I think it works like that:
1) You promise a great product of great performance at a good price to attract buyers.
2) You let the pre-order list build on, that way, you receive money to build your product. It also give you the option of starting without any money.
3) With the money, you build the product you advertise, using what competitors already offer. From what I see, it's probably this board (
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ztex-usb-fpga-modules-115x-and-115y-215-and-860-mhs-fpga-boards-49180) four times in a nice box.
4) The cost of building the product is probably a lot higher than his sale price. In that case, it cost around 1600$ and sells at 599$.
5) When you build your first batch, you ship them so the first buyers can give feedback.
6) Shipping MUST be slow. It's important later on.
7) The first buyers are indirectly a part of the scam. They are honest people who are going to say to others :"Hey, this thing WORKS! It's awesome, blablabla". The feedback is almost garanteed to be positive.
In the meantime, you can adjust the price if you want. It let you get more money without problems because of the feedback.
9) People who didn't bought into the first batch want to be a part of it now. The price is good, the performance is great, and looking at the feedback of the first buyers, everything is as promised. So, they pre-order too on the next batch.
10) First buyers, getting their promise fulfilled (this box is awesome!) will probably buy another one too.
11) The shipping took a long time the first time, so, on the second time, people will accept the long delay between payment and the reception of their product. People waited two months the first time, they can wait another two months.
12) Wait for the pre-orders, take the money and run. The longer the "shipping" takes, the more time you have to GTFO.
Alternate version:
- You can redo the scam multiple times. You simply need to redo the steps 7 to 11. The second batch buyers will also give great feedback, creating a new wave of batch buyers.
- The scammer will be able to create multiple waves of buyers and increasing his revenue. It's more risky though, because he could find it hard to stop, and it's better if he can control when the scam stop (instead of being discovered). When he decides when to stop, he can use his "shipping" delay more effectively to get out and hide.
Well, I'm interested to see how this will end. Have fun!
Been following this thread for a while.
yeah can't be that much...
