You did get a steal. Just not the steal you envisioned.
Scammers, grifters, politicians, advertisers, propagandists, and even some educators and parents and partners can or will take advantage of someone’s ignorance, greed, fear, pride, or other such.
Serial numbers can be trivially copied.
Copying a serial number is far easier than creating a passable device, too.
All a serial number indicates is that there is (or was) one legitimate device with that serial number. There can be zero or more counterfeits with that same serial number.
Apple has changed how they assign serial numbers making predicting serial numbers more difficult, but nothing prevents people from copying the legitimate serial numbers that routinely get posted around the ‘net, or copying serial numbers from in-store stock, or from packaging trash or from purchasing receipts, among many other sources.
There are counterfeits of all sorts of devices available, too. Including hard disk drives, SSDs, flash drives, cables, designer wear, sneakers, headphones, jewelry, colognes, various Apple devices, etc.
If it’s expensive or desirable and easily portable, expect there will be counterfeits.
If you are getting “a good deal” — if you are speculating — and want to proceed, then you’re going to want to demand a big discount on the price, too. And you might purchase a legitimate device from a grey market sale, but you’re also going to want to expect to get scammed and to lose all your money. Which is why you want a bigger discount on the price; a risk premium.
Tell your classmates about this. They’re also targets for this and many other common scams.
