Hi,

This guide is about buying a Nokia N96 on ebay or indeed anywhere online. As most of you may have already noticed there are a few Nokia N96's available to purchase on Ebay.    I have actually been bidding on and doing a sort of private investigation on the fraudulent item listings. if the listing says to contact these sellers at via email instead of using ask the seller a question well its a fake. Here are just a few ive found aidangsm(@)gmail.com and                                                                                     calipso(@)inbox.com . Super.Ieftin(@)gmail.com                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           I am a Nokia fanatic and am very interested in purchasing one of these. The simple fact is the Nokia N96 has NOT been released yet. Some sellers claim to have these but in reality they are only selling cheap Chinese clones for a lot of money and ripping you off. The majority of the N96 listings are complete scams. The sellers show pictures of the phone often ahving different variations between the pictures. If you search on google for pictures of the fake CECT/Chinese clone and compare them to the official nokia n96 pictures found on the nokia nseries website you notice a few details. The real Nokia n96 has a 5 megapixel Carl zeiss camera with GPS (NOKIA MAPS) Wifi, 3G, Quadband , dvb-h,16GB internal memory with ONLY support for a SDHC micro sd card not a transflash like the fake cheap chinese one, the real n96 runs on symbian OS 9.2. If the phone listed does not have these features it is without a doubt a fake. If you compare the real images of the n96 to the fake you can see that the media keys in the slider are likew piano keys where they are seperate plastic keys not like on the fake chinese phone where the keys are similiar to the ones on the n95. Another obvious one is that the key backlight for the n96 is a white led not a blue one, the keys one the real n96 are white. On the front of the phone just above the screen on the left hand side is where "n96" is writter, on the fake one this is written in a larger bolder font than on the genuine nokia n96 which is sharper and finer. the menu key is also different on the fake the symbol on it is badly printed and poorly visible. On the 5 way d-pad there is a silver plastic/chrome lining, this is different on the fake one where it is thicker/more of it than on the the real n96, the real n96 has a finer higher quality lining.  another difference is that on the front of the phone between the fast forward/skip key and the play/pause button is a small silver button. on the real n96 this button is small but wide and on the fake the button is longer. A significant difference between the phones is the placement of the 3.5mm heaphone jack. On the real n95 this is placed at the top of the phone not at the side like on the fake similiar to the n95's 3.5mm jack placement. The real N96 has nokia maps on it not emap. On the back of the phone is the kickstand the real n96 has sharp smooth easy to read text where as the fake has badly spaced bolder difficult to read writing, the same applies to the wirting on the battery cover that should say "NOKIA Nseries" not "N O KI A Ns e ries" the fake nokia has mispaced and bad quality print. on most of the fake nokia n96's at the back the camera appears to have only one LED, The real one however has two led's. There are a lot of difference physically between the phones, If you examine the two phones you will see how the cheap chinese useless n96 differs between the excellent real genuine nokia n96. Be very careful buying these phones. Check feedback and try to see what kind of seller this is, most of the n96's sold are sold on hacked account that havent been used in a long time have 0 or little feedback or are for example usually selling socks and are now convieniently selling nokia smartphones. You can also tell if the auction is fake when you see that the seller instructs you to contact him/her at a specific email address and not to use ask a seller a question. Try to catch out the seller by asking them where the item is shipped from(compare the answer to the item location in the listing to see if the account is hacked) ask the seller about payment method(if the seller says westernunion, moneygram, postal order, cheque or send the money to a specific paypal address well then simply WALK AWAY) ask them do they have more cellphones and if they respond by saying we have more coming or special order on bulk amounts forget it its a scam, if you get a list of phones for sale for example iphone 350usd , n96 500usd etc.. its also a scam. be very careful when bidding, the nokia n96 will be on sale on ebay soon in august-september. You can preorder an sim free n96 now at the address(please note this is an american webpage and international shipping and warranty may not apply to residents outside the.U.S)

Do your duty and help ebay and the buyers along by reporting counterift nokia's if they are advertised as the real thing or suspicious sellers who have stolen an account ask you to pay with a money transfer or ask you to contact them via email instear of using ask a seller. Together we will beat scammers.

Get your n96 preordered for the 15th of August for 799usd at    www. mobilecityonline.com/wireless/store/productdetail.asp?productid=23084&view=2

Thank you and be careful out there please vote for this guide.