Is Mercari a SCAM?

- What the hell is a Mercari? It sounds like my Mercury Cougar that I used to drive in the year 2011. However, this is a site that purports to give you some great deals on tech, collectibles, and more. I've actually used Mercari in the past, but only the Japanese version. So, let's see what's like to use the global version. I'm also buying Pokemon cards in case that wasn't clear. Okay, Mercari is a peer-to-peer sales platform. While we work diligently to facilitate your transaction, it's important for buyers to perform their own due diligence. No, I don't wanna do due, do, due, due, due, do, dili... A leotard. I do need a leotard. It's like new, which is the way I prefer my leotards. Ooh. An iMac G3, now we talking boys. Honestly, I don't like the haggle, but I am almost open to anything. Tons of floppy discs. I keep seeing sold listings. Why are you showing me sold listings? I don't care. Okay, so a 2016 MacBook Pro, it's hard to recommend these older MacBooks just because they're no longer supported by macOS. That being said though, dedicated GPU, touch bar, decent battery. How about gaming? I wanna do some gaming. A white PS Vita for $450? Brother, chill. I'll say these prices are not good. Although a PS One complete in box, sealed, I mean $900 is an extortion amount of money. I mean, I shouldn't do that, right? Tyler, The Creator themed face plates. - [Ken] Oh god. - What in the hell is a Nintendo Radio Boy? Excuse me. It looks kind of fake, but also in a way that '90s products kinda looked weird. There's no way that's a real thing. Fortnite coach. Oh god, not again. I am mediocre at Fortnite and you can be too. A Creative Blaster PCI modem. Boy, I'm getting a little tingly thinking about it. All right, so with that my friends, I think we have plenty of items to take a closer look to see is Mercari actually worth it? Welcome back, my friends. So, buying stuff from Mercari was a little bit of an adventure, mostly because half the stuff I found was overpriced and boring. So, I did what any good YouTuber would do and found the weird stuff. We have another package with a separate UPS label on it. All right, we have my friends, the Radio Boy. - [Alex] Ooh. - This is, supposedly, an international Nintendo licensed product. This is still sealed in the original box. It is a Game Boy themed radio. Does that make sense? - [Alex] Yes. - [Adriana] No. - Radio Boy is a trademark of Nintendo and licensed to Mani, the manufacturer of this high quality item. - [Alex] It's just Manny. - As someone who's been doing this for a very long time, I did not know this existed until I found it. Alex, do you have any information on the Radio Boy? - [Alex] This came out originally in 1992. - Great year. - [Alex] It was a thing, it wasn't like insanely popular. - How much was this thing? How much did we pay for it? Like what's the deal with this guy? - [Alex] We paid $187. Now, keep in mind, it is factory sealed, all that stuff. Sealed prices for these things go anywhere from like $140 to $200. - Normally, I would feel kind of bad about opening something like this, but until we open- - [Alex] You should feel bad. - Here goes nothing, my friends. Oh my god. - [Alex] This is hurting every collector watching. - Can we get a zoom in on this? The headphones disintegrated on the actual battery door. Do you see all the black like gunk on there? I'm not putting that in my ear. It's actually like crumbling off as I touch it. - [Alex] Ooh, we finally found something that Austin won't sniff or put in his body. Don't do it. Oh my god. You just got asbestos in there. - It is crazy to me that this is a brand new product. It looks like it's in terrible shape, like it's yellowed. Even the front, it's got like a million little bubbles in it. So, you have an AM, FM switch on the top, headphone jack, you have a volume rocker as well as you've got your tuning knob. So, to make sure that we can all experience the Radio Boy together, I brought out a pair of speakers, now, a lot of these kinda radios use the actual 3.5 as an antenna. Oh, on/off and volume controls. You just have to turn up the volume. I'm only picking up a little bit of static on both AM and FM at the exact same spot. Lemme try the original headphones, I'm not gonna put them in my ears. - [Alex] That's