I'm going to post the Golden Gate bridge on ebay as the worlds largest MUP. Send me $ 99.95 and local pickup only.

I live in the SF Bay Area and although it’s been a long while I have been approached w this exact “deal” a few times.

Basically on any street corner in Seoul, Korea. Those guys are usually hustlers, buying and selling anything for profit, but they're not often scammers. They have a reputation to uphold for repeat customers.

I actually don't know about Japan, as the wholesale cabbage thing is often a Korean phenomenon, where they sell cabbages in the cities, after buying from farmers out in the countryside, at a bit of a profit for people to make kimchi, the staple Korean pickle.

Those guys always deal in cash, though, and once they've driven away, returning anything you bought from them is not possible.

But to get back on track, if there are safeguards in place, you cannot really go wrong with a $10 bike. It's worth more, and the auction will probably go higher.

Still, even you can get some for that price, you will need to pay for delivery or arrange for pick up, have storage space ready and be prepared to flip any bikes that don't fit.

They are likely fairly pedestrian bikes of the cheap alloy frame xc mtb type that is ubiquitous worldwide, so flipping them may take time, especially outside of Japan with current limitations on shipping. There is no easy airmail from Korea right now, for example, and all packages are surface only, unless you use DHL.

What's with all the questions? There are 1000 movies and a million books written regarding "Confidence Men". Do I need to explain that to you. From Jack and the Bean Stalk to so-called patent medicines in the 18th century to multitudes of internet scams today.

Guys sold electronics out of their trunks for decades her in Los Angeles. A friend was offered a pickup truck load of of machine equipment, "brought in for a trade show but too expensive to ship back so I will sell it too you for 10%"

Did you read my questions? I don’t need an explanation, I understand the concept. I’ve just never experienced it in my lifetime.

I was approached at a gas station probably 20 years ago. Same deal. Stereo equipment in boxes in the guy’s minivan. Glad I didn’t bite. Something seemed off...

Google 'white van speaker scam.' Up through the 00's this was common on the eastern seaboard of the US. Personally I was approached in NC, MD, and PA with the scam. Once you could google the speaker brand with your smartphone while the guy waited, the jig was up.

RUN - don’t walk away?

I guess this thread died out. What happened, OP?

Why did that ruin the scam?

I would absolutely love a penny farthing lol. I would ride it every day.

So to conclude this story, I figured out from the bridgestone guys I spoke to that the Anchor/bridgestone branded road bikes were the boxes with grey penny farthing logo, mountain bike was blue. The Japanese writing above the lot no. is the color of the bike. So you can guess what kind and color of bike you can get just not the size or specific model. Unfortunately seems like so did a few other people because that listing got bid up above my risk/reward range since I have no idea what model or size I would be getting. Same thing happened for the mountain bike (cue sad trombone).

His told me over the phone he had a lot of the boxes so I will be camping his profile to see if a road or mountain bike box gets listed and goes for cheap.

On the plus side, it seems like many people pressured the guy to open the boxes because he ended up relisting the unbought ones after opening a few and taking photos. Green colored penny farthing logo turned out to be adult mamachari while the red logo was kids mamachari (Mamachari with mickey mouse and such). While bridgestone city bikes are amazing, I already have one and they are so common it wouldnt be worth the hassle to flip.

Cant seem to post the links since they are in Japanese. Im getting an error message saying the characters are not allowed. You can find the guys profile on Yahoo Auctions Japan, his profile name is momigi2016.

I felt like sherlock holmes did a lost in translation for a while there, was a fun feeling even if no bicycle in the end yet. The hunt for my first non-mamachari bike continues. Not that I dont love my Lococo.

Maybe have a look at Araya OP?

Some cool options there, albeit very oriented towards the Japanese market.

Because the scam is to either sell fake units, or to claim units are worth way more than they are in order to make it seem like a good deal i.e. telling you a $50 speaker is worth $500 so you think getting it for $100 is a bargain. If you know what it's actually worth (or should look like), then the scam falls over.

Hmm. I don’t know that Googling the brand protects against fakes (or buying, as claimed upthread, a box of bricks), because that depends on the quality of the fake. I’d also assume the products are much likely to be stolen than fakes, though, right? And if that’s true, wouldn’t the pitch to get a good deal be true? Why would they sell stolen stuff above retail value? Seems odd, to me...and isn’t that exactly happens in legit retail outlets?! In any case, I’m not the type to buy in such a scenario, and outside of produce in west Philly or Lima, Peru, I’ve not seen stuff sold out of trucks, so what do I know? I can imagine a scenario where everybody knows the stuff is stolen and dudes are just dumping it to get some cash up. Ripping off the kind of people who buy stuff out of trucks is particularly low.

In one instance I know of, the seller showed high quality stainless steel kitchenware. When the buyer opened the box, it contained the lowest possible grade aluminum pots and pans.

Ow that’s a scam...and Googling would not have helped. You gotta have some street sense buyin’ stuff off a truck on the street.