An Apple gift card scam saw buyers lose hundreds of millions of dollars. One raid alone recovered 4,000 iPhones worth between $8M and $9M, with the New Hampshire-based operation even involving a murder.
The sophisticated operation started with the theft of Apple gift cards from retail outlets before they were tampered with and then replaced in the stores. The moral of the story is only to ever buy the cards direct from Apple stores …
Macworld summarised a story reported by NHPR.
The New Hampshire operation started with the theft of Apple gift cards in retail outlets. The cards were carefully opened so the PIN and other vital statistics could be recorded, but otherwise looked unused. Then the cards were repackaged and placed back in the stores. When the card was activated with a balance, the organization was notified, took the money from the card, and then used it to buy Apple products, such as iPhones and MacBooks.
The balances loaded onto the cards were then used to buy Apple products, including some 4,000 iPhones valued at $8-9 million. Those devices were subsequently sold to grey market importers in China, Dubai and South America.
The full scale of the operation, which was run by Chinese nationals, is said to have run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. The investigation was jointly run by New Hampshire Police and the Department of Homeland Security.
Apple reportedly assisted investigators, though the company has not commented.
The sheer scale of this operation is quite mind-boggling. The moral of the story here appears to be to only ever buy or gift cards direct from the company’s retail stores.
Gift cards are strongly associated with scams in general, with the FTC warning consumers against the most common version – where somebody calls claiming to be from a government agency or business, which requires immediate payment via gift cards in order to avoid arrest.
Image: Apple
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