Database Users

Does this kind of site look reputable to you?

I'm really wanting to get a G1, but I'm stuck in a contract with AT&T for 1.5 more years :/ So I was hoping I could find one online. I came across this site via Google product search, but the fact that they're selling it for so cheap raises some red flags.
So what do you think? Does it look like scam to you?

looks fine, $200 is about what a G1 goes for now at t-mo if i'm not mistaken, they are moving on to their next phone so they dropped the price on this one

And I quote:
WARNING TO EVERYONE THAT WEBSITE/COMPANY DOES NOT EXIST! ITS A FAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MAKE SURE YOU DONT PUT YOUR REAL INFO ON THERE!
March 17, 2009 by ERIC in Richmond, VA
Merchant Ratings SCAM
OK So I went to this "store" DOES NOT EXIST! The phone number it gives is a law office and the address lead me to a Subway restaurant. I stupidly sent in my info on itsinstock.com. Whatever it really is, its a scam. Don't bother with this thing. I should have figured a site selling a Blackberry for $250 BELOW retail was some sort of scam. I'm a totally freaked out that they have my info now and will be contacting my credit cards to report this site incase they try to steal my info or start charging me..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.merchantcircle.com/business/City.Wireless.818-753-8400
You can try it, but I'd get a prepaid Visa card & give em that info as opposed to your bank/credit card info.

from the link you just posted:
*ITEM IS NOT AVAILABLE THROUGH THIS WEBSITE, INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY

Buy an ADP1. It is an HTC Dream, like the G1, but comes contract free, is sim-unlocked, bootloader-unlocked, and has root. It is also available from a reputable source... you actually buy it directly from google, which has some kind of deal with brightstarcorp (or something like that), but either way, its google who is on the line for the transaction.

Get a Rogers HTC Dream from Canada (ebay?); it will work with AT&T's 3G network. Or you can get the ADP1 which will only work with EDGE. Either way you're going to be spending some bucks since you're not getting the promotional price that comes with a new contract.

Group for buying HTC HD2 in low proce

Hi All,
I am interesting to buy the HTC HD2, now I was looking over the internrt and I found some realy cheap deals, but I am not sure if those devices are a real HTC HD2, some of them I know for fact that they are from Chaina...
Well what I have in mind that we can organizew as a group and get a good deal with one of the HTC providers.
What I suggest that we will buy devices as one group.
What I think is the best way that every one will pay by credit\paypa\google to the provider, but we will pay as a group only after we will close a good deal, the provider will create an invoice for payment, every one will pay for his own device with his own shipment address.
I didn't start to bargen with providers\sellers, and I will start if we will enotgh people.
If you are a seller\provider and want to give us a good deal please add your comments.
If you know a seller - the same.
Now if you want to participate, please add your comment, in the begining we will see how many people want to buy then it will be easier to find a deal, for example, if we will buy 10 devices the price will be arround 600$ and if we will buy 20 devices the proce will be ~400$ per device.
Guys I am talking about devices with warnties from HTC not a fake one that you can find in 200$...
Sorry for my english....

seems nice idea

It does seem like an excellent idea in principle, but in practice any supplier providing group purchasing would want to deal with one purchaser only.
That would then mean one individual in the group having to bear the cost and the risk of anyone dropping out of the group after committing to purchase. I can't see too many people volunteering for that.
I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but it would require a high degree of co-operation and trust.

Does that even work?

Gustopher said:
It does seem like an excellent idea in principle, but in practice any supplier providing group purchasing would want to deal with one purchaser only.
That would then mean one individual in the group having to bear the cost and the risk of anyone dropping out of the group after committing to purchase. I can't see too many people volunteering for that.
I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but it would require a high degree of co-operation and trust.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have done this before, if we will organize 20-30 people I think that every seller will work with us.
The committing will be done - or let's say this way, the supplier will charge and send the devices only if we will meet the agreement, I guess we can only try.
This is a big community, and I hope that togethre we can arange a good price for unlock devices...

Who is the provider of the phones? Do you know already?
What if the customers live in different countries? How does that work?

