As expected, during the Christmas time there are quite of few items that are hot and as a result are in very limited quantities. This often results in regular consumers buying the items with the sole intent of reselling it to make a profit too. Just today I was reading this comment from a person who was so disgusted at people who were selling these items higher than what people could buy it for at the retail stores. Example, some of the items were $10 to $50 more than what you would pay at a store.

Now I guess the general mentality for that is how people feel cheated since the cost of the item is more known in that situation. For myself though, it’s almost no different than what a regular company does. For example, the price that the retail store charges is normally dependent on what the supplier charges them for the item in the first place. In this scenario, the retail store is the supplier and the person selling it then becomes the retail store instead. Whether it is an individual or company doing it doesn’t make too much of a difference I’d say.

I think the only time I would really despise a regular person selling an item in this fashion is if they somehow started buying out the inventory in large quantities and then forcing people to pay these sky high prices. Although, the same would go with a traditional company as well where I wouldn’t agree with that practice.

Here in BC, for our public transit system it is broken down into three zones of travel and a person has an option of buying a bus pass that enables them to travel through various zones. As you may have guessed, buying the pass that allows you to travel through all zones is more expensive.

Not too long ago there was this program called “Scrap It” that was introduced as a way to get rid of older car models off the road that are not as environmentally friendly. As an incentive, people can get an incentive worth up to a little over $2000.

Apparently there are a lot of people that don’t opt for the credit towards purchasing a new car but instead opt to get bus passes that are mailed to them every month. Interestingly enough, many of these people don’t even use transit and so instead they look to sell off their passes to others and there is no rules about it.

For example, a three zone pass is about $136 a month normally and there seems to be a never ending amount of people willing to part off with them for about $100 or less. Not a bad way to save money if you are a regular user of public transit.

Haven’t tried this myself personally, but the main thing to look out for from what I read are people that ask for a lump some and then mentioning that they will simply put your name as the address to deliver the passes to every month as from what I read the person can easily just take your name off the list afterwards.

If you find an honest seller though, it looks like it can be a good and perfectly legitimate way to benefit both parties.