{"id":179,"date":"2005-06-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-06-21T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/the_man\/apple-computers-us-is-a-scam.html"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"1970-01-01T05:00:00","slug":"apple-computers-us-is-a-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/2005\/06\/21\/apple-computers-us-is-a-scam","title":{"rendered":"apple-computers.us is a scam (?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update<\/span> (6\/21\/05): someone actually tried to purchase a Powerbook from this outfit; here is his story<\/a> which seems to confirm that it is a scam as expected. <\/p>\n\n

My cousin Rachel<\/a>·<\/a> pointed me to www.apple-computers.us<\/a>·<\/a>, which appears to offer “rock bottom” prices on Apple laptops and desktops. The thing is, it’s pretty hard to find much variation in Apple prices—I think Apple keeps a pretty tight lid on new Apples, and last time I looked there wasn’t more than a 5% variation in top and bottom prices for the same new machine. <\/p>\n

Which leads me to suspect that “apple-computers.us” is a scam. Interestingly, a google search on the domain<\/a> comes up with nothing relevant at all. The whois record<\/a> is funny (in the odd sort of way): a California mailing address, but a Ukrainian<\/em> email address and phone number. Not to be xenophobic, but my recent experience is that anything coming from a former Soviet Republic and relating to Internet commerce is…. sketchy. <\/p>\n

It’s also worth noting that the domain name was just registered this month, and appropriates much of the look of the official Apple website. <\/p>\n

I thus must reluctantly conclude that apple-computers.us is a scam, unless anyone can present evidence to the contrary. Hopefully, this blog entry can serve as a tip-off to future searchers. <\/p>\n

In any case, could you ever really trust a company with this as their emblem? <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I suspect it will now be less than a week before Apple files a UDRP complaint, or perhaps something more aggressive. <\/p>\n

Update:<\/span> the site seems to have changed its prices from dollars to euros, which makes them slightly more reasonable. Still not sure if it’s legit, though. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update (6\/21\/05): someone actually tried to purchase a Powerbook from this outfit; here is his story which seems to confirm that it is a scam as expected. My cousin Rachel· pointed me to www.apple-computers.us·, which appears to offer “rock bottom” prices on Apple laptops and desktops. The thing is, it’s pretty hard to find much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}