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How'd this happen in the middle of the day? That's crazy. The apple store I always go to (Michigan Ave, Chicago) seemed to always have a couple big security guards at the front entrance.
 
seriously though how could they have grabbed 8 iphones then truck it out the store and the alarms going off as they are running..?


Looks pretty simple to me...
The iPhones were right by the doors by the looks of things. 4 guys grabbing 2 phones each would make it even easier
 
Hope these idiots turn them off or cook the IMEI (highly illegal) before they get a ping on ATTs network. Apple won't track down "our" stolen/lost hardware, but they wont tolerate theft of trackable apple-owned hardware lol.
 
seriously though how could they have grabbed 8 iphones then truck it out the store and the alarms going off as they are running..?

By just...running away? Seriously, if there's no one at the door to stop them, well, there they go. Maybe this store didn't have guards, or their attention was elsewhere at the time. But police won't show up for at least several minutes (on a good day); plenty of time to get to a waiting car and disappear into midday traffic.

creeman said:
How'd this happen in the middle of the day? That's crazy.

Really? :confused: Crime happens anytime, anywhere. Doesn't matter what neighborhood you live in, or how safe you think it is. We just had an armed jewelry heist in downtown Ann Arbor, which is considered very safe by most standards. No one was injured, but it occurred in the middle of the day, on Main Street, which in this city is extremely busy and has high foot & vehicle traffic. At least 5 suspects, 2 are still at large.

http://www.annarbor.com/news/four-m...investigation-continues-ann-arbor-police-say/

Point being, don't get complacent - pay attention to what's going on around you, and be safe. :)
 
The phones are almost useless. They do not have replaceable sim cards, if the people tried to set them up for themselves they wouldnt be able to because the sim is looked to a demo account. Also they have mobileme on them and can be tracked. They are special demo models. Also Apple employees can be fired for chasing people out of the store during a theft due to the chance of bodily harm. They have internal Loss prevention teams that are authorized to take action.
 
Happy to see nobody got killed/shot/stabbed. Those devices are cheap to make so not much is lost for Apple.

And they probably have insurance too.
 
Easy money =P

And I think you'll all find all the big retail businesses will tell their employees when training, that in any case of a robbery, you always stand back and do anything they ask. Cooperation is the key to nobody getting hurt. Sure, it sucks for the business to loose those assets, but in the case of the Apple store, they'd get them at cost, which means they'd only have lost maybe $1000, which would be covered by their insurance anyway.

If you think about it from the point of view of an Apple employee, there is no benefit of them trying to stop the burglars.
 
What about Mobile Me? They should be able to locate them.

This is a pretty lowball robbery. They can't make much off a few iphones with no chargers, boxes, cases, or headphones. I also doubt these guys are smart enough to realize that apple can track these devises really easily.

They're probably already caught. Either way, it would be really stupid for a $12/hour (if that) employee to do anything about it except call the police/security.
 
I would think these are worth quite a bit stripped for parts. The only thing that would be useless is the circuit board.

It makes me sick that thieves like this can just walk out knowing full well that nobody will stop them. The law should be on our side, if you choose to steal you should loose any rights to sue the people that try to stop you.
 
Is that an Apple Policy or a law?

many places are like this. the security at best buy is like this. they are legally not allowed to touch you. A guy at the one i worked at took a psp and walked out. Same at officemax, some guy just walked in, grabbed a digital recorder and walked out. happens all the time
 
holy crap thats crazy. you would think they would have them tied down or sumthin

At the Apple store near me, all of the demo units are tied down with a thin black cable that's glued to the back of each. That's probably why the alarm went off: the theives must have given each iPhone a hard yank to break the cable connection.
 
They missed the golden days of MacWorld where the demo displays had nothing at all tied down.

Then again, there were a crapload of Apple employees around so I doubt anyone would've gotten away that easily.
 
At the Apple store near me, all of the demo units are tied down with a thin black cable that's glued to the back of each. That's probably why the alarm went off: the theives must have given each iPhone a hard yank to break the cable connection.

or cut the cable...

synchronized cable-cutting in... 3... 2....
 
