Woman conned into paying $180 for a wooden iPad

There's an old saying that, if a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Particularly when it's being offered out of the boot of a car by a man with a gold tooth.

A 22 year-old woman from South Carolina learned this lesson the hard way this week when she was duped into paying $180 for a fake iPad, and a remarkably bad fake at that.

It seems that the woman was coming out of a McDonald's restaurant in Spartansburg, South Carolina when she passed two enterprising gentlemen who were selling what they claimed were brand new iPads out of the back of a white Chevy Impala. Their story was that the iPads had been acquired in bulk, and they were selling them in order to turn a quick profit.

The men were asking $300 apiece for the tablets but, ever the expert negotiator, the woman was able to haggle them down to just $180 for an iPad sealed inside a FedEx shipping box. No doubt feeling like a savvy shopper, she went home to unbox her shiny new ... iPlank.

Yes, to almost nobody's surprise, the supposed iPad was in fact a fake. The men had simply painted a plank of wood black, and glued an Apple logo and a few pictures on either side.

Remarkably oblivious to the way the world works, the woman then went public, telling police that her grey-market electronics source was not behaving in an ethical manner. Presumably the police will look into the matter once they stop laughing and shaking their heads.

Two important lessons to take away from this story:

1. A plank of wood with an Apple logo stuck to the back still sells for nearly twice as much as a brand new HP TouchPad.

2. When you're buying hardware from a reseller (especially one operating out of the boot of a car) make sure you check the merchandise before you pay.