So, if you google "nokia 1100" and bank fraud, hacking, etc, you will find 2 things:
Articles from the news some years ago about how the Nokia 1100 is apparently being sought out by criminals for the purposes of fraud, and comment sections filled with people trying to sell their nokia 1100s.
(it is even possible that this was a real thing for a moment, i don't want to bog down this thread with details of the 'exploit' involved but at that time, perhaps those nokias were easier to get than android phones from china available currently where you can also change the imei etc).
I am 30% thinking that was the case, 30% thinking it was an urban myth, and 100% thinking there was a clever group of people doing what I will lay out for you now:
a) spread rumor that an obscure piece of tech that is borderline worthless or worth only $, which you own some examples of, is being bought by hackers/criminals for $$$$$. this is better than saying that it is being sought after by collectors or enthusiasts- a real collector or enthusiast can debunk this very swiftly, so that is not optimal.
b) post "want to buy" listings, spread postings from people saying they were contacted when they listed theirs for sale and got paid $$$$$
c) you DO own some of these, right? if not, you just did some work for nothing. now start selling them for $$$ to greedy morons who think they are about to profit off of you
d) eventually everyone who has one in the back of their closet, pawnshops, hoarders, will catch on and flood the market, the price will forever be a few dollars more than before but it will probably crash down from wherever you lifted it
e) buy pants
this also lets you use the convoluted practice of model numbers to your benefit, for once. going by a specific model number lets you make most existing pools of tech much much smaller.
for example, i have a lenovo computer, new in box, that i bought to flip. these computers had a model type and then variants, example (not the real one) BH-420-007POO, BH-420-007POJ, BH-420-007POK, etc.
as part of my plan to sell it, i made just ONE ebay listings for it including the full model number, didn't even bother claiming it was useful for bitcoin mining like in my craigslist ads ;)
i listed it for, of course, $980. which is a little excessive over the $90 i paid for what was essentially an older system that was probably worth about $140-150 at the time and now, a year later, is probably worth $120 if that. immediately, i noticed that a few (looking like big automated clearinghouse type operations) sellers on ebay were undercutting me with THEIR lenovos of the same model- by only a few dollars!
i found this hilarious and intended to take the results to a pawnshop but the system had no software installed on it, and i had many more pressing schemes to operate so for A YEAR OR TWO i just totally bubbled the market for not only that sub-model but the main model line itself.
at first i was only aware of the ebay price hike, which still extends to doing a google search of something and choosing the "shopping" result.
i checked back in today and noticed that the google shopping result now gives results on amazon as well, where it is holding steady from the upper $800 to low/mid $900 range. a few jokers on ebay have contented themselves with listings in the $600 range now, and i should probably cash in on this before it sinks any lower. the main model line is still going on ebay for $50-100 more than it actually should, with my sub-model still completely fucked up.
fyi pawnshops do not go by amazon or google shopping (unless it's like, a new in box product- and we will cover 'having entire fake lines of product invented from thin air, made in china complete with packaging, websites and sales material created to indicate that they retail for multi-thousands, spending maybe $100 per unit, and flipping them to suckers' on another time. basically white van speaker scam but with specific marketing and not using their dated sales model. the existing white van speaker scam racketeers are not evolving with the times and are stuck in the speaker / sound system paradigm)
pawnshops will go by what items on ebay are actually SELLING for which means if you're going to inflate prices and pawn, you need a few ebay accounts. and really, that strategy will help bolster the con for anyone you sell to. "i don't have the time to sell this on ebay, you can double your money"
pawnshops will offer you like 30% of what something sells for on ebay. maybe 50% if you are lucky. however, i think you could get more IF you can play it off as a pawn and not a sale. you might have to build a reputation at that shop first, which is probably too time consuming (and costly) just to make a few hundred in profit on them.
if anyone is interested in doing something like this, i have a plan laid out for another nokia 1100 type event. there will be room for many people to participate, everyone can stay anonymous, and everyone can make some big bucks.
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