A friend's laptop was stolen inside UST Hospital while on duty: Macbook White 2.0 GHz C2D SN: 4H7091WCWGL This one was scammed by a swindler: Macbook White 1.83 GHz CD SN: 4H6468WCWGK PM me or the mods if you have this in possesion or know someone who might have this. TIA
whose post? nope, it's some one from here (or pinoymac) who pretended to help me with the fencing case i was pursuing two-years ago, claiming to be a sort of big shot in the security industry.
Wow so many macbooks becoming victims of theft nowadays. Good thing I kept my iMac and will be getting a compaq instead - I dont think many will be interested in it
Don't get complacent. If it can be stolen, it can be fenced. I doubt thieves would be that picky if they had an opportunity to yoink your Compaq.
Exactly. I had my Pentium 4 Toshiba Laptop with a busted battery stolen when someone broke into our house a couple of years back. They also took my DSLR w/accessories, some cash, and my wife's jewelries. Bottom line is that they took anything of value that they can easily carry. TVs, desktop PC, etc... were left behind.
our economy hasn't changed that much... it's just the morals of people nowadays. they always want the quick buck.
i asked some TPC sellers about SN of their macbooks for sale..yung iba ayaw mag bigay..very suspicious..hmmmm
Absolutely. If they don't give it, be very very suspicious. An honest seller will give it out since an in warranty MacBook should fetch a higher resale price than one out of warranty. And using the SN on the Apple Support website is one way for the buyer to check this. The downside is that some will out and out copy someone else's SN from another For Sale thread and use that.
My cheapo Toshiba laptop was tied into my table by a security cable (non-Kensington brand nga lang ) but guess what? They have bolt cutters! The nerve of these folks grrrrr.....
before when i was looking for a mac alum i asked one tpc seller whats the serial number of the unit heres the conversation > hi im interested with your mac > > does it still have warranty? can i ask whats the > serial? > > thanks sori confidintial lng un s bbli.. personal only
Absolute BS or the seller is grossly misinformed. The only way a SN can be misused is if it's "stolen" to use with a selling scam. Did the seller realize that you were a potential buyer? (If s/he was legit.) More like s/he thought you were a likely mark.
It's really not my business and I know this might be out of line and may ruffle some feathers, but can philmug gently request site owners of TPC (and other similar sites) to require sellers of mac products to post serial numbers there?
@macalua: Take it up with elbert since he's the Chairman. I'm just wondering if it'll do any good (getting TPC to require SNs that is). TPC is a buy/sell site mainly and seemingly provides forums for help/discussion as a secondary purpose. PhilMUG is a Mac-based Messageboard that just provides a way for members to sell/buy. It just happens that we've set up rather stringent rules for buying and selling and strictly enforce them (hat tip soloworx and the other marketplace mods). I think this was done to preserve the character of this site being a Mac discussion board and not solely a buy/sell site. Another reason I'm not sure it'll do any good is the sheer number of users on TPC. There are only a handful of PhilMUG mods. I shudder to think how much manpower/manhours TPC would need to police their site actively in the manner that we do here at PhilMUG. Just looking at the numbers, from my count TPC has had 1185 active users within the last 5 minutes, 766 members, 419 guests. Whereas PhilMUG's numbers are: Online Users: 188-90 members and 98 guests. As a rule, caveat emptor no matter where you are looking; be it here, multiply, TPC, ebay, or anywhere else. A valid serial number doesn't necessarily mean the seller's legit either as I noted in my previous post. Just my 2 cents.
one thing i check when buying used stuff from tpc is the date they registered. a good 2-3 years membership with good quality feedbacks can alleviate some worry on my side.
Logistics would indeed be a problem, but like the age old adage says, if there's a will, there's a way.. TPC or any other website for that matter, wouldn't want to be associated with the "bagsakan ng nakaw" tag. Maybe they can start off with the Laptops/PDA for sale section first. I'm sure crooks will just flock to the next buy/sell site though, the community will just have to be vigilant and request the same from that site. Btw, I run a forum myself and the mod work here at philmug is second to none. Galing! Making it hard for crooks to advertise their stolen items online is a great start.
