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Our justice system is screwed up when a bank robber gets 20+ years for stealing a couple thousand dollars while this guy gets several years for stealing a million+ dollars.

I think robbing a bank for thousands vs scamming people of millions are very different crimes, with the former being a whole lot worse in most cases.

A bank robber usually if not always has a gun, creates an atmosphere of fear and panic, threatens people’s lifes, can cause life long suffering for their victims. Scammers like this usually result in a lot of anger and caution amongst those immediately affected and the general public.

Therefore, handing down a harsher penalty to a bank robber seems appropriate.
 
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Lots of conterfeit earbuds and lightning power cables being sold on eBay and through Walmart. The phony lightning connector I bought kind of works. My old phony earbuds worked pretty well with decent sound but the last 2 pack for $10 earbuds are a pretty much a fail. Inferior acoustics, a glitchy control and the stereo is reversed! I broke down and ordered some real ones. I can use the others for running.

Not all counterfeit products are the same.:D
It's surprising how many legitimate businesses resell the fake products. There are counterfeits even on Amazon. They least they only say "for Apple" or something so you can tell it's fake as long as you're careful, but plenty still get fooled into buying crap.
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Our justice system is screwed up when a bank robber gets 20+ years for stealing a couple thousand dollars while this guy gets several years for stealing a million+ dollars.
It's not just the money that's the issue.
 
Geez. This scam must've taken so much effort. I'd just sell some scam cryptocurrency instead, way easier. And whoever built a fake iPhone and fake iOS obviously had a lot of legitimate talent they could've used for, you know, a regular job.
For all the engineers know, it could be a “regular job”...
 
Our justice system is screwed up when a bank robber gets 20+ years for stealing a couple thousand dollars while this guy gets several years for stealing a million+ dollars.

There is not a justice system in the United States it is a legal system. There is a big difference between the two.

The legal system is pay to play and is rife with behind closed door deals. Plea agreements are often made just to clear a case with little concern for the victim.
 
If new apple products were sold at half the price, this would not be a problem.
It also wouldn’t be a problem if Apple products were free, which is equally likely as Apple products suddenly having a 50% decrease in MSRP.
 
That people use all day, every day, to build and produce stuff only to fool people and make it a knockoff quite honestly baffles me - to be able to live with yourself
 
That people use all day, every day, to build and produce stuff only to fool people and make it a knockoff quite honestly baffles me - to be able to live with yourself

It Makes me think of when 300 iPhone X's were stolen off at UPS truck totaling a value of $370,000 back in November. Some don't have a moral compass.
 
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That people use all day, every day, to build and produce stuff only to fool people and make it a knockoff quite honestly baffles me - to be able to live with yourself
There’s worse things people do without remorse. If the ethics in your country do not judge intellectual property to be a property, these people could believe that making fake iphones equals making mobile phones that other people designed. Humanity is not at its worst with this case ;)
 
If new apple products were sold at half the price, this would not be a problem.
Are you implying that it is Apples fault that people are making knockoffs and selling them as legitimate products?
 
Yes, yes I am!
We now live in a world where more and more people feel they are entitled to whatever they desire.

A persons desire to have something does not give them the right to steal another’s property.

While things like food, shelter and water are just a few of the things that people should not be deprived of I do not believe iOS devices are one of them.

You may feel differently and if so I suggest that you purchase iOS devices for those in need just as those that provide food, shelter and water for the suffering.
 
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We now live in a world...

I hate to break it to you, but the world hasn’t changed, for better or worse, since our conception. Human frailties, ego, and contempt have been a part of human history since we bit into the proverbial “apple” (a coincidence?). Older people—like my friends and I— have selective memories. Nostaglia is hisory with all the bad bits edited out.
 
I hate to break it to you, but the world hasn’t changed, for better or worse, since our conception. Human frailties, ego, and contempt have been a part of human history since we bit into the proverbial “apple” (a coincidence?). Older people—like my friends and I— have selective memories. Nostaglia is hisory with all the bad bits edited out.

Defthand nothing is new under the sun.
 
Geez. This scam must've taken so much effort. I'd just sell some scam cryptocurrency instead, way easier. And whoever built a fake iPhone and fake iOS obviously had a lot of legitimate talent they could've used for, you know, a regular job.
This is what really gets me too. Some company put in a great amount of effort to carefully develop a lookalike case, tool up a factory to produce that case at a high enough quality to fool someone at a glance, install the guts of an actual functioning Android phone in it, have a programmer or programmers carefully skin Android to look exactly like iOS on the surface--down to details like the volume icons--and package the whole thing up carefully in a knockoff box and packaging, all so somebody else can sell a phone for more than what it's worth.

Some of the sales of this carefully-crafted product are probably domestic in China (and not as badly marked up, one would assume--selling a status symbol at a lower cost), but a lot are going to be small-time scammers in another country.

It's not that there isn't economic logic to it if you can get away with it (helped, obviously, on the manufacturing end by China's unwillingness to crack down on factories or exporters participating), but it seems like such a strange waste of talent and effort.

The guys in this story likewise--they must have a fair amount of logistical and business acumen to be able to procure and sell a million dollars worth of goods. But then they made the mistake of thinking that they'd get away unscathed moving around a million dollars worth of counterfeit product rather than a few hundred dollars worth in a Craigslist scam. What works in the small time does not scale, but I suppose if they were good at cost-benefit analysis they'd have put those skills toward selling something legit.
 
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