Ummm... 20 units for ~$400 each? I think this may be highly optomistic as I'm pretty sure most of the distributors don't get it that low.
If you have a reliable source who can, and is willing to supply that I'll take the risk and buy 20 myself to help get things going!

seems like a good idea. was thinking about the same thing before i got mine.
I was able to bargain my unit for $850 including shipping from 2 sellers on ebay (they were selling it for over $900). then i bought it from one. They might offer better price for group purchase. I also got 10% bing cashback, 4% ebay cashback and 3% mrrebates cashback bringing down my price to $700. fedex is delivering my unit today. let me know if you want me to check with the sellers..
.

here4info said:
seems like a good idea. was thinking about the same thing before i got mine.
I was able to bargain my unit for $850 including shipping from 2 sellers on ebay (they were selling it for over $900). then i bought it from one. They might offer better price for group purchase. I also got 10% bing cashback, 4% ebay cashback and 3% mrrebates cashback bringing down my price to $700. fedex is delivering my unit today. let me know if you want me to check with the sellers..
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please verify with your seller for 10 units, 20 units & 30 units - thanks for your help.
fizic said:
Who is the provider of the phones? Do you know already?
What if the customers live in different countries? How does that work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know yet, I will start to work on it this week, I will coontact the follwoing:
http://www.google.com/products?q=htc+hd2&aq=f
As I said in the first post, the seller will send each device to different location, we will pay differently for the shiping according to the location of every one that will buy the device.

it's really a bad ideal.

Hoping, though seems to be quite impossible. Providers or sellers might help if ONLY there is benefit for them which is none.

Hahaha where did you find this offer alibaba.xxx or something similar ? all those companies from china are SCAMMERS please stay away!
BTW. Did they promise any handsets gratis?

sounds like a dream.
i work at a shop where we sell HD2.
i know our price that we pay.
and its far more then 400$.
we didnt order 50... we order 700.
so forget about that idea.

Nexus Ones, selling for $650+ ON EBAY!?

Why are people purchasing Nexus ones for $650 on ebay when they could be purchasing it straight from google for $530?
Why are people doing this?
Is it out of sheer idiocracy?
Do they not realize where the sellers are getting these phone?
It's making me want to buy one from Google just to resell on ebay to make a $100 profit!

A fool and their money are easily parted.

Look at this,
it sold for almost $4k. I cannot believe this is real.
cgi .ebay .com /ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200431495643
(remove spaces)

some of the bids are fake just to raise the price up to tempt buyers.

Mostly for customers in countries where Google isn't shipping to yet and for others without a credit card.
If you want to risk shipping a phone to Nigeria , go for it.

Be careful, a lot of scams going on especially in Nigeria!

izmar said:
Is it out of sheer idiocy?
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Click to collapse
FTFY.
And yes, I think some may be.. but as people said, probably a lot of scams, or people ordering overseas where Google isn't shipping yet...

Google is not shipping it where I live or study (Turkey/Bulgaria), so I bought one from eBay for $599.9 and I am happy with it. I am sure that there is so many "idiots" like me living on mother earth.

izmar said:
Look at this,
it sold for almost $4k. I cannot believe this is real.
cgi .ebay .com /ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200431495643
(remove spaces)
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Click to collapse
according to the description, a lot of 5 (phones) were sold for about $750.00 each, totaling $3.8K. still a fairly steep price to pay.

I got mine for $760AUD ($680USD at the time) shipped via FedEx Express, from an eBay seller - simply because Google weren't accepting orders from Australia. Was happy to pay that much for a phone that wasn't even officially shipping to Aus yet - and I absoluetly love my phone.

Got mine for 599$, i think it's a fair price, since i cant buy it in Albania. I gambled a little with marking the shipment as 99$ so i didnt have to pay taxes.

