Someone just BUY my TV!

This guy didn't even try:

Hello,
I am interested in immediate purchase of your
item,but before i proceed on this transaction i will
like to ask some question as follow. i can only raise
cashier check for the paymentn of your item so i will
like to know if the item is still available and also
if is in good condition Please your answer on this,
will enable
me to issue your payment to you asap
1. Do you accept a ( Cashier Check / Money Order ) as
a mode of payment?
2. What is the firm price of the item?
3) Will you let our shipping company to come to your
house for the pick up of the item?
4)Do get back to me with your contact info where you
want the payment to address to.
5) Will you be able to send the excess fund back to
the shipping company via western union money transfer
same day you recieve the check....
Regards

That got me to send an email to everyone that has asked me about the TV:

Thank you for your interest in the Hitachi 50" TV. To answer a few frequently asked questions:

* The TV is as pictured on the web link http://www.ressafamily.com/HDTV/
* It has had the light engine replaced within the last few months, it can be considered in "refurbished" condition (refurbs sell for $1350 retail on the web).
* The TV is 2 years old, and I am selling it because I upgraded to a Sony SXRD.
* Buyer arranges Shipping. I can help load it into your vehicle at my residence, but you're on your own to get it unloaded.


Due to the number of "scam" emails, I have decided to reduce the price for customers willing to pay CASH. The price is now $850, cash-in-hand. If you still wish to pay by Check or Money Order, the price remains $1000 and the following condition has been added: You will be free to take the TV after the check clears my bank and your bank. Consider the extra $150 a storage fee while your check clears.

I'm apologize in advance for being suspicious of everyone, but after getting emails containing gems of requests such as this

"5) Will you be able to send the excess fund back to the shipping company via western union money transfer same day you receive the check...."

you can understand my suspicion.

Emails that are clearly scams get forwarded to the Attorney General's High-Tech Crime Unit and deleted from my inbox, unless I really like them, then I'll post them to my blog for other people to laugh at. I'm not interested in wasting my time with scams.


Thank you again for your interest

Joys of Selling Online

I'm selling my old TV online. It's amazing the emails that come in:

The first clear scam:

Name: allen smith
E-mail Address: clearly-not-allen-smith@yahoo.com

Phone Number: 0000000000
Best Time to Contact: Morning

Message:
I am interest in purchasing your item with no delay,but first? What is the final price of the item? Is the price firm? Will you be accepting a money order or cashier check Contact me with the present state of the item and your contact information to mail out the payment to you as soon as possible. Name you want on check: Home Address: City: State: Country: Phone Number/Office Number

Honestly? You need my Country for the check? The ad was listed in the Seattle Times. Put some effort into the scam buddy. My reply:

I have a previous inquiry into the TV. I'd accept other offers, with cash taking precedence. I'd take a cashier's check for the exact amount written against a local bank. No need to mail the check, if the other offer does not go through you can bring the check when you pick up the TV.

No reply.


This one should have just put "Scam" in the subject line:

Hello,

I came across your classified post on the internet and we are in need of the product listed. My name is Johnson Kuba and I am an agent for several buyers, I help them to get seller for goods and we make payment by Cheque .So I will like you to give me the price list and the present condtion of the product listed so that I could proceed with the order.Thanks

Johnson Kuba

Pay by check, eh! Representing other buyers, eh? I know I responded to this one, I just can't find the response, I'll edit it in. Nevertheless, he did not respond back.

Name: bill
E-mail Address: bill_agent_removed@earthlink.net

Phone Number: 00000000000
Best Time to Contact: Morning

Message:
Hello,
i am interested in your Hitachi 50" HDTV and i do wish to know its current condition.Send me pictures so that i can assess its physical conditions.What is your final asking price and will you accept money order as means of payment,i await your response and get back to me with the requested informations.
Regards

Bill

"Agent" in your email address? Precise command of the english language? Paying by money order! GLEE!

http://www.ressafamily.com/HDTV/

The pictures posted are the best I have, they are a bit bigger on the web page.

I'd accept any reasonable offer, but would prefer cash or a cashier's check drawn on a local bank.

Oh, he's REALLY excited by this:

THANK YOU FOR YOUR RESPONSE.I HAVE REVISITED THE PICTURES AND I AM SATISFIED WITH WHAT I SAW AND I DO WISH TO PROCEED WITH THIS TRANSACTION.I CAM SEND YOU A CHECK FROM A LOCAL BANK BUT BEFORE THEN WHAT IS YOUR FINAL ASKING PRICE AND SEND ME YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION WHICH WILL INCLUDE YOUR NAME,ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER SO THAT PAYMENT CAN BE SENT TO YOU WITHOUT DELAY,I AWAIT YOUR RESPONSE

REGARDS

BILL

AAAHHHHHH!!!!! WITHOUT DELAY!!!

There is someone else that has inquired before you. I'll let you know if that transaction does not go through.

I think this upset him, that or he bought a new keyboard with a working capslock:

Thank you very much for your response and do ensure you keep me posted if the deal does not go through.

And the last clear scam:

Name: james
E-mail Address: james_matt-removed@yahoo.com

Phone Number: 000000000
Best Time to Contact: Morning

Message:
Hello Ma/Sir,

Let me know if you would be accepting MONEY ORDER as a mode of payment.If you are willing to accept this,pls contact me asap with your Fullname,Address.City,State,Zipcode and Country.The total of item available for sale and your asking prize.

