Apple Gift Card Scheme
Todd Bookman (via Roman Loyola):
Then, according to Carter, the cards are carefully placed back in their original packaging, and are returned to the store’s shelves, where an unsuspecting customer will hopefully purchase them and add money to the card.
[…]
The scale of the scheme is mind-boggling: Apple, working with police, determined that the company shipped 46,364 products to a single warehouse in Windham, New Hampshire during a 10-week window last summer, with a total value of $47 million. That works out to an average of $600,000 a day in Apple products to a single location. A separate facility in Amherst received another $35 million in iPhones over the same period.
[…]
Chinese nationals are working and, in some cases, living inside these rented warehouses. There, workers receive the new Apple products from UPS or FedEx, sometimes thousands a day. They unbox the products, then consolidate all of the electronics into larger, anonymous brown boxes.
[…]
Once the electronics are repackaged into unmarked boxes, the warehouse workers go to UPS or FedEx to ship them to their next destination. Often, that’s to an international exporter based in Florida. From there, it’s on to China, Dubai, or South America, where the iPhones and other devices are resold for profit.
I don’t think I’ve seen anything yet about electronic gift cards not being safe.
Previously:
