iPod Scam?

Recently a person I know bought a new iPod from the online seller buynewone.com. This website sells iPods at a much lower price than any online or brick and mortar store (Walmart sells the 80GB iPod Classic for $247.88 while buynewone.com sells it for $219). Some people may not be aware of this but Apple dealers can only charge what Apple allows them to charge. This is why you will not see much of a price difference in different iPod sellers. If you see an iPod for more than $10 below retail, then it is probably a refurb, used, or hot. After purchasing the iPod with their debit card my friend called me about the company asking if I had heard of them. Immediately red flags came up in my mind. Folks, if it sounds to good to be true it usually is.

As I researched this website my concerns only grew. I could not find anything that made me feel confident that this site was legitimate. Fast forward a few days later; the new iPod arrived on time worked fine and appeared to be a new iPod. Even so, I still didn't feel good about this company so I continued to dig. I found out that another one of their customers had a similar experience. They bought an iPod and then contacted apple. They found out that their iPod was purchased from Apple.com using a different card than the one that they used. It was bought from apple using a different card owned by a different person. The iPod was then drop shipped to the customer's address. This person suggested a possible scam where the website collects credit card info from its customers. Then the company uses a previous customers account to purchase a new iPod from apple. Then the scammer sells the iPod purchased with someone else's money to the new customer at a discounted rate and thereby pockets 100% of the profit.

I realized that this was a serious issue so I called my friend and had them check their account. Get this, they were never charged for the iPod they received. This is two weeks after they received it. I suggested that they cancel their card. I called apple and the person I spoke with had never heard of this company. He admitted that it sounded suspicious. I have not heard back from Apple but the person I spoke with thanked me for passing this info along. I am sending a letter (physical postal mail) to Cupertino and then I may get an official response from apple. I will post my letter and their response here. It has now been several months since my friend purchased their iPod. They were never charged for the iPod and were never contacted about this.

I am continuing to look into this, but in mean time I just wanted to pass this info along to as a warning. Be careful when buying online. Use trusted companies with a known track-record of doing business. Look for a physical address and a way to contact them such a phone number.

More Info They have used proxy services making it difficult to tract them down by their domain name. There are three different addresses listed. Don't trust these people