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This thread is a response to "I got a free iPhone 4"

nataliamck said:
Hahaha. Brilliant story.

You can all keep your ethics and use them, for what? To get into "heaven"? :rolleyes:

Meanwhile, this dude is off to his local Apple store buying a **** load of free stuff.

$367 from a multi-million dollar company? Steve Jobs would laugh in his face if he tried to return it. Enjoy your free stuff.
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So far, you're the first to mention heaven or and relation to religion. Ethics and religion can be mutually exclusive my close-minded friend.
 
wvphysics said:
So far, you're the first to mention heaven or and relation to religion. Ethics and religion can be mutually exclusive my close-minded friend.
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I only mentioned it. I never stated that religion and ethics are mutually inclusive.

Simply stating my view on ethics in this case. He hasn't hurt anyone, so get over it.

No-one will get extra Brownie points for returning a few missing dollars from Apple.
 
nataliamck said:
I only mentioned it. I never stated that religion and ethics are mutually inclusive.

Simply stating my view on ethics in this case. He hasn't hurt anyone, so get over it.

No-one will get extra Brownie points for returning a few missing dollars from Apple.
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Your commented insinuated people are moral "to get into 'heaven'", if that was not your intent then why say it?
No one said they were looking for brownie points. You don't seem to grasp the concept that not everyone does athe right thing only for something in return or out of fear for being punished. People often do the right thing simply because it's the right thing. Some people are altruistic and some aren't. I recently lost my wallet at a theater and had it returned with the 40 bucks inside. It was my fault I lost it, but the person that found it still turned it in without takin the unreadable money inside. A person with ethics should be able to mention what the ethical thing to do is ( so long as it's done respectfully) without being ridiculed.
 
Knowimagination said:
Wait so you admit that you don't have a receipt for the phone, but the morality police are the ridiculous ones?

Dude just go make it right with the apple store and be done with it. How would you feel if you were the new employee that made the mistake and is now being reprimanded for it because the guy didn't make thing right himself.
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Wait, So if I made a mistake then I was reprimanded I should be mad at someone else? flawed logic is flawed. This Apple employee wasn't robbed, he wasn't brutalized. He made a mistake so he should accept responsibility.
 
iUser4Lyfe said:
Wait, So if I made a mistake then I was reprimanded I should be mad at someone else? flawed logic is flawed. This Apple employee wasn't robbed, he wasn't brutalized. He made a mistake so he should accept responsibility.
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Easy to say that when the "I" isn't actually you, but if you had made the mistake you sure would wish that the person would be honest about it.
 
Knowimagination said:
Easy to say that when the "I" isn't actually you, but if you had made the mistake you sure would wish that the person would be honest about it.
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Correct. I would. However I don't look for anyone to resolve any of my problems except me. If I make a mistake, I am prepared to deal with the consequences. Its not my responsibility to make sure an Apple employee is doing HIS job correctly.
 
murdercitydevil said:
Thanks everyone else for the comments. The morality police really are ridiculous.
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To be honest, what you did is your business and your decision, but you are the one who opened the gate for the "morality police" when you bragged about the situation on a site where 90% of the users just dropped damn near $400 on a new phone. Lol

If this all truly happened, that's cool. I thought something similar happened when I got the first iPhone. I payed with my credit card, and after 5 days I checked the statement and it had not yet gone through. So I went back to 5th ave apple, and showed them everything. The employee said he didn't get it, because I had a receipt saying that the phone was payed for, yet not so much as a hold on the card. The employee told me that they did have some issues with the system, but i did everything i could, and had a receipt that said i paid, so he sent me on my way, and i felt better having made the effort. Sure enough 3 weeks later, the card was finally billed. Lol

I'm not telling this to "be the bigger person" or any of that garbage. To be honest, the reason that I went back was because I am very careful with my credit cards, and was trying to figure out how much money I needed to pay off the next month. It turns out, the system at 5th ave was not yet ready to activate that many iPhones, and I'm sure a lot of you remember if you waited for the first one, but there were many system overloads and backups.

Having said that, I personally would want to go back and figure out what actually happened with the gift card, and whether or not the funds are actually there, or if there is just a glitch with the card. I've got to think that if the card really wasn't billed, it would have shown on the cashiers screen, and you never would have walked out of the store with a phone.

Again, what you do is your own business, and nobody can judge you for it. In the great scheme of things, one unpaid iPhone is a fraction of a penny to Apple, and at this point, it doesn't even matter anymore. However, posting it online in a popular forum makes you look like a total douche. If this all really happened, then you should have just kept it to yourself and enjoyed the phone, but you chose to take the low road and brag to a bunch of people online... Honestly what type of response were you expecting?
 
