The thief hacks into some Apple fanboy’s account, steals their ID and then waits until something is bought or appears at an Apple store and shows up to collect it.
Police are hampered in their investigations because in-store video has so far not got a proper snap of the thief.
One Apple fanboy Rick Markowitz told KTLA’s Jennifer McGraw on Saturday that he ordered a laptop online and I did it for in-store pick up because I didn’t want it to get stolen.
“And I said, ‘Hey, I’m here for my in-store pickup,’ and immediately they go, ‘Your laptop was already picked up sir,’ and I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? I’ve never come to pick it up.’”
Markowitz now says he’s out $4,000 after the imposter picked up his computer from an Apple store in Sherman Oaks on Tuesday.
While he was still at the store, Markowitz says he asked the staff if he was hacked.
“They said, ‘Well, we don’t know if you were hacked or not, but we’re saying someone with an ID with your name on it came in and picked up the laptop.’”
Markowitz filed a police report and then, deciding to do some research of his own, he went online to see if this incident had happened to anyone else recently.
In his searches, he found KTLA’s report about a thief who police believe posed as a customer, showed an ID to the delivery person, and then walked off with someone else’s package – in two separate instances.
“And I’m like, wait, am I the third incident of someone who has a laptop intercepted and tracked specifically from Apple?” posed Markowitz. “And mine was in-store, which is crazy.”
It appears likely that the scammers hacked the victims’ super secure iPhones and instead of stealing their Coldplay collection got tracking information and made an Apple identification card.
Markowitz said that he had to beg, kick and scream up the Apple ladder “just to get them to give me a refund for the laptop that was never handed to me.”
Sutton says in these cases, the credit card companies commonly take the brunt of the fraud, and generally, consumers are usually reimbursed.