Remember its not actually $530 from google. Its $530 plus vat and/or duty.
That means a phone to the UK for example would be $530 * 1.175 = $622.
If u then resold that phone to someone in europe u'd only be making about $30 for the trouble, minus shipping, exchange rate, paypal/ebay fees and taking a chance that his payment doesnt get retracted.
Even if you ship it to the US and reship you still need to add sales tax, and more expensive shipping. In actual fact $650 isnt too bad a price at all. Anything more is kinda stupid, especially considering how many peole are doing it now.
Having said that, ff you cant get it shipped to youre country you're better off using something like demailbox.com
They give you a virtual mailbox in the US, and reship it to you. Since they're based in delaware there's no US tax in that state, and free shipping to them because its in the US. That means you only pay the google price + reshipping to your country + the demailbox fee.

Read this if you bought on amazon from usa

I recently found out that the International warranty that was advertised with the phone on amazon is total bs and emailed amazon about it and also included that the phone is now over $100 less now. I just received a response email with an offer of 20% refund which comes to about $130 back. I am sure that some people here bought the same phone and I would give it a shot and email them. I am again thoroughly impressed with amazons customer service. Hope this helps yall.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

interesting, did you buy from amazon (current price $660) or third party sellers, about $100 cheaper than amazon?
in any case, the item now shows "no warranty" in the title, maybe thanks to you
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004QTBQ2C/
I paid $700-something to import, when it was released, do not regret a single cent of that money.

There was two when I bought one with no warranty and one with the "international warranty ". The one I bought was $550 when I looked at it earlier.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

It's been posted lots of times - no international SGS2 purchased outside of its country of intended sale is warrantied. Period. A bunch of people did what you did and bought (literally and figuratively) the claim from an Amazon third-party reseller that the phone had a warranty. You're just confirming what was known all along. Samsung requires a receipt and/or credit card statement before they'll do warranty work and those documents have to reflect the proper country of sale. The seller also has to be an authorized Samsung dealer. They have a database of serial numbers so they know which phones were shipped to which authorized resellers to be sold. You might take it up with Amazon because what you purchased on their site was clearly misrepresented. The only way to get a warrantied international SGS2 in the U.S. is to buy it from an authorized reseller in the UK and have it shipped or from Expansys USA who sends it to their offices in the UK should it need repair.

BarryH_GEG said:
It's been posted lots of times - no international SGS2 purchased outside of its country of intended sale is warrantied. Period. A bunch of people did what you did and bought (literally and figuratively) the claim from an Amazon third-party reseller that the phone had a warranty. You're just confirming what was known all along. Samsung requires a receipt and/or credit card statement before they'll do warranty work and those documents have to reflect the proper country of sale. The seller also has to be an authorized Samsung dealer. They have a database of serial numbers so they know which phones were shipped to which authorized resellers to be sold. You might take it up with Amazon because what you purchased on their site was clearly misrepresented. The only way to get a warrantied international SGS2 in the U.S. is to buy it from an authorized reseller in the UK and have it shipped or from Expansys USA who sends it to their offices in the UK should it need repair.
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Wow. This post was not about the fact that the warranty is bogus. It is that you can get 130 back if you just email them. I know that the warranty is a known issue and has been for some time. The purpose of this post was to be helpful to the other members in the community that could maybe get some dough back. But thanks for pretty much calling me an idiot for posting a known fact when in actuality all I was doing was trying to help with getting some members some of their money back.

Ebay scammers: watch out

It goes without saying buying on ebay can be risky but I wanted to post a warning about a particular individual who keeps posting and or hacking the ebay acts posting pixel xl 128gb for sale with the same picture. It seems ebay doesnt gas and allows this person to consistantly repost via different accounts that are probably hacked. The main mo is a pixel xl 128gb for cheap bewtween 500-600$. Obviously the price raises eyebrows because the going rate on ebay is 900-1200$ from a typical scalper, but the perp keeps using acts that appear to have 99-100% fb that are long time users/older acts. Thing is... these sellers, are usually sellers of small items like coins and other knick knacks and or have not been active for a while. Im sure most of you are aware but thought id put out this psa. The other issue is this idiot keeps using the same image fir every hacked act they use. W/E i see this i report it, it comes down and is back up in a few days, with a dif act, but same mo: 100%fb, long time user and usually inactive or sells small items with no history of high end phones or anything. If its too good to be true... With that said hopefully Google restocks by march or so i really like this phone. The pic below is from the ebay scam. If you buy from ebay be very carefull because this ahole is not the only one. Please if you see any listings on ebay with this image report it.

