Extremely over priced goods

[peternt2001]

Hi, i know the forums used to be a wealth of information. I havent been on for a long time since they changed everything. But was wondering if anyone else had similar thoughts to me. Recently I have been looking for a new phone and a smart watch. While looking through all of the listings on ebay, it struck me that there are sellers who have listed buy it now prices, sometimes up to $1000 over the retail prices in the shops for items. 
First off i thought they may have made keying errors with the price or put the price up as to stop anyone from buying as they were holding the items for someone already committed to a purchase ( if that makes sense ) . But then looking at more and more of these listings i see that a lot of them have already sold many items at the extremely over inflated prices. 
This made me to start to think, is this a form of money laundering, selling items either to themselves or friends for huge huge mark ups normal people wouldnt pay, so that they can claim a legitimate income from selling on ebay. For example i have seen some smart watches that sell for $400 at the top end of pricing in shops being sold on ebay for $1499 and that seller having many sales. Does anyone else think there is the possibility that ebay is now being used to launder money ? 

[joethenuts]

i dont think so , if they turn over a certain amount a year ,it would then go to the ato  ,then tax would have to be paid on huge profits ,and i dont think launder would want to get involved with the ato ,also ebay fees would be huge ,maybe you have read the add wrong or sellers trying to make a huge profit, 

[peternt2001]

Isnt that the point of money laundering, so that you can deal with the ATO and banks as though the money was obtained by legitimate means ? And no i havent misread the listings, i checked that out at first and thought the first few must be mistakes, but there are a lot of them selling goods for around $1000 above normal retail. And they have many many sales. It is easy enough to check for yourself, just search the latest technologies for sale and you will see the listings yourself. 
The only reason i posted this, is laundaring is the only thing i can think of as to why the listings would be here at those prices, but with the wealth of knowledge that is on the forums i thought someone might be able to enlighten me as to another reason why this might be happening. 

[lane-ends]

Have they upped the price after selling the previous items, just to use it as a placce older while they get more stock?

[harley_babes_hoard]

I do that sometimes. On one item I don't want to lose the sales history on I sell it normally for 18.00 however when my stock gets down to 2 I change the price to $1018 so none will buy them out until I get more stock in.

[joethenuts]

hi could you give us a item number thanks , some sony watches sell for over $2000 , maybe you have the model numbers mixed up 

a medel type can range from 0  to  thousands .  thanks 

[joethenuts]

found the item number , sorry to say you are barkinng up the wrong tree .

there are samsung watches with similar numbers sell for a lot less , i found a similar 1 going for $1450   also from korea a similar watch going for $1300   some watches the cheaper ones do not have the same numbers ala gear2 neo r 381,only 1 letter or 1 number has to be different and its not the same watch , for instance the $1450 watch is not in a box and its number is r 380

the one from korea is i think sm 381

[cherry*135]

Does anyone else think there is the possibility that ebay is now being used to launder money ? 

No, I don't

Are these items listed as buy it now (set price) or auctions?

[bsal6160]

To launder money means you must bring money into the country and then change it for the local currency. Wont work on ebay as you need to BUY something.

To make a legimate income from ebay also means over $10,000 and the taxman will take his cut as well.

[cherry*135]

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@bsal6160 wrote:

To launder money means you must bring money into the country and then change it for the local currency. Wont work on ebay as you need to BUY something.

To make a legimate income from ebay also means over $10,000 and the taxman will take his cut as well.

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Not necessarily.

Money laundering is when somebody tries to ‘launder’ money they have earned from a crime to make it look like it came from a legal source. They do this by putting the money through a series of bank accounts to hide its original (and usually illegal) source.

http://www.scamwatch.gov.au/content/index.phtml/tag/TransferringMoneyForSomeoneElse