Plan B Forum

When I scan laptop computers in advertisements they are in the range of $200-$500. In the last month, several vendors are advertising items at the much lower price. If you look at their specifications they seem to be the same as the more expensive types. Is there any reason not to consider those in the lower range? What are they missing?

I'd say it's not what they might be missing, it's whatever spyware, scamware, bloatware, trackers, and viruses that they might be coming with.

As the old warning goes — if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably isn't.

Which brings me to another point.  I'm using a laptop for my internet activity about 98% of the time, and I keep seeing these pop-up ads for half-price US postage stamps.   Just a heads-up ... they're Chinese-printed counterfeits.   Ditto for a lot of these 'US Silver Eagle' coins you'll sometimes see ads for.  My coin dealer showed me one of those the other day.  They look and feel authentic, right down to the mint marks, the "In God We Trust" motto, and the line that reads, '1 oz fine silver'.   But grab a refrigerator magnet and hold it up to one of them, and the magnet holds tight.  It's just some sort of base metal that's been silver-plated.

Again — if something sounds too good to be true...

-"BB"-

I didn't know that - the cheap fake stamps - but I have seen the ads at around 1/2 price for a roll domestic forever stamps. I didn't buy because I've got some left over from Christmas and the number of letters I send nowadays is minimal. Most of my bills I pay on line or autopay.

The USPS chief line of defense seems to be warning people that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. I have never bought stamps except at a post office* but I know that there are legit places that sell stamps at a tiny discount. apparently Costco (I'm not a member so I don't know this independently) will sell you a roll of stamps at abut 1% off the USPS face price.

But if the 'if it seems too good to be true, don't buy it' thing works then I could buy a $60 roll of 100 forever stamps for $29.99 from one of these fake dealers and sell them for $59 on line, delivery included. No-one is going to say "that's so cheap it must be a scam" and I'll get plenty of takers who want to save a buck.

* Not true of course - I collect stamps and I have bought plenty of stamps at way over their face value from dealers.

When I was a kid, I recall you could only buy stamps at a post office or a postal station (a small post office area in some stores--usually pharmacies--which provided stamps and post office services for the same price as the post office and were given a permit to operate by the post office). There also were stamp machines in some stores that sold stamps at a big mark up (I learned that when my mother told me to go to the post office for stamps and I figured I'd save a trip--I think they cost 50% over the usual price. I presume the stamps were regulated as well as you could not get stamps in any other stores. I'm not sure when this changed, but it does seem you can get stamps at many stores and even online. Most are sold at face value, some very minimally discounted (like the 1% at Costco--I presume that is what they paid (or most of it) as a commission for the sale and they offer it to customers as a loss leader to get them in). I also know that there are online print your own postage companies which I have not used, but I imagine they are pretty heavily regulated. I'd imagine the USPS is taking these counterfeit stamps pretty seriously because folling the market with them could be a catastrophe for them.

In the "you get what you pay for" realm, this is one of those things. As noted, spywhare, adware, etc, may be part of that. I know that I can get a kindle fire tablet pretty cheap (under 50 bucks) if I agree to their advertising on it. Basically, they run ads on the home screen while you're not reading. That's fine with me. If I go to disable the ads they warn me that I agreed to the ads and they will charge my Amazon account the difference between the ad-supported tablet and the ad-free tablet.

Could also be regular old counterfeit/stolen items as well. I'd pass.

I stopped at Costco today and asked a clerk about this $30 device. He said they didn't have any in stock now, but he thought it was a device only for looking at digital photos. Although it used a laptop-type external case, it didn't have all the internal compoonents in a conventional laptop.

https://digitacg.com/products/christmas ... win-10-pro
Here is another cheapie, twenty-eight bucks. I also stoped at Best Buy. Their clerks didn't know anything about the cheapie they offered last week. I still don't see what is wrong with this class. They do seem to have some tie to Germany.

I bought one for my great-grandkids, ages 8 and 11. I'll let you knowhow it turns out. Delivery time is supposed to be one week.