I have to wonder how many of these high horse folks would actually seriously return to the store to try to give up another $400. My nearest Apple store is over an hour away. I wouldn't go.

XciteMe said:
This was at the Los Cerritos Apple Store.

Everybody CALL that Apple Store and report him.

(562) 356-1555

PLEASE do it. It's the right thing to do.
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Perhaps this post will be the first the store is hearing of the mistake, which could lead to disciplinary action towards the employee. You never know.

bunnicula said:
I wonder what lead the op to check the balance on a gift card that should have had a zero balance. That seems odd. Why not just toss it? I always leave empty gift cards with the cashier. *raises eyebrow*
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I check the balance on every gift card I get before throwing it away. Not too weird.
 
Surrix said:
I check the balance on every gift card I get before throwing it away. Not too weird.
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I check mine when buying varying amounts of merchandise. In this case, the op bought a card for EXACTLY the price of the phone, then, used it to buy the phone. What would be the point in checking? It's not like having a random GC for 300 bucks, making a few purchases, then checking the balance to make sure your mental math wasn't off.


I suspect that the op saw or heard something in the store that lead him to believe that the cashier was giving him a fully loaded GC.


For the record, I would return it. 367something in apple store accessories is hardly my "turn a blind eye" price.

But, I'm not really a good person to ask. I go back into the store when I realize the cashier forgot to ring up the milk below my cart. *shrugs*
 
Tarzanman said:
You guys are crazy. If someone came up to you and GAVE you $300 dollars, how would that be stealing?

The OP did everything he could in good faith to pay for an iPhone.
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And this is where you are absolutely wrong. Nobody GAVE him $300... People made a mistake where he ended up not paying $300 for a device which cost $300. That is a ton different than an Apple Employee walking up to this man and physically handing him an iPhone and letting him walk away without paying for it- No that's not stealing, but what the OP did is.

And sure, I give him credit. He tried using his credit it card, but it was declined. He went to the ATM and got cash and put it on a pre-paid card, and then they made a mistake. But this is where I take away the credit, because when he went and checked the balance on the card it was still full- and he knew full well that he could have gone back and explained what happened and gave them the card. Now if an Apple Rep said, you know because of your honesty, we'll let you keep the phone and the card. That would be cool. But he didn't. He took the phone and the card. It's one or the other, bud. Not both.

P.S. I'm not jealous, I just believe in doing what's right.
 
It's a tough call. Free would be the only way I'd buy an iPhone 4 again. It's hard to imagine that this won't come back around as your iPhone 4 was activated with IMEI and serial number.
 
The op paid for the phone. The op is stealing everything that is bought with the gift card. And it is all traceable back to the op. Hope the op gets it in the end.
 
Something smells fishy about this

Why would you purchase a gift card when you have perfectly good cash in your pocket?

That doesn't make any sense.
 
In America in the stores do they have that sign in the stores that say "please check your change as mistakes can not be rectified at a later date"?

Well that's what happens if you make a mistake you lose out
and you will not get any money back you are owed once you left the store!!

It is wrong but it's just a stroke of luck I guess comes along once in a while that sometimes is ok to take.

No one got hurt, apple will not go out of business and I'm sure the employee didn't get fired for a mistake.
The time that it took for all these replys to be typed out wall street and the sick corporations and banks have Stolen tens of millions of American Tax payers money and they will continue to do so. How many have kicked up a fuss about that?
 
ClutchThese said:
i don't get it.
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He gave Apple $367 in cash. Apple in return gave him an iPhone, presumably for that same cash value, but failed to remove that balance from the gift card. So in essence Apple received payment for the phone. It would only be stealing if the OP used the gift card for any future purchases.
 
bunnicula said:
I've paid cash at an Apple store plenty of times. Furthermore, the op couldn't have bought an Apple GC if they didn't take the cash he paid them.
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I am aware he bought a GC using cash. I was referring to a question asked by another poster as to why the OP couldn't just use cash to buy the iPhone.

Apple in the past has not allowed people to use bills to buy iPhones. If that has changed then I was not aware.
 
splashnader said:
He gave Apple $367 in cash. Apple in return gave him an iPhone, presumably for that same cash value, but failed to remove that balance from the gift card. So in essence Apple received payment for the phone. It would only be stealing if the OP used the gift card for any future purchases.
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i'm going to have to disagree.

if apple received payment...then the ip4 is then owned by the individual. there was a transfer of ownership in that transaction.

now, the card STILL having a balance on it is a separate issue in regards to the phone. if apple didn't take the balance for some reason, it is not the consumers fault.

what would you all think if the card was found by someone else...say the OP lost it and someone found it in a gutter. the balance would still be on it, is that person then in posession of stolen property because apple didn't take the balance off in the previous transaction? negative!
 
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