Paying by paypal and with ebays 30 day guarantee your guaranteed to get your money back but yes it can hold your money up for days. Years past the buyer would be left holding the bag but now a days paypal holds the money on new sellers until they provide tracking and the buyer has to post that they received the item and all is well so I have no idea how they could get away with this type of fraud anymore because paypal will pull the funds back from their paypal account so they are basically wasting their time and they get nothing.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/money-back-guarantee.html
What's covered
Most transactions on eBay.com are covered by the eBay Money Back Guarantee.
Covered
Purchases are covered by the eBay Money Back Guarantee when all of the following are true:
An item isn't received or it isn't as described in the listing.
A buyer reports that they didn't receive an item or requests a return within the eBay Money Back Guarantee timelines.
The buyer made the purchase on eBay.com via checkout or an eBay invoice with one of the following payment methods:
PayPal
PayPal Credit
Credit card or debit card
The item was paid for in a single payment (including payments with PayPal Credit).
If the listing was a live auction by an auction house seller, the buyer made the purchase on eBay.com and paid by any payment method, the purchase is covered as long as the buyer provides a copy of the seller invoice and proof of payment. Items sold through Sotheby's are excluded.
Not covered
Buyer remorse or any reason other than not receiving an item or receiving an item that isn’t as described in the listing (see the seller’s return policy for return options).
Items damaged during pick-up or shipping or not delivered when the buyer arranges pick-up or shipping of the item (for instance, the buyer arranges freight).
Duplicate claims through other resolution methods.
Items shipped to another address after original delivery.
Vehicles (see eBay Vehicle Protection), Real Estate, Websites & Business for Sale, Classified Ads, services, and some Business Equipment categories (see eBay Business Equipment Purchase Protection).
Items sold through Sotheby's.
Items purchased on half.com, eBay Wholesale Deals, or eBay Classifieds.

M9guy said:
Paying by paypal and with ebays 30 day guarantee your guaranteed to get your money back but yes it can hold your money up for days. Years past the buyer would be left holding the bag but now a days paypal holds the money on new sellers until they provide tracking and the buyer has to post that they received the item and all is well so I have no idea how they could get away with this type of fraud anymore because paypal will pull the funds back from their paypal account so they are basically wasting their time and they get nothing.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/money-back-guarantee.html
What's covered
Most transactions on eBay.com are covered by the eBay Money Back Guarantee.
Covered
Purchases are covered by the eBay Money Back Guarantee when all of the following are true:
An item isn't received or it isn't as described in the listing.
A buyer reports that they didn't receive an item or requests a return within the eBay Money Back Guarantee timelines.
The buyer made the purchase on eBay.com via checkout or an eBay invoice with one of the following payment methods:
PayPal
PayPal Credit
Credit card or debit card
The item was paid for in a single payment (including payments with PayPal Credit).
If the listing was a live auction by an auction house seller, the buyer made the purchase on eBay.com and paid by any payment method, the purchase is covered as long as the buyer provides a copy of the seller invoice and proof of payment. Items sold through Sotheby's are excluded.
Not covered
Buyer remorse or any reason other than not receiving an item or receiving an item that isn’t as described in the listing (see the seller’s return policy for return options).
Items damaged during pick-up or shipping or not delivered when the buyer arranges pick-up or shipping of the item (for instance, the buyer arranges freight).
Duplicate claims through other resolution methods.
Items shipped to another address after original delivery.
Vehicles (see eBay Vehicle Protection), Real Estate, Websites & Business for Sale, Classified Ads, services, and some Business Equipment categories (see eBay Business Equipment Purchase Protection).
Items sold through Sotheby's.
Items purchased on half.com, eBay Wholesale Deals, or eBay Classifieds.
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That's another sign its a scam. He doesn't accept paypal only CC :laugh:

aholeinthewor1d said:
That's another sign its a scam. He doesn't accept paypal only CC :laugh:
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Click to collapse
Many accept credit cards but I would not unless they have high positive feedback as a seller and not just positive as a buyer and I would never give them CC info over the phone or email only through secure ebay checkout. People can still file a chargeback with their credit card company but getting the money back can take months.
My thinking is many deals can be legit I know by personal experience, but yes fraudulent sellers can be weeded out if you investigate before hitting confirm bid or buy it now.