not terrible. Okay, no, I lied. That is terrible, nevermind. Yes. - Oh no, it's all on my shirt. This would've been cooler if it was like a little like Game Boy attachment. - In recent times, people have made, have basically taken that exact idea and made like custom game cards. - [Austin] Yeah. - [Alex] That could do exactly that. - I'm gonna put this back in the box and we're gonna resell this on eBay real quick as lightly used, complete in box, totally works, no problem. This next one, I said menacingly with a knife, should be a phone that is very near and dear to my heart, which is, of course, the most meaningful piece of tech of all, Samsung Galaxy S4. - [Alex] Oh. - The Galaxy S4 was back in an era, this would've been 2013, I think, in which smartphones got unbelievably better every single year. This had a 1080P OLED display. It actually had like a properly good camera. I might not have that same opinion today, but like, this thing was actually pretty good. Oh my god, it's so blue. - Look how blue that is. Remember when phones were actual colors? And it had a headphone jack. This is actually in incredibly good shape though. Something that you just can't do with modern phones is just pop off the back panel here. And you should see not only your easily removable battery, which actually had NFC built in. In addition, you've got yourself in micro SD card which is already installed and a SIM card, which still already installed. The biggest downside though was that even though it was a very nice design for its time, even for 2013, you could get something like an iPhone, which is all glass and metal, and the plastic felt a little dated, but like, plastic actually has like a bit of a charm to it. Oh my god, it's turning on. - [Alex] What? - [Austin] I felt it vibrate. - Yeah, boy! That screen is actually incredibly bright. It's clipping on the camera it's so bright. And it's an OLED, so it actually has like good viewing angles, like, man. Ah, the setup wizard. Oh, everyone has to get ready. Uh-oh. - [Alex] What happened to the beeps and gates? - [Austin] It can't activate. - [Alex] But SIM card. - How about we use wifi to activate? Do we want to set up our Yahoo or AOL email? Yo, let's go. TouchWiz, TouchWiz, TouchWiz, touch, TouchWiz was bad actually. Man, none of this is gonna work, but it's still great anyway. I am now recording on a beautiful Samsung Galaxy S4. How does it look? Anyone wanna take a bet on if any of that was in focus. I'm now recording. Oh, that's actually not bad at all. I know this is just the nostalgia talking, but if they would make a phone that was like actually this size, I would be so happy. I mean, it really feels like it's not too far away from something like an iPhone Mini when it comes to actually like the feel on the hand, how much did I pay for this Galaxy S4 that is in very good condition. - [Alex] We paid $105. - Hold on a second. - [Alex] Yeah. You know how minimal phones are a thing now? What if we just all buy the beautiful old pieces of hardware in good condition? You can't do a lot on it, but you can probably find a way to do some very minimal things on this. I think I'm onto something here. - [Alex] Yeah, Austin Evans bought off by all hackers online. - Well, don't do any those, okay, yes, yes, yes, that's true. How about we go with. So, this should be a MacBook. And something that always shocks me is the price of old MacBooks. Because MacBooks, almost without fail, hit a price floor. So, if you wanna spend a $100 to $150, you can get everything from like a 2018 MacBook all the way to like a 2007 MacBook. And it feels like they're pretty much all that same kind of price. So this, my friends should be a 16 inch MacBook Pro from 2018, 2019? - [Alex] 2016. - 2016. Oh, so sorry. 