Plan for financial success: 1. Steal iPhones, 2. ???, 3. Profit!
Posted Mar 27th 2008 4:00PM by Erica Sadun
Filed under: Retail, iPhone
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]
Tags: dumb, iphone, theft, True Crime, TrueCrime
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
3-27-2008 @ 4:29PM
Jayson said...
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.
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 4:43PM
doerrfan said...
OH GOD!
I know Chris! He refused to service my iPhone after it was jailbroken!
lol @ u.
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 5:06PM
Rick said...
I love the title of this article...totally taken from South Park but fantastic!
Reply
3-28-2008 @ 12:03PM
Shane Lloyd said...
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.
3-27-2008 @ 5:12PM
DrWho said...
What a pair of plonkers.
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 6:03PM
djjazzyjoe said...
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?
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 6:13PM
Biz said...
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.
3-27-2008 @ 6:08PM
Alex said...
Steal underpants...
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 6:33PM
djjazzyjoe said...
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.
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 7:52PM
shippster said...
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.
3-31-2008 @ 12:07AM
AppleAdmin said...
Really Joe...I'm pretty sure you're making that shit up.
I work there.
3-31-2008 @ 8:46AM
djjazzyjoe said...
really? and who is this?
3-27-2008 @ 8:58PM
rick said...
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.
Reply
3-28-2008 @ 1:02AM
Rob said...
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.
:-)
3-28-2008 @ 1:02AM
Rob said...
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.
:-)
3-27-2008 @ 9:07PM
DogGunn said...
Nice try, but you need to have a 2nd step before ????.
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 9:52PM
dash16 said...
Is the first link above broken for anyone else or just me?
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 9:56PM
XIV said...
No, it's broken for me too.
3-28-2008 @ 6:36AM
Josh said...
I'm loving the South Park reference.
Reply
3-28-2008 @ 10:49AM
efinkg4 said...
djjazzyjoe is my mac genius
Reply