Ali is scammed out of about $1,000 of his life savings trying to buy a MacBook Air from a seller on Gumtree
story · status: told 3× · last event: retold (2023-10-20) · owner: Ali
About: MacBook, Apple ecosystem, Gumtree, Craigslist
| date | event | what | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-10-04 | first in the videos (retold; it began earlier) | To win back the £900, in September 2012 Ali brainstormed money-making schemes in Evernote from what he was good at, including websites on getting into medicine, BMAT preparation and interview preparation. | My BIGGEST Rejections in Life 00:17:34 |
| 2022-02-28 (happened 2012) | retold | At 18, trying to get a good deal on a MacBook Air, his first Apple product, Ali was scammed out of about $1,000 of his life savings by a seller on Gumtree, the UK equivalent of Craigslist. | 5 Financial Mistakes I've Made In The Last 10 Years 00:10:20 |
| 2023-10-20 | retold | Retold as a mistake he is glad he made: about ten years earlier Ali lost his entire life savings on a dodgy, completely defunct MacBook bought from a seller on Craigslist (Gumtree in his 2022 telling). | I love this journalling prompt ✍️ 00:00:00 |
What is said about it
11 statements, by date (the events above are the turns of the thread; these are the details).
- 2022-02-28 · 5 Financial Mistakes I've Made In The Last 10 Years — recommendation: Ali: To avoid being scammed when buying, Ali says to pay with something like PayPal that has buyer's protection; a seller who prefers cash is a red flag, since nothing can be done if he runs off with it. — 00:11:19
- 2022-02-28 · 5 Financial Mistakes I've Made In The Last 10 Years — recommendation: Ali: Had he taken his time with the transaction, Ali says, he could have inspected the laptop; when buying something there is no need to want to please the seller. — 00:11:48
- 2022-02-28 · 5 Financial Mistakes I've Made In The Last 10 Years — recommendation: Ali's rule: especially with large amounts of money, don't invest in or buy something you don't understand; 20 more minutes of research would have shown him the laptop was a 2008 MacBook Air, not the 2012 model. — 00:12:46
- 2020-10-04 · My BIGGEST Rejections in Life — Ali's 2012 Evernote brainstorm morphed into SixMed, the company he founded a year later, in 2013. — 00:18:01
- 2020-10-04 · My BIGGEST Rejections in Life — Ali: Since 2013 SixMed has made roughly six figures in revenue every year, helped thousands of students into medical school and given bursaries to hundreds who could not otherwise afford its courses. — 00:18:01
- 2020-10-04 · My BIGGEST Rejections in Life — Ali's unfair advantages for SixMed were the Cambridge medical school brand and six years of web design, graphic design and coding, when rivals in 2012 and 2013 had poor-looking websites. — 00:18:30
- 2020-10-04 · My BIGGEST Rejections in Life — recommendation: Ali's sixth lesson, his advice to people asking whether a business idea will succeed: use your unfair advantages, what would be very difficult or impossible for others to replicate. — 00:19:08
- 2020-10-04 · My BIGGEST Rejections in Life — recommendation: Ali: A medical student who can code gains no unfair advantage by building a website builder, Ali says, but does by building something in the medical field. — 00:19:29
- 2020-10-04 · My BIGGEST Rejections in Life — Ali: To do content marketing for SixMed, Ali created his YouTube channel in 2017, first making videos on the BMAT and interview preparation, topics from his 2012 brainstorm. — 00:19:58
- 2020-10-04 · My BIGGEST Rejections in Life — Ali: Living a privileged and sheltered life, Ali says, losing his life savings was genuinely the worst thing that had ever happened to him, and he resolved to turn it into a positive. — 00:19:58
- 2023-10-20 · I love this journalling prompt ✍️ — Ali says losing his life savings helped him start his first business, which made over a hundred times what he lost and led directly to his YouTube channel, started six years earlier, which has made over a thousand times the loss. — 00:00:29