15-inch, not 16-inch. So, this was when they redesigned the Mac. So before this, you had tons of ports, then they took it, shrunk it down, got rid of all the ports, and only has Thunderbolt/USBs on the side. And it most importantly, the Touch Bar. This one's a little dirty. Alex, could you gimme any info on this guy? - [Alex] We bought the i7 with 16 gigs of RAM. - Which I think was the base model. Now, this laptop, I will say, had some problems. The Butterfly Keyboard, which, as we've discussed in the past, not good. I still, as my voice cracks, think that the Butterfly Keyboard was actually not bad to type on, it was very shallow, but it actually had like a nice little bit of a click to it. However, incredibly unreliable. And the problem was that if any of these keys went bad, half your MacBook would literally just need to be replaced. This did have USB-C, which, what the hell's the password? Oh my god, not again, not again, not again. What the (quacks)? What the, it's the best color, and it's everything I ever wanted, and it doesn't work. - [Alex] Well, why don't we try the new thing that we learned? - Push the Enter button? Nope. Is it Apple? It is Apple. - Okay. Dude, stop putting passwords on things. So, it is, in fact, a 15-inch 2016 MacBook Pro. Well, also, something's borked here. My System Information doesn't work. It doesn't work? - [Alex] That's weird. - [Austin] Oh my god, finally showed up, okay. - [Alex] Oh, okay. - That's super weird. Okay, so it does have a Radeon Pro 450. It is not very powerful, but it is enough. So, it is a 27 cycle count battery, so it's basically brand new. Unfortunately, this is an Intel MacBook Pro, which means that in this era, the early ones actually weren't too bad. Once they got a little bit down the line, these things would run really hot. Now, the concern with any old MacBook, it is no longer supported. Alex, what's the newest version of macOS I could put on this one? - [Alex] High Sierra. - High Sierra? Oh, yeah, so that's way behind. As you can see, our web browser is a little bit out of date. When did we start trusting Google with our entire lives? At least for me. Terrific speakers, great screen. And the Touch Bar, one of my favorite things of MacBooks of any year. I think what's gonna help me calibrate how much should I pay for this? - [Alex] Two hundred- - 2? That number shouldn't start with a 2. - [Alex] $16. - 216? - 216. Oh. The problem is I bought an M1 MacBook Air not that long ago, for like, what like 250, 260 bucks, which is just a bajillion times better. Okay, yeah. Ah! I, okay, if I paid like mid to high one hundreds, I'd be pretty happy with this. I think that this hardware is very serviceable. I like it, man. I like it. I wish I would've paid like 170 bucks for it though. Now, as I was perusing the virtual store shelves of Mercari, I couldn't help but find one of my favorite vices. Not that one. No, the other one's Pokemon cards. Okay, look, we've all done a little bit of degenerate behavior, right? - [Alex] All of us? - So, these are Pokemon card mystery packs. For the most part, they're just a bunch of junk bulk that's just tossed in a thing. They put a very expensive card on the front. - [Alex] But what they guarantee a foil, that means it's worth something, right? - I think I see the foil right here. It's kind of cool, but I don't think it's actually worth anything. Oh, oh, oh, little oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Wow, dude. all of those cards are worth, I'm gonna be generous to say 1 cent each. - [Alex] Well, it was worth something to you, you're the one that paid for it. - Alex, before I open the second one, can you just tell me how much of my money I wasted on this nonsense? - [Alex] You paid $32 for both of these. - A reverse holo? Are you kidding me? - [Alex] To somebody who doesn't care about shiny cardboard, can you explain to me- - [Austin] 50 cents. - [Alex] Okay, - Man. $30? The only thing that's gonna make me feel better is this. I, have you ever seen a Pokemon that you just don't understand what the hell that guy's name is called? Look, I got a Pokedex, and I'm really excited to use it to find out what my cards are. - [Alex] Oh, yeah. - I knew that that was gonna be bad, so at least I wanted to get one good Pokemon item. There have been a lot of Pokedexs over the years. So, there was the original one, which actually I still have in my office, which is I think legit and cool. So, this should be from 2007, which I don't know how good this is gonna be. Does this work? Is there a power button? How do you? - [Alex] Does it need battery of some kind? - [Austin] Oh, there's a button on the side. - [Alex] Fun. - Cut all that. - [Adriana] Don't cut it. - What is this music? - [Pokedex] This is your Pokedex. Ivysaur is a grass and poison type