My old iPhone

I love economics. My eyes lit up when my boss told me he wanted me to start an analysis that involved Macro Economic Factors and their effect on our company's financial performance last week. The next night I stayed till nine thirty working on the analysis. It was fun... I didn't even notice what time it was. I had my headphones on so I didn't hear anyone saying goodbye to me etc. This is all somewhat beside the point of this post. It relates in that my favorite thing about economics is the secondary and tertiary effects of the actions of a group or person. Apple decided to only sell the iPhone and iPhone 3g through exclusive contracts with mobile phone providers (with the exception of Hong Kong where I understand you can buy them without a contract attached). Despite the fact that the phone is now sold in almost 80 countries, there are tons of places all over the world where the phone is not sold in stores. This means that the people have to get their phones on the gray/black market from places in the world where they are currently being sold. How does this relate to me - a loyal iPhone 3g owner? It means that the secondary market here in the US is incredibly robust. Two weeks ago I decided to get on to Craigslist to see what the phones were going for here in SLC. As an aside, Craigslist is that dark alley people always talk about. The fact that you never really register and that posts are basically anonymous means that you never know much about the source with whom you are buying/selling from. I got on and searched iPhone. Tons of results came back. Along with getting a good idea of what I could get for my phone, I also saw adds for people who just buy phones from you outright, saving you the effort of posting an add yourself. That seemed like a good idea so I contacted one of the sellers. "This was easier than I thought it would be" I told myself. Cutting a long story short, this guy ended up being some kind of a total scam artist. He wanted me to meet him in the ghetto at 10:30. He said he didn't have a car so I would have to come to his house. Wierd. After asking where he lived I hopped on to google maps and found a well lit gas station using google street view. I figured they had cameras everywhere in case this guy tried to hustle me.


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As soon as I suggested this location he told me that this wasn't close to where he lived. That he actually lived 3 blocks south of there and 6 blocks west (rarely the direction you want to go in Salt Lake if you are looking for a nicer neighborhood. No offense anyone). So he suggested this location - which you can see is A. Creepy and B. would be closed / dark/ scary when he wanted to meet.




I said I would look for somewhere else. As I did I figured I would make sure we had settled on a price. Why I was actually still trying to strike a deal with Creepy McMystery is beyond me. Anyway, when I asked about price he told me a price $50 below what he had text me 30 min earlier. He said he had never offered that price and I told him "you see, that's the great thing about the iPhone.... I have my texts forever". There was a distinct click on his end of the line at that point and I figured I would just let him go.

So I posted an add of my own. The response was immediate and somewhat overwhelming. All of the text responses were legit but wanted to low ball me big time on the price (offering 60% of my asking price). And every single email I had was the Nigerian check scam. I responded to each email and told the person that everyone knows those scams don't work and to get a real job. In the end I ended up calling back the highest bid of the low bidders who met me at 12:30 AM in an IHOP parking lot. I spoke to the guy on the phone and he sounded legit. He told me he'd be in a BMW which made me feel even better. He brought $240 in cash and after looking over the phone he gave me the money. I drove away waiting for the money to disintegrate, or explode or something. It just seemed too good to be true. I've spent the money and the FBI hasn't come asking about counterfeit bills so I guess I'm in the clear. To put the amount of money I got into perspective, if you were to go and buy a brand new iPhone 3g at the apple store today, it would cost you $40 less than what I got for my old, used, out dated phone. I love markets. The guy I sold to unlocks the phones and sends them home to Vietnam where someone sells them. Thanks to Apple not selling everywhere, supply and demand worked in my favor. Thanks Steve.

As long as I'm all google street view happy in this post I may as well show you the IHOP.


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