High positive fb isnt always a sure thing; this particular scam targets older acts WITH high positive fb. The thing is you have to make sure that what the seller is selling makes sense. If you see a 1oz gold bar for 300$ (going rate is about 1200) and the seller has 3600 sales @ 100% fb but all hes ever sold was buttons for 1$ run away, run away fast. And thats exactly what this slimeball does, he hacks high sales 100% fb acts and posts the pixel xl for a killer price, chesper even than the Google store.

freakboy13 said:
It goes without saying buying on ebay can be risky but I wanted to post a warning about a particular individual who keeps posting and or hacking the ebay acts posting pixel xl 128gb for sale with the same picture. It seems ebay doesnt gas and allows this person to consistantly repost via different accounts that are probably hacked. The main mo is a pixel xl 128gb for cheap bewtween 500-600$. Obviously the price raises eyebrows because the going rate on ebay is 900-1200$ from a typical scalper, but the perp keeps using acts that appear to have 99-100% fb that are long time users/older acts. Thing is... these sellers, are usually sellers of small items like coins and other knick knacks and or have not been active for a while. Im sure most of you are aware but thought id put out this psa. The other issue is this idiot keeps using the same image fir every hacked act they use. W/E i see this i report it, it comes down and is back up in a few days, with a dif act, but same mo: 100%fb, long time user and usually inactive or sells small items with no history of high end phones or anything. If its too good to be true... With that said hopefully Google restocks by march or so i really like this phone. The pic below is from the ebay scam. If you buy from ebay be very carefull because this ahole is not the only one. Please if you see any listings on ebay with this image report it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually messaged that guy at [email protected] and agreed to a deal for two pixel xl 128gb for JUST $1200
He then proceeds in sending me an invoice which I have to pay via bank transfer. Everything looks like it's perfectly covered by Ebay and is sent by Ebay ([email protected], looks pretty fake to me, but don't know, attached a screenshot)
I then asked him why they don't accept paypal, so I'm covered.
"For the moment we can't accept payment trough PayPal. The payment must be made through Bank Transfer. eBay will be third party in this transaction and will guarantee for both of us. The money will be secured by eBay until you will receive the package. 14 days of inspection - the inspection period starts once you have the items in your hands. This means you have 14 days to decide whether I get the money or not. In case the items are not as I described them, the transaction is canceled and eBay will refund full amount. If the items are as described, the transaction is completed and I will receive the money from eBay. Let me know if I should keep this items reserved for you."
I really don't know if all lies or not, but I obviously canceled the deal.

Wire transfer? No WAY. This is without a doubt a scam and good luck getting eBay to stand behind this despite what they claim. This guy is a scam and anyone who buys from him gets what they deserve. How many more red flags do people need? If you do a wire transfer does the recipient know your account number? I wonder is that is the scam, to get your bank account number.
So the seller is in NY yet the bank is in Spain and the owner of that account is listed as Florina Adriana Barbu. Not suspicious at all
Best guess, if you order and get anything at all they will have blocked IMEI. Likely stolen. My feeling is you won't get anything but a lot of trouble.
Bad English is another sign that this is likely a scam.

