Man Robbed After Buying 300 iPhones From Apple Fifth Avenue

[fromgophonetoiphone]

Sorry but who buys 300 iPhones from the store and carries them to a car at 01:45??

Somehow this reminds me of that movie 21 Bridges... sounds shady AF. And if you're honestly going to buy that many, get some one to help you out or carry it out in a more non-descript manner. Maybe a backpack?

I went to pickup a MacBook for my in-laws this past Thanksgiving and we wanted to grab some ice cream in the rather festive outdoor shopping mall we were at but I was nervous as heck holding onto an Apple bag.

 

[Zest28]

Wait a minute. Apple blocks me from buying more than 2 iPhones and this guy is allowed to buy 300 of them?

Rules for thee, but not for me.

 

[finbred]

Yes, I get that. The boxes have gotten a good bit slimmer over the past few years, but that's still a decent volume of packaging and well over 100lbs. in goods. I'm just imagining what this looked like going down the street.

All three would be over 200lbs with quite a margin.

 

[finbred]

Something does not add up here. I don't know if it was discussed (I did not go through all 12 pages of the topic) but 300 iPhones weigh a lot. The phone alone is 174 grams. That would be 52.2 kg (115 lbs) just for the phones. Including the box, cable and everything else, total weight is probably around 200 lbs. It's hard to walk carrying that weight. Harder still when the weight is not evenly distributed on an even number of bags. 3 bags mean that he had about 130 lbs in one hand and 70 in the other. Also I wonder what bags can hold almost 70 lbs each.

An iPhone 14 with packaging weighs in at around 320 grams (0,7 lb). So one bag with 125 of them would stop the scale at 40 kg (88 lb).

 

[George Dawes]

If they were 13 /14 max pro's he must've been using a trolley at the very least , no way could you carry that many unaided

 

[philcourage]

Reminds me of that Taylor Swift song.
It's me, hi! I'm the stupid, that's me.

 

[CrapShack]

Almost certainly for the Russian market. When I worked at an Apple Store during the launch of the iPhone 5, the resellers (mostly for the China market at the time) would line up in their own queue and just buy boxes of phones all day long. Some of them had purses stuffed full of cash. The reseller action cooled off after the phones went on sale in China proper; but since Russia has been cut off, the reselling action has apparently taken off again.

Why someone would do this at 1:45 in the morning IN NYC is beyond me.

 

[KOTN91]

Tbh I don’t have a lot of sympathy. Who can afford to buy that many iPhones

 

[Spacetime Anomaly]

That's a lot of Find My searches.

 

[Varda]

This sounds kinda like what happened to that actor from France

 

[msp3]

Arbitrageur and arbitrage makers (including reseller scumbags) deserve to get robbed. After all, they fleece the suckers stupid enough to buy from them every single day!

 

[4odomi]

An unnamed 27-year-old man who purchased 300 iPhones from Apple Fifth Avenue on Monday morning was robbed shortly after leaving the store, according to 1010Wins Radio in New York.

He was carrying 300 iPhone 13s in three bags and walking to his car at 1:45 a.m. when another car pulled up next to him. Two men jumped out and demanded that he hand over the bags. Not wanting to hand over 300 iPhones, the victim put up a fight and was ultimately punched in the face before thieves made off with one of the bags.

The bag contained 125 iPhones that were worth $95,000. Police said the man in question often made large iPhone purchases from the Fifth Avenue Store in order to resell them through his small business. It is not clear why he was making the purchase at 1:00 in the morning, nor whether he was specifically targeted based on past purchasing habits.

Apple's Fifth Avenue location is open 24 hours a day, allowing for the early morning purchases. Apple also had a Black Friday sale going on at the time, which the thieves may have been aware of.

The NYPD is investigating the robbery, and the victim was not seriously injured. A description of the suspects and their vehicles has not yet been released.

Article Link: Man Robbed After Buying 300 iPhones From Apple Fifth Avenue

It's an inside job, there's no other way the thieves would have been in the right place at the right time

 

[darngooddesign]

...

 

[Letsrun1972]

I do not work at an Apple Store but I have many friends who have or who do currently work at a store. Believe it or not, someone buying $100,000 or more worth of phones is relatively common. It is even more common in Delaware (my state) because there is no sales tax. Tons of resellers come down here from New York (two hours away) to our Apple Store to purchase iPhones. So that part of this story is not suspicious to me at all. There is no way in hell this was random of course and I am quite sure that someone at the store tipped their friends off to commit this robbery. Although insurance fraud is possible of course, the dude only lost one bag. If I was committing insurance fraud I would try and get the max amount of money for my risk but that’s just me

 

[antiprotest]

If he wanted the exercise he could have used just five heavy 14 Pros for the same effect. But I guess the Pros are hard to come by right now.

 

[dave070]

Ok honestly. I’ve been handling purchases and high technology for a lifetime and for the love of God. The absolute stupidity of someone just waltzing into an Apple Store to buy 300 phones and walk out with them is beyond my comprehension.

I’m shocked the store even agreed to the sale. It’s not exactly a trivial affair. And if it was executed through the business team then they should have had the phones direct shipped to the place of business.

Something about this entire arrangement smells off.

Especially since it sounds like he did this on a regular basis so his pattern was apparently known to someone. Really odd he wouldn't have had them shipped since it's insured and can always arrange to pick up such an order a the local FedEx store.

 

[robfalk]

That’s about 150 pounds of iPhones. In 3 bags. Sorry, I don’t believe a word of this.

 

[Zimmy68]

Ah, some good news for the holiday season. Every time a scalper gets robbed, an angel gets their wings.

 

[AppleDApp]

Apple also had a Black Friday sale going on at the time, which the thieves may have been aware of.

Really?!?!

 

[MrCrowbar]

Step 1: Buy hundreds of iPhone every Tuesday from the same sales rep at the store. Get him to know and recognise you
Step 2: Tell your bros to pretend to rob you right in front of the store with witnesses. Get thrown into the store glass to grab the workers' attention.
Step 3: Get the money back from the insurance, sell purchased and the "stolen" phones to Europe without tax. Profit.

 

[SnappleRumors]

Unsure which posts I found more entertaining… the ones intended to be amusing or the serious ones. 😂

 

[compwiz1202]

300 iPhones? That’s only one of each in the current line up these days.

The Apple Store will know all device IMEIs and serial numbers. Surely all phones will be blocked immediately. Are the thieves stupid…or incredibly clever???

Of course criminals are stupid, but unfortunately so are some buyers. I know you can check carrier blacklist, but is there a place to check if Apple disabled it? But still obviously you take a chance if you buy outside of Apple. Caveat Emptor!

 

[compwiz1202]

Unsure which posts I found more entertaining… the ones intended to be amusing or the serious ones. 😂

At least he was just punched, so some humor is warranted, but not when someone died

 

[zoozx]

Should have bought 301.
They offer free delivery for that amount.

 

[compwiz1202]

And he only gave them one bag containing 125 phones! He kept 175 phones. It’s clear those thieves were not pros, lucky for him.

Probably didn't want some weapon charge, and didn't want to hang around for more to come help or the police. If this was even an actual theft and not fraud