This is pretty much SOP in most corporate type retail outlets, IME.

We had an incident at a local Whole Foods grocery store not too long ago where an employee chased a shoplifter (who took about $400 worth of food) and tackled him out in the parking lot, detaining him until police arrived. The shoplifter was arrested, the employee was fired. Line from corporate was that company policy prohibited any employee from touching or laying hands on any customer in the store, even when the 'customer' was a thief.

Corporate does not want to be held liable for anything. The merchandise in almost all cases is insured against theft. The cost of a potential lawsuit from a shoplifter accusing an employee of assaulting/injuring/manhandling/whatever them would be far more expensive than an increase in insurance premiums to cover the theft.

This is certainly not a universal rule as I have seen multiple criminals chased and tackled by employees of Market Basket in NH and they're still my coworkers.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A306 Safari/6531.22.7)

I witnessed a robbery at the Tysons Mall Apple Store in Virginia. They used to have a checkout that faced the door, and I was standing at it, purchasing a screen protector, when I noticed the alarms go off. I looked up just in time to see two guys running out of the store, MacBook Pros under their arms. Think they might've grabbed a couple of 3GSes as well. The Apple Store employee who shut off the alarms literally just shrugged his shoulders at the whole situation. My guess is this is something of a common occurence.
 
Bank employees have the same rule. They're supposed to just do what the robber says and give them the money. If they have that rule at a bank it seems an Apple store is no big deal. You still have to make it to your get away without being followed and there is always a chance someone will recognize you or you could run into a patrol car. It's not as easy as just grabbing the stuff and you're home free. Just because employees aren't an obstacle doesn't mean there aren't any other ways it can go bad.
 
When I was at my apple store, I noticed that the iPhone sim trays didn't have an eject hole, so does this mean they can track the iPhones via mobile me? :rolleyes:(assuming the robbers didn't take apart to whole phone to get the sim out.)
 
We had an incident at a local Whole Foods grocery store not too long ago where an employee chased a shoplifter (who took about $400 worth of food) and tackled him out in the parking lot, detaining him until police arrived. The shoplifter was arrested, the employee was fired. Line from corporate was that company policy prohibited any employee from touching or laying hands on any customer in the store, even when the 'customer' was a thief.

Just saying.. :rolleyes:
 
I work in wireless retail and this is a pretty common occurrence. The company looks at it as cost of doing business. Especially in Apple's case. They lost what 8 iPhones? How many iPhones has that location sold since launch? The value of those 8 phones equate to pennies in the grand scheme of things.

My company employs the same rules as other retailers in this situation, you don't touch or chase a thief for reasons already listed.

My philosophy is while it sucks that they made more work for me, why would I risk getting hurt chasing someone who stole things that didn't belong to me? Especially when the company who owns them makes billions of dollars a year.
 
Wow, is this true you can't stop a thief in America?
Over here (Netherlands) a employee can just stop a thief and take him inside until the police arrives.

Also, by law, anyone can 'arrest' a thief.
 
It's common sense. There are professionals collectively called "law enforcement" that catch criminals.

yeah but those "professionals" suck at doing anything other than writing tickets.

people should start taking more responsibility rather than waiting on the cops to do something.
 
I would think these are worth quite a bit stripped for parts. The only thing that would be useless is the circuit board.

It makes me sick that thieves like this can just walk out knowing full well that nobody will stop them. The law should be on our side, if you choose to steal you should loose any rights to sue the people that try to stop you.

hell yeah. now thats common sense, not what that other guy said on page 1.

sorry about posting twice in a row by the way.
 
It would have been easy just to stick your foot out and trip that worthless pile of trash while he's running and make him do the faceplant, kick him in the face and keep him on the ground until the cops showed up.
Even if I were a customer I would have tried to at least trip the idiot, seriously hate thieves.

I agree with lavem and tflournoy, once you try to steal you are stripped of rights, if something bad happens to you, who cares? I don't, even if you get killed in the attempt, its really not society's problem.
 
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