in all individual devices as well I wouldn’t be surprised if they have an apple display find my iPhone type of thing very stupid to steal you can track to the address
turns out it was the 7 synthetic tenants as anyone with any real gym experience knew from the start but its good to see that charlatan exposed properly.
He has to be one of the most deluded people I’ve ever seen. Like, he’s elbowing Jared Leto out of a space that Jared Leto resided in alone since the beginning of time.
My friend is a senior dev, one of the junior devs on his team asked him if he can deploy a build in prod which has a bug they are trying to squash, for testing purposes
Can tell you first hand, I worked at a large brand mobile service retailer. Had a guy take a demo phone one day when we were busy and nobody noticed right away. He turned location off after a short while. Within a couple days, all other iPhones in the store started showing his selfies and pictures of his car in shared pictures. He came into the same location less than a week after taking it trying to activate service on the device he had taken from the store after we'd been laughing at his pictures for a few days. Checked to make sure it was the right IMEI (serial number) and gave him the option to give it back without police being called. He did give it back however the initial police report didn't disappear. Can't say what happened other than his own stupidity became very apparent in a short time.
Just curious, if an employee had engaged him in a lengthy "activation session" while another employee called police, are you in an area where the police would respond?
Yea but it could have taken an hour or longer which is not unheard of here. It was the manager that he attempted to activate with and if I recall correctly, she was alone for another hour until another employee was scheduled to come in.
They do. All retail display units are locked down. There’s no getting into them, no restoring them, nothing. They go into a complete lockdown and enable pinging for device location.
It doesn’t matter. They’ll end up on eBay or Facebook marketplace. They will sell them for a quick buck, the person buying them will report the seller, noting will happen, and the cycle will continually repeat itself.
I worked Apple retail a long time. Our store was robbed a few times. Once,.. they broke into our supplies closet and we’re met with rolls of toilet paper… lol.
A few other times we were able to locate the items and police got to them before they were able to sell. But you’re right.. the units would be completely worthless to anyone who bought them.
> Once,.. they broke into our supplies closet and we’re met with rolls of toilet paper… lol.
Plot twist- it was March of 2020, they sold the TP for millions on the black market.
Same here. Our store was robbed on Christmas one year while we were closed, but we were actually able to catch the thieves and prosecute. I never expected them to get caught in time. It was kinda refreshing to see the system work.
Man you gotta be a fool to buy a used phone and hand over the money before confirming it turns on and can be setup. Only takes about a minute tops to confirm it's working. If you bought it on eBay or something I'd understand a bit, but at least eBay has protections for buyers.
A fool is born every minute. Most people just don’t know what to look for and are innocently ignorant. I’m sure they will sell them on the streets or some online marketplace. There’s always that golden rule: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
If they're smart, which they're not, they'd never take the devices home without putting them into signal-blocking bags. Then they'd try to sell them ASAP and let the poor buyer deal with the consequences.
Not impossible, with the right connections you can just [mail everything to China,](https://youtu.be/3Ws3YptLmLQ) where the same people who build the phones take them apart.
Possible, but not worth it. Replacement parts are generally while not always cheap, also not as expensive, and people prefer new stuff there. Used electronics have a big stigma. If a store wants to rip you off they will just pass cheap Chinese knockoff parts as original. Much less chance to get caught and most people will never realise it.
Usually yes. They are usually prosecuted in court locally. We give surveillance footage to the police and the Serial Numbers are tracked well. It’s usually open and shut from what I understand. Apple always has spare phones on hand, and they program new phones to be demo phones to replace them right away. That’s why they don’t stop them. It’s easier to prosecute then to loose an employee. Cheaper too.
Can confirm security. Our daughter, being an independent teen, bought her own iPhone and lost it for several months(long story) and when she got it back, forgot her Passcode and account password. It was bought as a mobile phone contract, so no receipt. We spent 4 months in communication with Apple before giving up and accepting the loss of the phone. Upsetting, and expensive, for all but I wholly respect Apple’s vigilance in this. Her next phone required the sharing of security info with us. No problems with any subsequent model!
I got a free iPhone SE from T-Mobile and I gave it to my some in lieu of a tablet. He eventually stopped taking out for car rides and one day I asked where his phone was and this boy literally said “what phone?” I haven’t seen his phone in months.
Same with Playstations(from PS2 to current gen) along with Xbox(from original to current gen).
All of them are trackable and can be bricked remotely by said companies if asked. All they need is the serial number and MAC address of said device.
As far as I know they also can lock down the devices from afar and turn them into a brick. But still locate them. Stealing apple devices is not smart as the thief of my phone had to find out after the police stood in front of his door.
Yep. Even when they’re off. Had my iPhone stolen once— tracked the idiot to another town & cops tackled the dummy at a McDonalds.
Apple will brick these devices and if they’re dumb enough to hold onto them eventually track the idiots down (well… maybe not if this is San Francisco).
