With its stores outside China shuttered, Apple ditches two-mobes-per-customer limit for online shoppers As Apple stores outside of Mainland China remain stubbornly closed, the firm has dropped the two-iPhone limit on its website, allowing customers to (theoretically) spend millions on shiny new mobes. The change was first spotted by Reuters. Navigating to the US or Chinese Apple website, the usual quantity drop-down has been …
A favorite sport here in Brazil, in the ol'days, was for a single guy go make collective purchases in Paraguay, to dodge taxes.
Back then, VCR's and the average Nintendo or Atari consoles were $4000 a pop in retail. Dodging Brazilian taxes, the price was akin to $500 in Paraguay. Everything from liquor to boomboxes, from MP3 players to discmans, your average GPS (they were an exclusive device at that point, for the adventurers out there), were within reach of a 2-day drive to Foz de Iguaçu, also known as Ciudad del Este.
Saying retail stores allow 999 units just reminded me of those days, when Amazon or NewEgg didn't exist, and all your IT gadgets had to be sourced somewhere else.
One anecdote I will never forget: one of these "entrepreneurs" back then, was lucky to receive an order with a black-and-white request for sound systems, taxes included on the price. The thing is, the local Police got word that drug dealers were smuggling coke inside the back-then huge devices.
He got randomly stopped at border customs, was asked to turn one of the huge portable radios on and.. nothing. Not a peep. Police then took it apart, to his dismay. Luckily, the device was just defective, but it was an actual sound system not filled with coke, and he had all the paperwork for it, squicky clean.
It's not even practical these days to repeat such a trip, not even for iPhones.
your average GPS (they were an exclusive device at that point, for the adventurers out there), were within reach of a 2-day drive to Foz de Iguaçu
If you could find your way there and back, you probably don't need a GPS in the first place.
Mine's the one with the OS maps in the pocket.
You guys had local SEGAAA! manufactures so the Sega Master System and the Sega Genesis were quite cheap.
Many people from border countries went to Brazil to get a Sega Genesis on the cheap by dogging taxes.
Sadly, Brazil never produced their own Sega Dreamcast.
Oh yes. Genesis was cheaper, but the posh guys wanted the Super Nintendo, imported on the grey market.
In fact, Tec Toy still builds both, to a degree. They replaced the main chips with a cheaper FPGA, it has a microSD card loaded, native RCA or HDMI cables (instead of an antenna adapter), and a crappy attempt at emulation of the Motorola 68000 for the Genesis. An empty shell of its former self.
Also, the original Yamaha FM chips are long gone, replaced by un-equivalent chips, with a poorer sound quality. All the accessories were made incompatible because of this, as well.
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