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Obviously he wanted to show off his bag of full iPhones. to prove what? That he a reseller?
 
Apple is actually losing money because of the scalpers.

If the phones were sold in China under MSRP Apple could sell 2-4 phones for the price of 1 black market import.


You don't really believe that he is importing a highly coveted item into China and sells it UNDER MSRP, do you? It's entirely unclear when Apple will start selling it in China. For the average Chinese worker, the iPhone costs about as much as he or she makes in 5 months.
 
I went buy the washington sq. mall apple store around 1pm and it was crazy to see how still 100's of people lined up and most all appeared to be scalpers.

I was thinking about going there today to see what they have left. Hope it has died down some by now
 
He hasn't actually done anything wrong.

If anything he's proved that if you try hard enough you can get an iPhone easily.

On this picture nothing wrong indeed. A few questions could be asked about what a person carrying that many phones on a plane is up to though.

How did he get all these phones given that Apple will only sell 2 per person? Did he pay people to wait in line and buy them on his behalf? Were these people legally allowed to work in the country? Did he/them pay the appropriate taxes and social contributions associated to the wages?

What is he going to do with these phones? Is he going to sell them in the US? If yes is he going to pay appropriate taxes on his profits? (with that many it is a business, not an individual selling them) If not in the US, is he going to bring them to another country? Is the phone allowed for sale in that country by the relevant authorities? Is he going to pay the appropriate duty charges to import the phone there?
 
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They do activate it at the store...I go to the Apple store a lot and in NH we have no sales tax, so all the people in Boston/MA all come up here for the tax free sales. Everytime i go there there will be at least 2 people buying around 50+ phones at a time. Apple sells them to them, opens them up and activates each one, then they wrap it back up.



A guy i work with has a son who works at that same Apple store and says they have one guy that comes in every couple weeks and buys a PALLET of iphones, they actually do it in the middle of the night i guess for his safety lol.


They don't have to open the phones.

Source, I just bought 4 iPhones for family members and I, and left the store still sealed.
 
How is this guy going to get back to his country without having to PAY TAXES FOR 129129512 sealed iPhones??? :\
I have a 5s and a 6 and I need to buy one more 6 for a friend overseas and I am afraid that I'll have to pay taxes and this guy gets away with tons of them :\

If they fly to Hong Kong, there is no tariff. From there, I'm sure bribery is the norm to get them into mainland China.

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I was thinking about going there today to see what they have left. Hope it has died down some by now

You can expect long lines of scalpers for weeks. The release of the iPhone in China will be a month, so this will be going on for some time.
 
On this picture nothing wrong indeed. A few questions could be asked about what a person carrying that many phones on a plane is up to though.

How did he get all these phones given that Apple will only sell 2 per person? Did he pay people to wait in line and buy them on his behalf? Were these people legally allowed to work in the country? Did he/them pay the appropriate taxes and social contributions associated to the wages?

What is he going to do with these phones? Is he going to sell them in the US? If yes is he going to pay appropriate taxes on his profits? (with that many it is a business, not an individual selling them) If not in the US, is he going to bring them to another country? Is the phone allowed for sale in that country by the relevant authorities? Is he going to pay the appropriate duty charges to import the phone there?

No questions need to be asked. He clearly paid people to stand in line and buy two phones.

There's nothing illegal about it, it's just morally wrong.

Who cares if he does or doesn't pay tax on them when he gets back to China?
 
Yes, thank you.. Looks like what I am after is out of stock. I was hoping that might not be accurate and maybe going in would be a better idea.

I've been hearing a lot of ppl here have been checking just before and after midnight and getting success. So good luck to ya
 
He clearly paid people to stand in line and buy two phones.
There's nothing illegal about it, it's just morally wrong.

Nothing illegal as long as these people are entitled to work in the US and everybody is paying taxes as they should. I have my doubts ...

Who cares if he does or doesn't pay tax on them when he gets back to China?

You are free not to care of course, but nonetheless it is currently illegal to sell these phones in China, even more so if you didn't pay import duty.

Hence my original point: sure he is not doing anything wrong on these pictures, but he is likely to have done something illegal in one country to obtain the phones and to be planning on doing something illegal in another country to resell them. Judging by the pictures and if the bags are indeed filled with iPhones, the amount of money involved just for this particular trip is over $100000 - this wouldn't be pet crime.
 
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No questions need to be asked. He clearly paid people to stand in line and buy two phones.

There's nothing illegal about it, it's just morally wrong.

Who cares if he does or doesn't pay tax on them when he gets back to China?

But... did he do employment checks on the people he "hired" to queue? Will he declare them for tax purposes? Did he pay tax for the wages of the people he "employed".

I very much doubt it.

Apple could easily stop this. Just make it 1 per person, credit/debit card/gift* card only and make people open them and activate them in store. I'm sure if employees explained to "genuine" customers the reasoning behind it, they'd understand.

* gift cards that haven't just been bought with cash, obviously ;).

To extend what has been said above - there was a news report which estimated (I use the term loosely because it was probably counted based on people who were together, without actually asking) over 400 scalpers in line at Regent Street. Based on the fact they were all going to buy 2 x 6+ each using cash, at an average of £699 per phone - that's an estimated £560,000 in cash at one store alone. You have to ask how they've come by that much cash (not many genuine businesses have that much in cash sitting in the bank).
 
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Release world-wide at the same time. Remove the walk-in nonsense and force everyone to pre-order with more time so that you can manufacture a more exactly number according to demand...
 
Don't need employment checks for subcontractors. Don't have to give a subcontractor a 1099 unless you pay them 600+/yr.

You might not like their actions, but as of today, it's all legal. Whether or not the subcontractors declare their revenue on their 1040 is of no concern to the contractor. No I-9 form is required.
 
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