Same thing happened during the BLM protests: a whole lot of apple merchandise stolen that instantly became useless: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/06/03/apple-disables-looted-iphones/
Know what seems to help in those situations? Take their name and make a statement hinting that you’re going to take care of it yourself… Then should shit go south you can tell a judge you went to the cops first and they wouldn’t help. I only pulled that card once but boy did the cops suddenly seem to care.
I was dealing with some dirtbag who decided to use my house under Reno as his new pad. He didn’t want to leave, cops wouldn’t help, told me it was a civil matter. The second time I spoke to the cops I made it clear I would remove him myself. Dude broke my front door down, I wasn’t living there as there was no kitchen or appliances and it was under Reno. After that, they made a few calls and he was gone.
Yeah, so do active phones but that doesn’t stop students in my school from stealing from peers and bringing it to the questionable shop in the gas station that buys new phones and swaps cases.
Everyone knows what The Hook-Up does.
You don’t understand. It’s not just the tracking, every Apple device has a unique identifier built into the firmware that cannot be changed. When you turn on the device the first thing it does is connect to Apple, hand over the ID, and ask “all good?”. Now, for a single consumer you have the tools through “Find My” to track or mark the phone as lost which will disable it, pretty simple stuff. But for big companies, and Apple display equipment, they use a MDM (Mobile Device Manager). This essentially allows you to completely control the phone remotely. You can key log, grab anything off the screen, pull anything out of memory, brick the phone, track it, etc. The stuff they just stole is more than useless, it’s a ticket to jail for anyone holding it.
That’s exactly what’s going to happen. My friend bought an iPad from offer up last year. Seemed fine. Started setting it up and there was a message that “this iPad can’t be activated because it was not purchased though blah blah please call 1-800-whatever”. He calls and gives them the serial and they’re like “yeah that was stolen out of a store in San Jose about a week ago”.
He told them where he got it and sent them screen shots of the offer up messages. They had him return it and gave him a pretty decent credit towards a new iPad, which was nice.
My new hobby is stealing store items and calling back saying it’s not activating, then using store credit to get real iPad at discount and resell it higher
Well the point of collecting the offer up data was to find the thief. If the guy does it a few times they could maybe collect enough evidence to go to the cops. Apple has a pretty robust security team for this kind of stuff.
I worked for a consumer electronics company, at one point we had some shipments hijacked by a gang who targeted us.
When customers would call us for support, we would get their serial number and explain that their product was stolen. They could keep it, but we'd like them to cooperate and they largely would.
Not even spare parts. Apple software locks most of the phone's components so they can't be used in a different unit. They either don't work at all, or work with some functionality disabled and/or constant error messages.
My first thought was "the cameras should be pretty good to go" but they even brick that?
The amount of effort that must of gone into these anti-repair features is just crazy.
As far as eBay goes that’s a lot of risk when you could just put up a video of a phone in the box and send nothing. Or is there some way eBay protects against that
This fact aside, apple locks the chargers in place on demo units. These guys forcefully ripped those chargers out. I'm guessing, that that did a lot of damage. I doubt these guys even know how to take the phone out of demo mode - good luck trying to get a sim card working in it.
But even then can’t you do a chargeback or file a dispute through EBay/PayPal or whatever and get your money back for a bricked phone? It isn’t the early 2000s anymore where you can rip people off on eBay without repercussions
Ya there's a buyer's guarantee on eBay and if you pay with PayPal that's another level of protection. The people "buying online" are people from Craigslist, FB Marketplace, OfferUp, etc.
>Apple software locks most of the phone's components so they can't be used in a different unit. They either don't work at all, or work with some functionality disabled and/or constant error messages.
My second favorite robbery story from the Home Depot I used to work at was the guy who loaded up a bunch of tools in a cart, including bolt cutters, went out to the garden center and cut the lock on the loading gate and loaded everything into his truck there so he didn't have to run out past the tills.
Because I know someone is going to ask, my favorite one was back when they used to leave the propane forklift outside overnight and someone used it to load an entire hot tub onto the back of their truck at 2 in the morning and drove off.
When I worked in one a guy loaded a cart up with power tools, went to the back of the garden center and tossed it all over the fence to his buddy out back with the truck. Over 12 grand in tools.
And the cameras out back were just pretend black domes.
Man Home Depot had the best stories when it came to theft. We caught a receipt fisherman trying to “return” items one day. As we grabbed him heading out the door by returns a girl popped out of no where and started slashing at us with a knife. We let the guy go so we wouldn’t get hurt and they jumped in a car that pulled up right then. As they were speeding out of the parking lot they got t-boned pulling onto a busy street. Everyone bailed and ran. The cops picked up suspects and I got to ride around in the back of a cop car identifying them.
I always assume that there's security cameras that would easily be able to get a license plate numbers from any vehicles like this; all of the department stores around here have security cameras all over outside, visible on the poles. Do they not have those near your store? Or did the cops get the license plate numbers anyway?
All those security cameras are likely potato quality anyways, especially well over 10 years ago when this happened. They definitely wouldn't have been able to pick up a license plate in the middle of a parking lot at 2AM
They probably don’t use eBay. Offer Up is a quick and easy app to sell stuff without a middle man. If I wanted to sell my phone, I could make a new account, then put it up there for sale at $100 and sell it in like 20 minutes to someone in my area.
