for say $2700... puts me on top with $1350, and if you add in the $800 I saved off bluebook value I got ahead $2k+...

I love taking advantage of the system... and stupid people :)

I bought an angel 4 paintball gun with about $300 worth of accessories off ebay from some guy for $70. Overall value is like $1500, the gun itself is $11-1200.

14 cds in jewel cases with the original booklets for $13. Not crappy stuff either. Anthrax, Led Zeppellin, ZZTop, Santana, Pantera, Gratefull Dead, etc.

i know this is super nerdy, but i used to play magic back in middle school. i met some guys up here in college who play, and the kinda got me back into it. i decided to look on ebay to see what i could find. ends up there are tons of cards out there that get sold for crap because the seller has no clue what he's doing. i payed 25 bucks for 4 cards that are worth 18 bucks each. i look for local auctions of people selling all of hteir cards, and becuase shipping is a bit high with those, and i don't have to pay it, i end up with about 500 cards for 5 bucks or so. i'm going to open an ebay store around august when i have enough in bulk going, organize them in packs of 4, and i've seen crappy cards worth 10 cents each sell for a dollar just because 4 of them are put together. whatever doesn't sell will go into a huge bulk package at the end of the month, which i'll charge 3 dollars for handling cost since everythign will be organized so it's not just random crap.

Mint condition (I mean, MINT) 1981 Atari 2600 for 3 dollars. Actually, considering I bummed 2 bucks from my friend, I paid 1 buck. It came with 6 games and all the controllers. It's more worth like 80 dollars.

i met a guy on here that bought a car from a repo auction and didnt know what was wrong with it, so he came to us with some pictures and asked what was missing, there were some replys made and the guy got all pissed off and said screw it i'm selling it $1000 OBO, so i started looking at the pictures a little more and messaged him about the car stating that i did not have $1000 right now but i had things worth $1000 or more! so i brought the items to him and he like what i had to offer so he gave me the keys and title and i got the car now... now here is what i traded him:

2-10" Alpine Type R Subwoofers in a custom box i made
Directed 1100d Amp
Phoenix gold bass cube

i traded all that for a 1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse GST 5spd w/ 82k miles on it

total i spent on the stereo was $600... so i got the car for a pretty good deal, i found out what was wrong with it, it needed a front motor mount and intercooler piping, plus 2 connecting rod bearings were bad so i sold the head for $1000 to a kid and took and bought a used motor for $600 and put $400 into the motor mount and intercooler piping and now the car is running strong!

here is the car... i had to take the bumper off to get it on the trailer
http://files.automotiveforums.com/gallery/watermark.php?file=/503/1028951-med.jpg

i know people at school who rent from blockbuster video games, or dvd's, and replace the dvd or game with some old game they dont like, and if they check and tell you its the wrong one you just say its how you got it and called earlier and they siad you just have to turn it in

on a similar note with teh games, 3 of my friends have modded x-boxes with 180 gig hardrives. they have the "gamepass" thing from blockbuster, which allows them to rent as many games as they want per month, for 20 bucks a month, but only one game at a time. they go 3 at a time, get 3 different games, burn them onto their x-boxs to where they don't need the cd to play, they swap games till all games are on all x-boxs, tehy go back, return them, say they didn't like them, and get 3 more. Sweet deal if you ask me.

i know people at school who rent from blockbuster video games, or dvd's, and replace the dvd or game with some old game they dont like, and if they check and tell you its the wrong one you just say its how you got it and called earlier and they siad you just have to turn it in

That would be theft.

Yeah, this thread is about taking advantage of idiots giving away stuff for too cheap. Not about dirty bastards out to take advantage of everybody.

ya i no, just that somebody said somethin aboot ps2's and phonebooks, and i just said my part of a similar thing that people do here

baseball cards :) Mickey Mantle 1967 topps, got it for 30 bucks its worth like 300 :)