[FirmwareBurner]

>Here's an easy giveaway - the bottom bezel isn't symmetrical in width.

Sure, but they're not designed to fool those who already owned a recent iPhone, but to fool those that never owned a recent iPhone and are just buying their first iPhone now which so are easily fooled if they only get to play with it for a couple of minutes in a parking lot somewhere, before handing over the cash.

It's how this scam works in developing countries. You buy bootleg iPhones from Alibaba for $150 and sell them for $800 in a parking lot to a clueless dude looking to buy his first iPhone who can't afford the $1400 sticker price because that's way more than his monthly wage.

[user_7832]

That's understandable and very likely true, HN has nearly a 100% rate of tech geeks/nerds compared to the real world. However at least in some places in India it's often implicitly understood that such a phone sold below market cost is some kind of fake or refurb or b/c stock etc.

[FirmwareBurner]

I pulled those sales prices out of my ass as I don't follow second hand iPhone market prices but the real world scammers do and they make sure to advertise the correct market prices in line with genuine second hand iPhones, to not look suspicious as being too good to be true.