Refurbished iPhone 5 for $99? What?!

AT&T is offering refurbished iPhone 5’s starting at $99! This steal of a price will be for the lowly 16GB version, so if you’re a cloud happy person with little to no requirement for physical space, this might be the best Black Friday ever for you!

But what does this mean? People often look to instant deals on devices as an indicator to how well they are doing. This is a little different, the retail price is still in tact, but on the other hand, this is a brand new animal. The phone didn’t even make it into next year before the refurbished madness struck. Exactly how did AT&T get a good quantity to offer this thing as a refurbished option? Also puzzling, this option extends to the 32BG and 64GB models. What’s going on here? Are that many people having issues or returning the device? Or just a genius Black Friday ploy? Readers? Sound off… what’s the deal here?!