Make money with MBP :)

I just realized this (maybe i am dumb)---we can make money by selling MBPs??

I just got one with my student discount and I sold my free iPod to my roommate and I am selling the Santa Rosa MBP on eBay for only $1789. And this whole thing should give me about $200-$300 profit ???!!! Free cash???!!!

It's quite sad that Apple limits this offer to one per student, but I'll try to get my friends from college help me buy and sell MBPs ONE PER STUDENT---I got tons of students around me---I love college!

 

Are you sure it is one per student ?

 

that is not a very good idea. . .

but I hope you can take the time and figure that out for yourself, as a college student I am SURE you know a lot about efficiency of one's effort, but maybe not.

 

How much are MBP selling for at ebay USA? In Germany the official price is 1899€ at apple.com with student discount it is 1799€ from apple. Online it can be had for 1730€ and with student discount the best price is 1690€ (unimall.de). But on ebay you cant get more then 1600€ for it so not worth it. Is the student discount in the USA that good?

 

if you can get your hands on MBPs in the US, you could definitely make a lot of money selling them. Even after all the import tax, you still save a couple of hundred euros!!

 

Student discount is limit one per model per year. 200+ off the MBP and 50-100 off the MB. There's probably a limit on the iPod rebate aswell, without the iPod selling at 1789 is a 10 dollar loss.

 

So you can get into trouble?

It sounds like a nice idea though.


If you get the free iPod, is it the newest nano?

 

Thanks for the reminder, I just added a disclaimer saying that I bought it for educational purpose but it did not meet my needs and expectations and I am not selling it as perfectly new, I am selling it as OPENed. So that should avoid responsibilities of reselling NEW student discount MBPs

 

Not that you'd get into trouble, just seems the effort will outweigh the rewards

 

Good luck organizing those rebates.

 

There are so many fake purchasers on eBay it isn't even funny. I've sold 1 laptop successfully via eBay, after 3 separate attempts. Fake bidders bid your laptop up to obscene amounts and ask you to ship to X. Of course you won't, but you've got to start emailing eBay to wrestle your "final sale value" fee back, which can easily reach $80 or more on a fake sale. I had to put up my Acer twice to sell it due to this kind of rubbish, and after it happened to me again when I tried to sell my Gateway, I ended up simply giving it to my parents. I was able to recover the final value fee again, but seriously -

it is NOT worth it. There are too many people trying to rip you off, and it's a lot of unnecessary stress trying to recover cash from eBay due to scammers who cost YOU money.

 

I know, that's very annoying! That's why I am selling it as "Buy It Now" ONLY and immediate payment required. Not an auction because there are so many fake bidders on ebay :S

 

QFT. One should do that standard on all consumer electronics (ipods/cellphones/laptops/games). I haven't had problems with non-consumer stuff like cpus though.

 

Not that what you are doing is either illegal or immoral but you basically answered your question. Apple limits one per student to prevent you from selling them for a profit. I am not a student and I would love to have your option to buy at a lower price. Just be thankful you are in this position but be careful about being greedy.

 

the thing is you have to do a cost / benefit analysis to determine whether or not its REALLY viable to make money doing student discounted mbp resale.

harassing your friends for a $2000 a shot investment to make maybe 5% is just inconvenient enough to not do it in my opinion.

 

It's pretty easy to use your funds and just use the person's name... just hope that they don't run off with the MBP or something .

 

this is a horrible idea. there is no such thing as free money. spend some more time at college, maybe take a finance course.

greed is good, this is simply a bad idea.

 

Unless you're just sitting there and someone hands you a $200 check, there's no such thing as free money.

Is your time and effort worth making a couple hundred dollars?

 

You're also assuming Apple's not gonna crack down on you if you turn this into a large-scale operation... you might pull it off a few times, but after a while they'll start wondering what's going on.

 

A better idea for you...For all the money it will take to snatch up these MBPs, why not just take that money and put it into Apple stock? You are sure to make a lot more "free money" doing that than a measly $100-$200 or so for your "idea." Just a thought.

 

LOL, yeah like he'd really do that.

 

No offense, but this is hardly worth the time and investment. Basically you'll be doing the following:

1. Buy a MBP for 1799
2. Buy a Ipod Nano for 199
3. Submit your Ipod Nano Rebate
4. Sell your Ipod and MBP at a loss (although there are some very stupid Ebayers out there so YMMV)
5. Wait 6-8 weeks for rebate check for Ipod to turn a profit

The above will probably net you around $150-200 profit depending on how your MBP sells on Ebay and how much you are able to pawn off your free Ipod.

Seeing as how the free Ipod promotion only lasts through September 16, 2007, by the time you even see any profit from your first rebate submission the deal will be over. You'd be better off just getting a part time job.

 

I know that for me, the tax takes away pretty much all of my profit.

 

I don't understand why people see this as such a hassle.

If you have 5 or so friends at college that you can trust (which is reasonable), it won't be that big of a deal.

Assuming that you can sell the MBP for 1900$ (which would get your MBP money and tax money back), the price you sell the nano for is pure profit.

I don't know about you guys, but for 1000$, I'd be willing to spend the hour it takes to fill out those stupid rebate forms.

 

It does not make any sense - unless you think people are so stupid.
You can buy MacBook Pro 2.2 for $1844 (after $150 mail-in rebate)
http://www.macconnection.com/ProductDetail?Sku=7586198

you do not need to pay tax and shipping. So it is even cheaper than educational discount.

 

I think there's also an ethics question here; the student discount is there to make it a little cheaper for a student to buy a machine. The intention is that a student is buying it for their own use, not to make some profit selling it to a non-student.

Either way, this isn't particularly unique to the MBP; presumably you could do something similar for any company that offers educational discounts (buy a loaded Inspiron with EPP coupons and discounts and then sell it for a profit).

But again, I don't see how it could be good to encourage this - if this got really out of hand, these companies might need to re-evaluate how they handle their student discount programs, etc.

-Zadillo

 

People are that stupid. I bet there are 10 non-Santa Rosa Macbook Pros that will be sold today on ebay at near full retail price.

 

the education discount is $200, bringing the price down to 1799...

 

I'm pretty sure his point was that it costs more with tax. If you live in a tax free state, then yes, the education discount is the best deal.

Presumably also his plan was to sell an MBP to someone who couldn't get an educational discount for f ull price...... and the point there is that someone can get an MBP for $1850 just with a mail-in rebate and no tax. So a plan to try and profit by selling your educationally priced MBP might be difficult if they knew they could get a regular one with a rebate.

 

ohh that makes sense.

the whole idea is convoluted in the first place. im sorry but if a close friend who asked me to front $2000 to make maybe $100 in two months, i would not go for it. no way. i can make that working one day, without risking a huge sum of money. and yes- you are risking it. if apple decided to reduce prices, or offer some special deal, or updated their system, or suddenly released tiger, you would end up losing money on the transaction.

 

I have wheeled and dealed on ebay for several years now, and even worked for an eBay company. I think this is not worth the time and effort invested for such a small profit (if any). Most eBayers are looking to get something on there for a discount. So to believe that the MBP will sell for the full retail price would be somewhat of a stretch.

The time invested in posting the item, packaging, and shipping the item is not worth it to me. Like the previous poster said, it would be better to just get a part-time job.