Pokemon. - [Alex] Aye. - Wait, do I have to scroll through every single Pokemon? Wait, let's gimme a number, yeah. What number Pokemon are we looking for? - [Adriana] Let's do 351. - [Alex] Is it just mute- - [Austin] Castform. - [Pokedex] Castform is normal type Pokemon. - Sometimes. - 217. Wait, let me guess, what is Pokemon 217? Houndoom. Ursaring. That's close. - [Alex] How does that? I guess. - Gimme like, oh, here, let's look for Latias. So, I type in the word L, it just shows me each L Pokemon. Oh, wait, more info. Oh, Lairon makes its nest on mountains where iron ore is buried. This is cool, but incredibly tedious. Banette was once a discarded and forgotten plush doll. All of its cursed energy was escape if it ever opened its mouth. Yeah, see that's the kind of (quack) the Pokedex is great for. Who's that Pokemon? Is everyone ready? - [Alex] Aye! - [Unison] Let's go. - All right, Jumpluff, Jumpluff, Jumpluff, Jumpluff. I am a Pokemon master. This is the, it makes me forget about all the money I wasted on Pokemon cards. It's very delightful. How much do we pay for our 2007 Pokemon Pokedex? - [Alex] We paid $37. - See, good use of 30 something dollars, bad use of 30 something dollars. How do y'all feel about going a little old school? - [Alex] Haven't we been going old school this whole video? - No, no, no. 2007? That was yesterday. No. We're talking about back when hair was tall, clothes were great, and Japanese cars were amazing, the 1990s. You can see, I think, what we're looking at here, my friends. - [Alex] Oh my god, is that a PS5? - An actual, this is an actual, original PlayStation. I do know that the box is quite beat up. Is this a launch model or was it slightly later? - [Alex] I think it's ever so slightly later. - Nicely padded though, I will say. I appreciate the little like air dinguses. So, this should be our PlayStation itself. Uh-oh, cables are falling. Oh. Oh, it smells like 1997. Ah. So, we've got the original paperwork, which is the instruction manual for our PlayStation. Now, oh, and the memory card that just fell out. Oh, this is the Performance memory card. Behold my friends, 1997's favorite console, the Sony PlayStation. It is in good shape, a little dirty. So, yeah, so this would've been the later revision, yeah. Because the launch models, they had RCA on the back, if I remember right. Oh. - [Alex] Ka-chunk. - Let us begin my friends with a choice of what game we want to play. Is it "Duke Nukem Land of The Babes?" - Yeah. "Tomb Raider." - [Matt] Same universe. - [Alex] Also "Land of The Babes." - [Austin] "Need For Speed Hot Pursuit?" After you visited the "Land of The Babes." Well, play some "Need For Speed" that seems like the right move. - [Alex] What? Of all the games in there? - I could, I- - [Adriana] Do "Tomb Raider." - "Tomb Raider?" - [Matt] I could have bet millions of dollars on that and won. - We're gonna play "Land of The Babes" now then. Sorry. - [Alex] Yay. (cover clicks) - Not plugged in. I'm looking at the cord. I'm looking at- - [Alex] And the best part. - Nothing's plugged in. - [Matt] Two separate cords. (somber music) - I just peed my pants. Oh, those are babes. Oh, I think I see the babes. Wait, what? - [Adriana] Oh. - Oh, what the (quack)? - [Adriana] My god. - [Austin] Wait, wait, why is that, wait, is that a gorilla? - [Adriana] You are looking at the wrong thing, dude. - "Tomb Raider," look at that. Let's go raid the tomb. Like how it's freezing outside so she put a scarf on. This is where the guy gets eaten by wolves. - [Matt] Whoa. Spoilers. - Spoilers. Sorry. It doesn't support the DualShock. So, basically, I have to use the D-pad to walk, which is very bad. - [Alex] Yeah, this is amazing for 1996. - Oh, arrows, arrows, arrows, bad. - We've learned all we need to learn about this PlayStation. However, the best is yet to come. My friends. - [Alex] Matt? - [Matt] Yeah? - [Alex] How much do you think this would cost? - [Matt] I'm going 300. - Alex? The actual number is? - [Alex] This bodes very well for us. $193. - It's pretty good, right? - [Matt] Pretty good. Pretty good. - It's not that much more expensive. I mean, it's more expensive than just like a stock PlayStation One. But, with the box, with two controllers and everything, it's actually not that bad. I like how this one comes with eBay tape, as, of course, and I purchased from Mercari. But, Matthew- - What is something you miss from the 1990s? - Is there a, is there like a- - A hint? Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Avenue I'm supposed to be going? - What are your feelings on Nintendo? - Nintendo in the '90s was decent. - Good. - Like, I hadn't hated it yet. - So, this is an item that I, kind of, forgot existed. Why the hell is that "Dance Dance Revolution?" Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold, hold. - [Matt] And that's Snoopy. - [Austin] Wait, wait, wait. - [Matt] And Woodstock. - Wait, so. - [Alex] What's happening? - Oh, okay, okay, okay, wait, wait- - [Matt] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. - So, this is my friends is "Mario Teaches Typing" on CD. - I think I remember this. - [Austin] So, Mario could teach you how to type in 1993. This is before he even had fingers, don't ask how he typed. - Oh yeah, he had the two balls. - He had the two balls. I will say there's one slight issue. Can I direct your attention to the bottom of this? Which is for DOS. So, we might need to source a slightly older computer to make this one work. But trust me, it will be worth it, it will. All righty, now that we have procured ourselves a Windows 98 machine, it is time to go back to yesteryear with "Mario Teaches Typing." Can I make sure that the. Yeah, buddy. - Welcome to the world of Windows 98. The CD was modified last May 20th, 1994. - [Alex] Wow. - Shout out to the fact that this 30 something year old CD works right outta the box. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. There's a bunch of extra stuff on the disc. - [Matt] Yeah. - [All] "Lord of The Rings." - [Austin] "Star Wars Judgment Rites." - Why are we caring at all about Mario when there's "Star Trek?" - So, it doesn't look like the audio works, unfortunately. Probably 'cause we don't have a Sound Blaster card. - Woo-hoo, hello. It's me, Mario. - [Matt] I want to know whether- - Oh my god, wait, wait, wait, what? This is the way it works. - [Ken] You need to type to play, dude. - [Matt] Yeah. How? Why is this better graphics than current Nintendo games? Yeah, like it kind of- - I did. Oh, apparently I'm done. - [Matt] They didn't even have the steps to jump up, there was not a single pipe. - I just will say that this Mario, I'm not sure what's wrong, he looks like bootleg Mario. - Look, I'm doing it. - What the hell? You're not learning anything. How are you supposed to be learning typing right now? (Austin humming) Well, the good thing is, Alex, for what a relic of history we have found, it was quite affordable, right? We did not have to pay a lot of money for this copy of "Mario Teaches Typing," right? - So I, of course, you're playing "Star Trek." - [Alex] We paid $15.50 for this. That's not much, but I'm pretty sure it's probably more than it's worth. - There's a lot of other demos on this thing, man. I think it's pretty good. - Yeah, but they're not letting me play it. - [Ken] Whoa. - Uh-oh. - [Austin] You know it's just a trailer, right? - What it's? - You're not playing any, it's a trailer. It's a trailer. - Let me shoot. - It's a trailer. - The game's not on the disc, it's a trailer for the game. - Oh. Oh, oh. - This is old. You'd think that in 2026 people are gonna use a keyboard and a computer instead I got that new wave. What the kids are actually doing these days. - [Ken] Meta Quest? - [Matt] Zyn? - [Ken] Zyn. - This, my friends is- - [Ken] Oh no, it's a Pokemon card. - A Palm. - [Ken] Oh! - [Matt] Oh! - See? See, now we're all excited, aren't we? So this is a PalmOne, this is a Tungsten which is legitimately one of the cooler looking Palms. - All the Palms were cool looking. - [Austin] So, it has this like little, like leather pouch, and you got yourself the stylus, which actually is here. - [Ken] Look at that. - This thing was money. Alex, do you have any idea how much a Palm Tungsten T5 cost when it was new? - [Alex] The original retail price for one of these guys, it is $400. It is, it is advertise. - [Austin] It immediately lights up. - [Alex] All right, cool. - [Ken] Oh dang. - [Matt] Oh, look at that. Ah. - Are we, oh my god, look, it actually is, the wizard searches for new drivers for the PalmOne Handheld please. - Is