As someone who has been seriously tempted to give this a try, I've spent a lot of time on it and discovered some interesting points.
Look closely at their terms and conditions page at
http://www.applepurchaseprogram.com/sit ... terms.aspx
There's a lot of stuff there that one could interpret either as an outright scam or, alternatively, as a clever and legit if not completely honest, ethical or transparent business, but pay close attention to the following two paragraphs:
1. They give themselves sweeping rights to terminate the program at any time for any reason and owe you nothing.
Termination or Cancellation By Company
The Company may immediately cancel your order and reservation (1) if you breach these Terms, (2) if the Company is unable to verify or authenticate any information you provide to the Company, (3) if such information is inaccurate, (4) if the Company determines, in its sole discretion, that you are using the Service illegally or immorally (5) if the Company decides, in its sole discretion, to discontinue offering the Program, or (6) if the Company determines, in its sole discretion, that such cancellation is appropriate or necessary for any other permissible business or legal reason. The Company shall not be liable to you or any third party for cancellation of Service. In the event Company cancels Customer's order, the reservation fee of $250 is nonrefundable.
Conclusion: this proposition is clearly for people who are more desperate than they are careful. (Always a warning sign)
2. They ask for "proof of identification" showing you're over 18. (Is that not weird?)
Your Obligations
You must provide Marbella Technologies your name, email address, and all contact information listed on the reservation form as well as valid identification proving that you are over 18 years of age and legally authorized to make this purchase....
So, even if they don't wind up taking your money, they have your driver's license, which I have never been asked to give in an online purchase before.
(Identity theft, anyone?)
Even if this is technically legally legit (whether or not it's honest or moral), it's at the very least
baaaaaad business ethic. A little bit of Enron right here in Mac heaven?[/p]
Yes, caveat emptor (buyer beware) - but the same it true for our own US government, which pulls this kinda stuff on us every day (social security, medicare and pension funds, and this multi-trillion dollar so-called "defense" budget which is really just a way to dupe taxpayers into gullibly giving their money away to Dubya's puppetmasters in the military industrial complex ...) oh, but I digress!
You can also see some interesting anomalies at the website of their parent company," Marbella Software
http://www.marbellasoftware.com. The website looks very slick and professional at first glance, but closer examination reveals some curious stuff:
1. The title of the "company" page is misspelled "copmany," which in and of itself might not be too strange, except that the same misspelling occurred in my dialogue with a "live help" representative at the Apple Purchase Program site... and the transcript of another person's live help session which was posted to this forum also contained the exact same text as my session, showing that some of the answers are cut an pasted from a master document that may well have been typed by the
same person who created the text for the website, which is a little odd for a company that says (on its company page) "Marbella Software has been referred to as, "the largest cohesive team of Microsoft developers on the planet."
2. Also odd that a tech company with such claims would have a website with a domain name that was registered only in august 2002 (marbellasoftware.com). the copyright statement says 2002-2004.
3. Also in the errata department, the line breaks on their website are all choppy (breaking into a new line in randowm places), suggesting that someone took a slick template and carelessly pasted text into it - not common practice for a company that claims to be "the largest cohesive team of Microsoft developers on the planet."
4. Strangest is that such a huge organization (which its live help person says has been in business for 10 years) would not only have a 6-month-old domain name, but also have a
shared office setup (if what other posters have said is true) - sounds pretty fly by night to me.
-count macula