I first came across this advertisement in the latest issue of TIME magazine - splashed across the inside front cover with the title “The World’s First $10.5M Cell Phone - an exciting limited-time offer for billionaires.”
The ad proceeds to claim this:
“Purchase this BlackBerry 8830 World Edition smartphone for just $10.5 and we’ll throw in a private island to develop as you see fit. It’s the one accessory that says “I control my own island. And I have a smartphone”
Owning an island!? How exciting!! .. so I checked their website for more details on the deal 
:
Notice the little “Select method of payment” button for instant funds transfer - gives “Swiss Bank Wire Transfer” as an option! Yeah… right.. that’s super convenient!
Even the disclaimer has a teaser in it:
There is no way we could sell a commodity as precious as an island on a site that just anyone could access.
If you are in fact a billionaire and you’re still interested in purchasing an island, our broker would be happy to help you find one.
The only thing that killed my hopes was this qualification condition:
“Island Offer ONLY available to the wealthiest 100 people on planet Earth.”
Could I qualify as a “subprime billionaire” or something, could I?
May be I am too dense in my head.. but what exactly is the purpose of this ad? It’s not even April 1st. Was this supposed to be funny or something? Should I be laughing after reading this ad… or what is it?
May be it was just a slanted remark on Americans who would really be willing to buy a phone BlackBerry for $10.5 million in hopes of getting something bigger for “free”.
Whatever.
Man.. I desperately wanted that island. Can I sue them for raising false hopes and making misleading marketing claims ? 
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It’s just goofy. Designed to get people to talk about it, and thus pay slightly more attention to their service and the phone in question.
Silly Golbguru. You can sue for anything.
That’s just good marketing. Now Time magazine did a free feature on them and you did too!
Btw, congrats on 2000 RSS subscribers.
We must always learn to read the fine print! Not something I always do…..
“Could I qualify as a “subprime billionaire†or something”
LOL ahh man I almost fell out my chair, too funny
For those who are wondering, advertisements are not usually considered legally binding contracts because they do not put out an offer in direct terms to a specified offeree. Also, an offer with no intent to be bound, that is an offer made with no intention to be bound by its promises, is not legally binding. Finally, offers such as these are subject to the reasonable person standard, that is, would a reasonable person believe that blackberry actually meant the advertisement as an offer. Clearly, by the responses here, the offer was a joke which does not satisfy the intent to be bound doctrine. Blackberry knows this, and realizes that it will have people talking about their products - like we are doing now
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