Bluetooth, which is pretty impressive for 2004. It has VPN support, which, wow. - [Matt] These were corporate. - So, if I want, I'm gonna turn on drive mode. Theoretically- - [Ken] Pull the files. - Yes. - Yeah, I can actually now show up as a Windows 95, yeah. Also, I just wanna point out this stylus is so heavy. It feels expensive. - [Alex] Oh, I heard thunk. - Yeah, I know. - Dude, what the heck? - Oh, the program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. - [Matt] I once wrote an entire paper on one of these. - [Austin] That's crazy- - [Matt] Using. - [Alex] How? - [Ken] Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. - [Austin] Well would you like to come and try it? - [Matt] It took like a seven hour car ride. - Did you safely eject the media, you sick (quack)? - You're a sexy little Palm Pilot. - Like tell me this is not a more fun interface in anything that, like this (quacks) Spotify. Wrote, draw on picture. I drew another tree. - [Ken] He doesn't need an S-pen, he has- - [Adriana] Dude, which one is it? I can't even tell. - [Matt] Exactly. You can't even tell. - [Alex] Well, Mr. Ansini, you're so enamored with this, how much would you pay for this? - $127. - [Alex] Well, I've got fantastic news for you then because we paid $95. - It's a great deal. Well, it's another one for the Overclock Museum. But, have you gotten about Jensen? - Yeah. Jensen was this girl I had a crush on- - No, no, no. - In the seventh grade. - So, this is a, I believe, still sealed Nvidia GeForce MX 440. - [Matt] Best Buy. Let us install it. This is, this is pre-Geek Squad. - So, it is not like the first Nvidia GeForce card, but it is a very old one. It does work, however, with Windows 98 and higher. - PNY technologies offer a lifetime replacement warranty. - Ah. - [Alex] Whose lifetime? - Alex, can you tell me a little more? Do you have any idea what the MSRP was? - [Alex] So, they would retail anywhere between $100 to $150, give or take. - Do you remember when graphics cards were $100? Before we crack it open, Alex, how much did we pay for our still sealed Nvidia graphics card from 2002? - [Alex] We paid $98. - We paid retail for a- - 20. - 25-year-old card. Look at this, look at this. Dude, it's so little. Look how little this GPU is. I like how it's got a straight up purple board. So, if got yourself VGA, S-Video, as well as actual just AV out. - I'm gonna ask the important question. What are you gonna do with said graphics card? - I'm glad you brought that up my friend. I'm gonna need a little bit of internet. - You have like all of Wikipedia in your pocket. Oh my god, I just- - [Ken] Yeah. - Wait, this is also a sealed item and I just started cutting, I realized there's no padding on it. I just cut the sealM. - [Ken] Oh my god. - [Alex] Oh my god. - Look, I was so happy when I found this, a sealed Modem Blaster, previously sealed. Now, not sealed anymore 'cause I just cut the damn plastic. For those of you who were born in the last 20 years, it was the thing went. (Austin imitates dial-up sound) I cannot believe it- - We're taking this away from you. - Yeah, that's fair. I can't. Oh, I'm so sorry. Alex, at least it was cheap, right? I didn't pay a lot of money for a sealed modem from 2003? - [Alex] We paid $34. - Okay, I feel slightly better, but not by much. I cannot believe I accidentally opened, at least with the graphics card, I was all careful. Wait, oh no, wait. This motherboard doesn't have AGP. - [Alex] Oh my God. - [Ken] Wait, what? - [Matt] After all that? So, we desecrated- - [Alex] Two. - [Matt] Two pieces of of artifacts because you didn't check. - Okay. Well, we learned some things today. - Nothing- - [Alex] Did we? - Nothing to do with Mercari at all, besides the fact that it's just like eBay except a little weirder, like I have almost nothing to say about the platform because all the items we got were pretty much exactly what we were advertised. But also, it was a bunch of stuff that probably was also listed on eBay. I have erred in my ways today, but if you subscribe to the Austin Evans channel and ring-a-ling that ding-a-ling button, you too can watch a dingus on the internet do dumb things. - I can't believe you made us stay late to watch you desecrate technology. - Bro, it's like 9pm my kids are waiting. (upbeat music)