Plan for financial success: 1. Steal iPhones, 2. ???, 3. Profit!
What do you get when you combine 332 iPhones and 2 crooked Apple employees? Felony theft charges, apparently, after a luckless pair of underhanded but enterprising Apple Store workers decided to set up their own iPhone shop using purloined stock from Uncle Steve. Now one is in the slammer, and the other is facing extradition to New Hampshire (from Massachussetts, not from the French Riviera -- too bad for him). This all goes to show, crime does not pay -- especially when you get caught with $132,000 of hot iPhones.
There is no official word as to what color t-shirts the thieves wore in their day-to-day work, or whether either of them could be reasonably classified as Apple Geniuses.
[Via Ars]
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jayson said 4:29PM on 3-27-2008
Woah, I was just at that store last weekend! I did see a huge cart chock full of iPhones... maybe they were restocking or they were just leaving with all of them.
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doerrfan said 4:43PM on 3-27-2008
OH GOD!
I know Chris! He refused to service my iPhone after it was jailbroken!
lol @ u.
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Rick said 5:06PM on 3-27-2008
I love the title of this article...totally taken from South Park but fantastic!
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Shane Lloyd said 12:03PM on 3-28-2008
You don't read comment responses on Digg, Engadget, or Gizmodo much, do you? This South Park line has been used in variations to the point of cliché in these forums over the past months.
DrWho said 5:12PM on 3-27-2008
What a pair of plonkers.
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djjazzyjoe said 6:03PM on 3-27-2008
I live in this town and Chris interviewed me for a position that I did not get . I see the logic in apple. Do not hire people that check tuaw 25 times a day, own 6 new gen macs , love people , friendly and not a thief.
But let this kid manage and do the interviewing for the store . and steal a 150,000 dollars worth of iphones?
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Biz said 6:13PM on 3-27-2008
Their hiring practices are completely baffling. I guess they figure people like us know too much and will give the customers too many ideas of their own. I can see how it could end up causing them problems. A support nightmare. It just really irritates the hell out of me when I see some of the dipsh*ts they hire (granted, some are good)... but knowledgeable people like myself and friends who've been using Macs for years (decades) don't even get a call back.
Alex said 6:08PM on 3-27-2008
Steal underpants...
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djjazzyjoe said 6:33PM on 3-27-2008
actually a friend of mine that works there told me that
they actually hire people that know very little about macs
in hopes that they will be as ignorant as the consumer. and only know what want them to know .
I seriously believe this because , They hired a friend friend of mine and when I saw that he was working there I was like " Hey I didn't know you were a mac guy" and he was like " actually I am not I dont even own a mac. But now that i see how cool these things are I am totally Getting one".
or something along those lines. Either way I just think this is really funny.
J.
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shippster said 7:52PM on 3-27-2008
No, they don't look for people with little to no experience. They just put a higher priority on some other factors for certain positions. If you notice there are different positions at the store - Genius and Creative/trainer would be the ones where Mac experience are really top level requirement.
Mac Specialist requires a moderate level of knowledge (a lot of which can be learned) but what is way more important is someone who is going to have good people skills. Mac Specialists do the sales and Apple definitely does not want someone who can't tailor their message to a non-techie person. So, basically the ideal Mac Specialist will have the knowledge, but be able to communicate it in ways that are easy going and make it seem less complicated to your everyday Dad that is fearing a headache with switching. If your knowledge is too raw you are going to scare people.
Lastly, there are Concierge people. They are basically door greeters, traffic directors and well-trained cashiers. Their Mac knowledge is very low priority since they are mainly pointing people in the right directions and doing the paperwork after the sale.
Apple really doesn't hope to have ignorant employees. I had 22 years experience on a Mac (started when I was 6) when they hired me as a Mac Specialist there for my 2006 Summer job.
AppleAdmin said 12:07AM on 3-31-2008
Really Joe...I'm pretty sure you're making that shit up.
I work there.
djjazzyjoe said 8:46AM on 3-31-2008
really? and who is this?
carter Neal said 12:07PM on 3-30-2008
I'd imagine the main requirement is that whomever they hire be willing to work for whatever they'd pay. Seriously, I don't expect the guy at my liquor store to give me good advice about wine, and I don't expect the guy at the bookstore to be able to tell me which translation of Kant's First Critique best handles Kant's 18th Century prussian-german.
In my few experiences at the apple store, they are pretty solid about helping with the basic issues, or the more common issues, but there definitely are things above their "pay-grade" that they can't help with. So, sure, they'd love to hire experienced mac-users, but if you've got 20 years experience using mac software, I doubt that you'd want to get paid what a retail store can offer anyway.
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chromira said 9:26AM on 3-31-2008
Actually they hire of a lot of people with 20 years experience. Most of those people have full time jobs and enjoy sharing their knowledge at a pay grade that is far above most retail stores. The Specialist have specific knowledge in a number of areas such as music, photography, and video. As for the Creative team, they are hired mostly from within from the pool of Specialists which assist in these training sessions.
It's amazing how little people know about the Apple infrastructure, yet they post as if they knew it all. The Concierge team actually does more than most people think. The vast majority have previously excelled at the Specialist position and use that knowledge to answer questions (not just give directions) on hardware and software while troubleshooting problems with computers, iPods, and iPhones.
I rarely post to these forums, though I always find them amusing in their lack of facts and the vitriolic way in which people attack each other (can't we all just get along).
Apple retail is more than what people see on the surface.
rick said 8:58PM on 3-27-2008
I actually have worked at Apple for 2 years now as a Mac Specialist. I, along with the majority of my coworkers, follow the apple rumor sites in great detail. We talk about them all the time and actually learn a lot from it. Our bosses don't mind (many of them do it themselves), but try to deter us from acknowledging rumor sites to our customers. And the reasoning for it is actually quite logical. If we start commenting on what we expect to be released or stuff that's technically illegal, it's a PR nightmare.
a) Apple becomes liable for what its employees say, so if we give them wrong information based off of a rumor site, they have to handle that.
b) Somethings people want to know is illegal. Such as music or dvd ripping.
Often times, though, you can learn about a lot of fixes and 'how to' stuff, which Mac Specialists can then pass on to the customers.
Apple does not care at all about hiring people who read the rumors sites, as long as they don't make a PR nightmare for them by making promises about products that haven't been announced yet. When I was hired, I was even asked about what tech sites I read, so that could not have been a factor.
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Rob said 1:02AM on 3-28-2008
Just wanted to correct two fallacies you posted:
1) Music 'ripping' is NOT illegal in and of itself. For example, how else do you think songs get into your iTunes library from the CD's you own?
2) DVD 'ripping' in and of itself is NOT illegal. You are legally allowed to 'rip' DVD's you own for backup purposes.
:-)
Rob said 1:02AM on 3-28-2008
Just wanted to correct two fallacies you posted:
1) Music 'ripping' is NOT illegal in and of itself. For example, how else do you think songs get into your iTunes library from the CD's you own?
2) DVD 'ripping' in and of itself is NOT illegal. You are legally allowed to 'rip' DVD's you own for backup purposes.
:-)
DogGunn said 9:07PM on 3-27-2008
Nice try, but you need to have a 2nd step before ????.
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dash16 said 9:52PM on 3-27-2008
Is the first link above broken for anyone else or just me?
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XIV said 9:56PM on 3-27-2008
No, it's broken for me too.