found on ebay: joule thief

[neslekkim]

What on earth happened here?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/161443159176

$4999?

[os40la]

What on earth happened here?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/161443159176

$4999?

Despription:
"This Joule thief board allows you to use EMPTY AA and AAA battery's to light up an high brightness LED" 

Must be a Perpetual Energy Machine. Wow It does work That would explain the cost.
or Someone is trying to fence their heist 

[Mr.B]

Despription:
"This Joule thief board allows you to use EMPTY AA and AAA battery's to light up an high brightness LED your bank account in one easy click of the mouse"
 

[iampoor]

Even worse, some of these have sold before!

http://www.ebay.com/sch/dauia3/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc

[os40la]

Is that one of Dave's rulers in the photo?

[Neilm]

Is that one of Dave's rulers in the photo?

Certainly looks like it

[os40la]

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/theres-been-a-cheeky-577000-pink-diamond-heist-in-sydney-2014-9

Hmmmmm.........   

[Jorpy]

There's free LEDs included?! Very generous! 

[neslekkim]

Saw that, it's even blue!..

[CM800]

If you look at the price they are being sold at, it is a fraction of the price they put up. I think they often do this kind of thing. When they run out of stock, they just throw the price up very high until more come in, then lower it again. This means that they don't have to spend more money deleting then putting up the listing again.

[rob77]

this one has a reasonable price ... $ 1.20

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Joule-Thief-No-toroid-inductor-SMD-DC-DC-ORIGINAL/161080170207?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D25879%26meid%3Dfb942acc86264bb2be8463c4056d1571%26pid%3D100005%26prg%3D10819%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D161443159176&rt=nc

that guys who is selling at $5k above is a literally stupid scammer the persons stupid enough to buy it simply don't have $5k to spend... he should be selling those for $50 instead (still making a huge huge profit).

[Leiothrix]

Keeping the item advertised with a ridiculous price when it has sold out is very common on ebay.

It's not a scam, it means they get to keep the page up so they appear in searches for advertising, plus they also get to keep the "x of these have been sold" number.

If someone is dumb enough to bid they'll just cancel it anyway.

[Smokey]

it may be $4999 but you get 10 of them!

[mswhin63]

Curious what would happen if a offer was made at $1.20   

[Bud]

It's not a scam

It is. Feedback score is faked, as well as the feedback records. Randomly picked a few "completed" auctions and ran a search, the items/auctions do not exist.

[Dago]

I think this is a regular tactic at eBay, when you run out of stock you raise the price to a value that no one will buy. I think it saves on restocking fees or something. The "1 sold" is for the original price which is probably like 1$.

[Dave]

I think this is a regular tactic at eBay, when you run out of stock you raise the price to a value that no one will buy. I think it saves on restocking fees or something. The "1 sold" is for the original price which is probably like 1$.

Bingo, relisting fees.
If anyone actually bothered to look at this guy's feedback page, they would see that he usually sells these for ~5 bucks.

[Smokey]

So who wants to be the one to buy some at the current price and call the guy out?

[Dave]

Will usually ship within 5 business days of receiving cleared payment.

Plenty of time to get a batch fabricated and assembled. Even if he pays 20 times the price to get the PCBs fabricated overnight, he'd still be rolling in cash.

[XpsikotiX]

If you look at the other listing he has with the same item at purchase history you will clearly see the sale price  5.99 USD.

[leosedf]

this one has a reasonable price ... $ 1.20

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Joule-Thief-No-toroid-inductor-SMD-DC-DC-ORIGINAL/161080170207?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D25879%26meid%3Dfb942acc86264bb2be8463c4056d1571%26pid%3D100005%26prg%3D10819%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D161443159176&rt=nc

that guys who is selling at $5k above is a literally stupid scammer the persons stupid enough to buy it simply don't have $5k to spend... he should be selling those for $50 instead (still making a huge huge profit).

Hehe!
Hi guys and sorry for bringing up a long forgotten thread.
The board you linked is mine and the first one.
Since then i got cloned by the italian guy you saw(he ordered two boards from me), the prices were a bit higher but then he started dropping the prices, so we got in a price war, he was stupid enough to make the boards double sided with gold plating LOL so he couldn't drop the prices more, eventually he ran out of stock but it was too expensive for him but he wanted to keep his status (ho many products sold) so he raised prices untill he makes some boards. He didn't manage it and then later closed the whole thing.
I still have a few cloners (and attacked with negative feedback from their friends at times) but they don't sell like me since i have a better status.(not many sales for me too really)

The schematic is just one random circuit from the net that anyone can find and build, i just made an SMD version of it when i had some money and made a few boards on a factory for me and a friend from the US. Since then one of my friends told me "put it on ebay, put it on ebay and let's see".
Since then in the dire economic situations of my country (i now have 40 cents on my pocket lol) the boards allowed me to get some food and maybe some clothing (like 10 dollar trousers of ebay lol) and spare parts i needed. There is really not much profit margin but over time with patience little by little i get through.
Just a dc-dc converter.