Students' iPhone scam reportedly takes Apple for $900K

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Two students allegedly tricked Apple into replacing more than 1,000 fake iPhones with real ones, then sold them.

Students' iPhone scam reportedly takes Apple for $900K

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Apple was allegedly duped out of more than 1,000 iPhones. Greg Baker / AFP/Getty Images



A pair of Chinese engineering students studying in Oregon allegedly scammed Appleout of hundreds of thousands of dollars, a report said.

Yangyang Zhou and Quan Jiang are accused of bringing thousands of counterfeit iPhones into the US from Hong Kong as a part of a scam that kicked off in April 2017, as previously reported by The Oregonian.

They allegedly send the fakes to Apple, complaining that they wouldn't turn on, and getting fresh, real iPhones in return under the company's warranty system. Those genuine devices were then sent abroad and sold for hundreds of dollars, with Jiang and Zhou getting a cut of the profits, according to court documents.


Those documents note that 1,493 of the 3,069 warranty claims netted a replacement iPhone, and Apple estimated that it lost $895,800 as a result.

The pair were in the US on student visas, prosecutors noted. Zhou, who went to Oregon State University, allegedly shipped the fakes into the US and sent out the replacements they got.


Those documents note that 1,493 of the 3,069 warranty claims netted a replacement iPhone, and Apple estimated that it lost $895,800 as a result.

The pair were in the US on student visas, prosecutors noted. Zhou, who went to Oregon State University, allegedly shipped the fakes into the US and sent out the replacements they got.

They were apparently rumbled when customs officers seized suspicious shipments bearing the Apple logo, the documents noted. The Cupertino, California, company sent Jiang cease-and-desist letters after he was identified as one of the alleged smugglers by December 2017, but the letters were ignored.

Zhou is accused of submitting false export declarations, while Jiang is accused of trafficking in counterfeit goods and of wire fraud, our sister site ZDNet noted.

Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.


https://redirect.viglink.com/?
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Vilify

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Shouldn't apple be able to identify a fake phone once they take it apart :patrice:
 

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Vilify said:
Shouldn't apple be able to identify a fake phone once they take it apart :patrice:

LOL. You think the techs are actually looking at those phones like that? Shiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttt. Production quotas mean they have to repair as many phones as fast as possible and if it's just a screen or a battery, a tech can run through replacing one or both of those in less than 10 minutes.​
 

itsyoung!!

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Soooooo Apple is trying to say that the price of 1493 phones is almost a million dollars? :francis: Even if you include labor and man hours, it’s nowhere near that number.

:dwillhuh: average iphone retail price is $1000

$1000 x 1493 is almost 1.5 million :dwillhuh:
 
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