Man Who Duped Apple into Replacing Fake iPhones for Authentic Devices Worth $1 Million Convicted and Sentenced

[JBGoode]

"time served" so the time spent in prison is the same as if he had been aquited.

Not really. Acquitted would mean no criminal record. He's still going to have a felony for life and likely will never be able to have a real job etc. etc. He essentially ruined his life--- in the US anyway.

 

[kheard73]

Got greedy and got busted, serves him right. Crime is crime lock them up...

 

[mjs916]

I worked for AppleCare back around this time and I remember at one point, I could count on seeing this scam at least a few times a day. Always the same copy/pasted "my iPhone is bricked, I want to do an express replacement"(paraphrased). It resulted in policy changes regarding who was eligible for an express replacement, and ultimately it become AppleCare-only (which I'm sure this contributed to).

I also worked in AppleCare and recall encountering this scam. I was there in 2017-2019.

Unrelated: For those surprised at how good these “fake” iPhones must be to pass inspection (there have been a handful of comments) these are REAL iPhones with a faked identifier. It’s not like they created a fake ones from scratch.

 

[Krizoitz]

It's actually called a full stop in English and a Period in American English

if you want to get pedantic it’s a full stop in British English and a period in North American English.

 

[widEyed]

possibly somebody has already said this, but I wonder why Apple doesn't use two step authentication when people bring in bricked iPhones and other Apple mobile products. If it's got a fraudulent/spoofed UUID/IMEI/serial numbers then the notifications will be sent to the wrong person. If the person returning it claims to not have a second Apple device then ask them to verify through their Apple account… if they say no, "would you please accompany the store manager to this offie and wait for police?"

Tim Cook, if this method gets of the ground, you can send me 10% of the costs saved as Apple hardware for the next two decades. (And replace my lemon of a 2016 MBP that has had personal hot spot hell, unexplainable shutdowns and other issues that 10 different product engineer specialists haven't been able to fix over six years that I'm still pissy about).

 

[kenaustus]

Only 26 months in prison after defrauding Apple by 1 million? It seems like he’s getting away with it easily.

He's not really ahead as he has to pay restitution and will obviously be deported with ZERO opportunities to return. Those who played his game with him are, I hope, also deported. Not a good time to be part of his Friends & Family circle.

 

[MVMNT]

The actual definition of "conspiracy" is, "a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful". Which describes the situation at hand quite well. One can conspire with others to commit a crime.

The word gets used too often these days as a sort of shorthand for "conspiracy theory", which is defined as, "a belief that some covert but influential organization is responsible for a circumstance or event".

Totally agree with the use, I also think there's a fair distinction between those planning to do it being caught before compared to actually doing it.

 

[sentiblue]

It's cute for some people to think that Apple cannot recognize its own device as fake vs real.

 

[cqexbesd]

(you use commas not periods to separate thousands places in English)

OT I know, but that claim is probably a little over extended. Growing up in Australia we were always taught to use _spaces_ to separate thousands. https://extranet.education.unimelb.edu.au/SME/TNMY/Decimals/Decimals/backinfo/overseas.htm talks of the changes happening in the 70s which would be about right. IIUC the current Australian government style guide says to use commas but then I seem to recall they switched to US spelling for some words because they all just got Word and couldn't work out how to change the dictionary from US English (allegedly).

Even in the US you are supposed to use spaces in more technical contexts. e.g. https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/pdf/sp811.pdf#10.5.3

Using periods is unusual in English but in the way it was used it was clear the intention.