Regards.
James.

At this point I had enough possibly real inquieries that I did not even respond. If the guy does not buy the TV tomorrow I'm going to send a nice update to all of these guys begging for their money orders.

E-mail Address: justinmunged@yahoo.com

Phone Number: 206-removed
Best Time to Contact: Afternoon

Message:
hello seller,
i came across this item in http://marketplace.nwsource.com i was convince that buying there is safe and being that i had fallen victims several time paying for an item with westernunion and at the end of the day was not shipped. this is why i have taken my time to shop online untill i was told by a friend that he bought a some electronics and items here and was shipped. am very glad to get to you that , i want you to get me the price excluding shipping cos i will arrange with my shipper and could you please get to me with the neccesary information

needed.[name;address,city,state,country,zipcode ,tel, etc , hope to

hear from you.
justine

Wait, what?

Resurrected Forums

A looong time ago I was a member at www.i-Club.com. After the first of what ended up being many asshole moves, those forums moved to www.nasioc.com. NASIOC lasted for a while, and I was quite involved. After the West Coast Subaru Show 3, there was great contention as to "who fucked it up", and since no fingers would point in certain directions, they all drifted towards me. That got me pushed off of NASIOC, and even off of USMB, where I hardly ever posted anyway.

So, for some reason or another all of us close friends ended up at iClub, where we were our usual, sarcastic selves. Since there was hardly any traffic on iClub, we pretty much just screwed around. Then one of the members and I kind of I kind of got into it. HiFiWRX/Jeff and I shot insults and shit back and forth for a while until everyone else got sick of the whole thing and someone had to go. Guess who that was? Not to dig up old shit, but it came down to the "old group's" view of just screwing around, and the new school and the view of The Internet Is Serious Business.

Basically, by this time in my life my internet experience was shaped heavily by SomethingAwful. But the thing was, there were 30,000 people on SA, and it was not the place to go screw around with your friends. Since I had my own server, I played around with a couple of BBSs, and ended up with YaBB (a nice little perl-based file-system-stored bulletin board).

Of course, since the drama llama was in heat, most of the guys that I fucked around with found their way over to my new site. That ended up in the first (and only) real epic thread at the forums before they pretty much trailed off to nothing. Skimming back through those threads reminded me much 0f why I quit contributing: I'm fucking busy. My job keeps me busy during the day (something that could not be said for the other two jobs), and I have two kids at home. When I get online at night, I'd rather veg out and zone on SA after cooking dinner and zoning out. Hell, half of my friends don't hear much from me any more. Really, it's not your fault guys, I love you all, but you know me, I fucking hate people!

So, today I was IM'ing Chris Shorey for the first time in probably 6 months and he asked if I still had the forums up. I told him that they had not been up since I outsourced my hosting to Bangalore. But when I got home tonight I took a look, zipped the directory, ftp'd it to the new hosting, and unziped in the webspace. What the hell, it just worked. It took me a few minutes to remember my passwords, and then a nice wave of nostalgia flowed over as I skimmed through the posts.

And, now you all get that same wave of nostalgia pushed onto you since Something Awful is down tonight (they are moving hosting out of New Orleans to Chicago, and switching over to their new 12-way PowerEdge cluster). So, here we are. The Not-A-Club Forums are back up and in order. Granted I doubt that we will get more than 10 new posts before it again gathers dust.

Maybe I'll invite the Spokane Crew over to play...

I love you guys, really!

Note about WCSS3: That was the best damn Subaru meet that I think the Northwest has ever seen. Jamie and I did a hell of a job putting the thing together. Yes, I admit that we screwed up a bunch of stuff (hell, it was my first time putting on a show, much less one that hosted 300 cars), but people, to this day, people still swear that was the best WCSS that has ever been put on. I'm no longer bitter at anyone in particular, but I am a bit put-off as to how both Jamie and I were treated the month or so after the show. Unfortunately for reasons of gender and popularity, I was the one that took the heat. Looking back at the Subaru crowd now, there is a lot that I am glad that I am not around for, but on the other hand, there are quite a few people that I have not seen in years that I would love to spend an evening around the camp-fire with again. In fact, if I can get to wherever they plan to have it this year, I might pack up the family and tag along.

Sony KDS-R50XBR1

Ok, so I mentioned that I was not going to get a new TV. Well, I figured that LCD was out, and my angry fear of Rear Projection had me conflicted.

So, we went to Fry's.

I almost bought three different TVs. They had a 46" Samsung LCD that was pretty nice looking, but was also $3800 (before the $500 extended warranty). Then I looked at the 42" Philips LCD, but then the 40" Sony LCD really had a great picture. I even looked at the box for the Sony 40" and figured that it could fit in my car. I was almost ready to walk over and buy it, but then the size issue really got to me.

I had to have 50". Period.

So, I went and looked at the beautiful Sony SXRD that I've been drooling over ever since I decided that I might be getting a new TV. They only had the 60" set up with an HD feed, but we looked at the 50" running a DVD. Either way, the 1080p final resolution of the LCoS system really looks goddamn good.

So, I broke my promise to myself about not getting another rear-projection. I picked it up on sale for $3000, and $400 for Fry's kick-ass (as in covers a shitload of stuff, in-home) 5-year extended warranty. So, after paying the government, $3675 out the door (oh, with free delivery).

So, here it is, the Sony KDS-R50XBR1