Mike02z said:
Wire transfer? No WAY. This is without a doubt a scam and good luck getting eBay to stand behind this despite what they claim. This guy is a scam and anyone who buys from him gets what they deserve. How many more red flags do people need? If you do a wire transfer does the recipient know your account number? I wonder is that is the scam, to get your bank account number.
So the seller is in NY yet the bank is in Spain and the owner of that account is listed as Florina Adriana Barbu. Not suspicious at all
Best guess, if you order and get anything at all they will have blocked IMEI. Likely stolen. My feeling is you won't get anything but a lot of trouble.
Bad English is another sign that this is likely a scam.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep. It looks pretty legit, though, if you don't have much experience and are hyped for the device. So I believe they really do have success sometimes.

Cards-ebay.com is not eBay. It is a fake address to simulate real ones. Only . should pretext the website name as cards.eBay.com would be valid. Here is the whois for cards-ebay.com https://whois.icann.org/en/lookup?name=Cards-ebay.com looks very shady.

jjayzx said:
Cards-ebay.com is not eBay. It is a fake address to simulate real ones. Only . should pretext the website name as cards.eBay.com would be valid. Here is the whois for cards-ebay.com https://whois.icann.org/en/lookup?name=Cards-ebay.com looks very shady.
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Click to collapse
Good catch! That domain is being hidden and in the name of a proxy service. This would be a sure fire way to lose 600 bucks and maybe more if they get your account number which is what I suspect they are really phising for.

Use Swappa. Been using using to both buy and sell phones for years. No issues for me.

Mike02z said:
Good catch! That domain is being hidden and in the name of a proxy service. This would be a sure fire way to lose 600 bucks and maybe more if they get your account number which is what I suspect they are really phising for.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They actually want you to buy two devices minimum, so you lose at least $1200
chazall1 said:
Use Swappa. Been using using to both buy and sell phones for years. No issues for me.
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Click to collapse
But Swappa never has the phones I'm looking for..

D4rkSoRRoW said:
They actually want you to buy two devices minimum, so you lose at least $1200
But Swappa never has the phones I'm looking for..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And neither does eBay it appears.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As long as you always pay with Paypal on ebay you will alway get your money back as with paypal new sellers will get their money held by paypal until the buyer leaves positive feedback or confirms to paypal that they received the item and its as described but you still have a 30 day money back guarantee with ebay.

daryllh said:
And neither does eBay it appears.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
Nah, Ebay definitely has them. Not the first time I'm searching for devices there

D4rkSoRRoW said:
Nah, Ebay definitely has them. Not the first time I'm searching for devices there
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah ebay has the biggest variety and you can find them cheap many times. I have found the latest models just out for as low as $200 one a woman used her upgrade then I think it was too advanced for her so she went back to her iphone lol, she just wanted her $199.99 she paid back so I got a heck of a deal. Some times you have to search a bit but it pays off.

M9guy said:
Yeah ebay has the biggest variety and you can find them cheap many times. I have found the latest models just out for as low as $200 one a woman used her upgrade then I think it was too advanced for her so she went back to her iphone lol, she just wanted her $199.99 she paid back so I got a heck of a deal. Some times you have to search a bit but it pays off.
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Click to collapse
Woah!! That's damn nice. I bought a XL 128gb for 800 euros. That's already 300 euros cheaper than new

D4rkSoRRoW said:
Woah!! That's damn nice. I bought a XL 128gb for 800 euros. That's already 300 euros cheaper than new
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh sorry I did not mean this phone, I meant phones in the past. Plus the deals are best a couple months after the device is out. The little old ladies dont buy at first release usually lol. The techies only buy early or the ones trying to profit, so it takes a good month or two after release to see good deals, or if the competition has a new phone come out right after the phone you want that helps get good deals too.

M9guy said:
Oh sorry I did not mean this phone, I meant phones in the past. Plus the deals are best a couple months after the device is out. The little old ladies dont buy at first release usually lol. The techies only buy early or the ones trying to profit, so it takes a good month or two after release to see good deals, or if the competition has a new phone come out right after the phone you want that helps get good deals too.
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Click to collapse
Well, the Pixel got released in october, so that's good three months now.

D4rkSoRRoW said:
Well, the Pixel got released in october, so that's good three months now.
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Click to collapse
Yes but they have been on back order keeping prices very high. The black 128gb pixel xl's were selling on ebay for over $1000.00