(copy of ) Apple I on ebay

Sounds too dang fishy....too many coincidences... Sold on eBay, bought on eBay, relisted on eBay... Oh - and both in Indiana, and HAPPEN to know each other? Pictures of 2 auctions show same item, except the cassette adapter is washed out on upper-right corner, where it was evident they tried to remove the word "homebrew" and whatever else? Doesn't have any idea on this stuff, and dropped nearly 4 large ($4K) on it? I wouldn't buy an athlete's autograph for over $100 without some 3rd-party authentication, and he drops $4K like that? Selling something as what it's not, such as that, is fraud, and being near $4000, that's Grand Theft and a Felony in every state of our fair country - and he's not worried about losing $4K? Oh, and his buddy "Mark" bought it from him for $1500? Dang - another coincidence - that seller (2nd one, claiming it was real) HIS name happens to be Mark as well, as evidenced by his only current eBay listing, where he answers a question, and putting "~Mark" at the end: http://cgi.ebay.com/RARE-Apple-Computer-Freestyle-Tablet-PowerBook-Laptop_W… Has no idea, no knowledge of the stuff, yet in the auction listing he says he hooked it all up and tested it with an 'ACSII' <sic> keyboard? Come on - a n00b knowing nothing can do that? In the listing, he says it was blown off because it had a thick layer of dust? Hmm...I didn't see that on the FIRST listing...plus, didn't he claim it was in a display case, which was supposedly available for local pickup? Sorry - I don't buy it. Maybe I'm more cynical than most, but that whole string of cr at p is unbelievable. I see too many similarities in completed auctions of BOTH of those eBay ID's. He saw the first listing, saw the clone was local, he bought it, tried to scam it on fleaBay, and he got spanked in his attempt. Thanks to the eagle-eyed honest folks out here, someone did NOT get ripped off. Nice catch, guys! Tony -----Original Message----- From: Evan Koblentz evan at snarc.net Sent 6/15/2008 1:27:35 AM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: RE: (copy of ) Apple I on ebay I traded some email tonight with the seller. His replies were interesting so I asked if I could share them here on cctalk. He said yes. ---------------- In the first message he said (exact quote, unedited): Well, I didn't want people getting something they don't want or expect, thats not what I'm about. BTW after talking to my friend locally... The whole story and truth came out about this computer! So, the guy (a long close freind of mine ebay account MacEffects bought this from the seller listed recently, and sold to a guy in a city about 20 miles away... I love auctions, went to what I thought was an Estate auction... But it was a house full of scams... And it was being offered as the real deal, and advertised in local paper, sevral bidders, I won it for $3950 (a low price I thought, but I didn't know of this Obtonic computer), and figured I'd make some money being that I have no idea of these computers, or collect (serious) anyways, I thought I'd sell it... Turns out, I got screwed, he won't take it back and the cops are 'investigating' him for other things similar to it, anyways my buddy in town Mark bought it for $1500 off me (he lost a little) but, its better then nothing, he plans to sell it as well. I lost an additional $160 on eBay listings .. I tried going on your site, but I can't figure out the Forum thing. Are you a member there? Anyways, thanks for helping me out I appricate it, I got 30 e-mails in 6 hours, so I pulled it, the 4 'experts' are wrong... pfft, happens, it fooled ME! Then in a second message he said (again, unedited): Yeah, its odd... The net makes it a small world, rarity that I ended up with something a good friend and fellow "noob" collector, both had it, and not directly. But life happens, anyways, yeah if you could just let them no, I didn't try to scam anyone, as I pulled the auction within 1.5 days of being listed, I don't want anyone to get screwed, it happened to me, but it sucks, and I don't want someone else to go though it. Anyway if you'd let them know that'd be nice, if not thats fine too. Just don't want a bad rep. Thanks Again. ------------------ So there ya'll have it. According to this seller, he got fooled. At first he heard from some self-proclaimed "Apple experts" (probably just fanboys) insisting it is a REAL unit. Then he got a bunch of emails from we crazy cctalk'ers who scared him into reality. :) -----Original Message----- From: Evan Koblentz [mailto:evan at snarc.net] Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2008 11:01 PM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: (copy of ) Apple I on ebay Yah, right - just so happened that he got busted trying to rip people off. It appears, at least in my opinion, that the seller was merely uninformed and/or in denial because HE got duped -- not trying to scam anyone. Or at least that's what I want to believe ...