funsec mailing list archives
RE: Prepaid cellphones: terrorist weapon or hot gray market item?
From: "Richard M. Smith" <rms () bsf-llc com>
Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 14:42:20 -0400
Hell you can work less and earn more running drugs..
Selling drugs is illegal. Fox News has a pretty good story on the Michigan arrests: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,208129,00.html This site lists 110 buyers of bulk Noika GSM phones from around the world: http://importer.alibaba.com/buyeroffers/Nokia_Gsm.html Richard P.S. Extra credit question: Why were the kids in Michigan separating out the AC adapters from the TracFones they were buying? _____ From: Dennis Henderson [mailto:hendomatic () gmail com] Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2006 12:59 PM To: Richard M. Smith Cc: funsec () linuxbox org Subject: Re: [funsec] Prepaid cellphones: terrorist weapon or hot gray market item? On 8/13/06, Richard M. Smith <rms () bsf-llc com> wrote: Here's an article I found that talks about the gray market for TracFone phones that are purchased at Walmart and resold at a profit. Richard Posted by: Jaime R <http://profile.typekey.com/Jaime%20R> at August 10, 2006 02:55 PM I tend to agree with Lawmans points. Plenty of people engage in buying bulk cellphones -- especially tracfones. just look on ebay. Most are sold in the US by the thousands per month. this is legal. What is going on is tracfones are sold in the US at a substantial subsidy and low minute intial purchase phones are way cheaper than buying phones outright. Tracfone works on GSM and it is easy to remove the chips, unlock the phones subisidy lock (not in itself illegal) and ship the phones for a good profit. Indeed a HUGE number of new unlocked tracphones are sold in the US on EBAY everyday for about $20 over retail. bulk buying in lots of 10 to 20k is at $25 a unit. <http://www.alibaba.com/manufacturer/13876937/Buy_Nokia_Tracfone_1100.html> http://www.alibaba.com/manufacturer/13876937/Buy_Nokia_Tracfone_1100.html Looking at walmart this week they had a tracfone on sale for an unusually low $15wiht calling credits -- and this phone is currently on sale on ebay for $60 new unlocked. The chips are removed becasue they typcially have a $20 residual value IN THE US. Just look on ebay. So yes they are used by drug dealers, terrorists etc but but 99.99% of the time this exact same scheme on a much larger order of magnitude is used in the US, stays in the US, and has nothign to do with anything criminal and is just taking advantage of a price differential caused by the phone subisisdy. In markets this is called -- arbitrage. Full disclosure, the link is here to get more comments: http://debbieschlussel.com/archives/2006/08/all-american_te.html I personally think Jaime R has no clue what he's talking about.. All this sneaking around for such a little profit.. Hell you can work less and earn more running drugs..
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Current thread:
- Prepaid cellphones: terrorist weapon or hot gray market item? Richard M. Smith (Aug 13)
- Re: Prepaid cellphones: terrorist weapon or hot gray market item? Dennis Henderson (Aug 13)
- RE: Prepaid cellphones: terrorist weapon or hot gray market item? Richard M. Smith (Aug 13)
- RE: Prepaid cellphones: terrorist weapon or hot gray market item? Drsolly (Aug 13)
- RE: Prepaid cellphones: terrorist weapon or hot gray market item? Richard M. Smith (Aug 13)
- RE: Prepaid cellphones: terrorist weapon or hot gray market item? Richard M. Smith (Aug 13)
- Re: Prepaid cellphones: terrorist weapon or hot gray market item? Dennis Henderson (Aug 13)