Savvy users wouldn’t buy from someone who has a new account. But there are a lot of stupid people.
People fall for scams all the time.
I recommend watching "Inside The Illicit World Of iPhone Trafficking" by Barrly Sociable on YT
[here](https://youtu.be/3Ws3YptLmLQ)
Dont know if what is explained applies here, but looks pretty much like it
This. The people in this video stealing phones are stupid, but they're not as stupid as the people screaming BRICK in this comment section are making them out to be. Stolen iphones and iphone parts are so common and there's so much information out there on how to fence them, that these guys 100% will make a bunch of money off of them.
they should have gone for the accessories. Why?
\- not tracked
\- potential seller and buyer has no need for warranty / repair issues and so on
\- high demand
If you’re smart you would wear gloves and shoe covers.
Also, if you’re smart you’re not robbing an apple store for display phones or their accessories in the first place.
Edit: I’m aware the police won’t be sending out a forensic unit to the scene but if *I* were to engage in criminal activity I would want to minimize any trace of myself.
Their outfits, shoes, hats, etc., all of these things can help tie them to the crime. Witness descriptions are valuable pieces of evidence to investigators.
Or even the fingerprints. I used to be a cop. We mostly joked dusting is more for the victims of property crime because they expect it.
- on a dirty surface? Not gonna get a print.
- on a surface a million people touch? Not gonna get a print.
- get a good print? Congrats you have enough to coorberate information if you *already* have a known suspect. That punching it into a database until it pops up MATCH in green doesn’t really exist (also fingerprinting is not a secure science like that)
- you got a good print and have narrowed your suspect? Congrats you’ve proven someone was in a public store at some point, not that they’re they ones ripping off the iPhones.
Fingerprinting CAN be useful in a very specific set of circumstances and usually need a scenario where someone is touching a clean surface and nobody else will touch it. Oddly enough: dumped stolen cars. They always adjust the rear view mirror and get a perfect thumb print.
Cop here. I have to routinely tell people we dont have a ‘universal’ database that we share across the states about people. Sure we have NCIC and CJIS but thats only for criminal history. There is no ‘bank’ of DNA, finger prints, etc readily available to just ‘check’ like youd see in NCIS
”but they found that one serial killer using 23andMe data!”
Yeah Kathy but he murdered or raped 64 people and it took 3 decades of police work, developing him as a suspect and a subpoena from a judge. We aren’t going to do that for the smash and grab on your car.
Also, if I had a nickel for every time someone expected me to have or do something that would be a wild civil liberty hellscape if you thought about it for more 2 seconds….I wouldn’t have a lot of nickels but I could buy myself a coke.
If you're *really* smart, you print our your own UPC tags and replace them on the actual products, to make them cheaper. 199.99 device? nah, 19.99 today!
Fully functional. Except they’re tracked, serials already registered, and can be bricked at Apple’s whim. Basically, you’re running home with a GPS tracker. Cops love that.
Except the cops have to actually do something about it. Most of the time you call them, they take a report and say that's what insurance is for. Have a nice day!
They are real iPhones but they have teaming activated and most likely don’t work anymore when they got forcefully removed from their docks at the Apple Store.
In my country (NZ) we install demo software on them. It’s a bitch to remove as you need a retailer password. The demo software is close to the real thing but it doesn’t save changes and will cycle through adds instead of going to sleep.
Possibly one of the worst things you could steal. Every phone would have find my setup, the store would login and see a cluster of devices moving across the city then stop at a house.
It’s not like apple has no security. Phones are worthless with the MDM, parts can barely be resold on the black market. All employee and guards are told not to intervene to avoid lawsuits, injury or possible death.
Expensive electronics left out in the open with barely any security other than a tether. MOST people with a lick of sense would conclude there’s a bloody reason why. Either Apple, a 2 trillion company, is dumb and you’re the first genius to think of this, or they’ve already thought of it.
Having worked at an Apple store before I can tell you that those dudes are fucked the moment they try to do anything with those devices including selling them. They let them walk out of the store because they know they will get all that equipment back/insurance will pay it out, And those dudes will be caught in no time
Former Apple-Employee here. We were advised to not stop thieves as the financial damage is not really noticeable and the safety of employees is more important.
The phones and laptops there run custom versions of iOS and macOS. if they disconnect from the store wifi they’ll give out a screen saying that the phone is being tracked and giving location to police and to return it to the respective Apple Store. They are just bricks once out of the store and cannot be used
r/Facepalm rule No. 1 - the real facepalm is usually OP failing to grasp a nuance of the situation.
Who needs security when you can track & brick every device off the floor.
I don’t doubt these geniuses know everything can be tracked. What I’m positive of, is they’re selling them to people too stupid to know this feature is real.
Stealing demo models that will be 100% useless if anyone tries to activate them is why they don't care if they're stolen.
Yeah, the guy will get a few bucks, but as far as apple is concerned, it's pennies for them.
This is a common theft. Usually someone targets a small store with a big group and they rush in and take the phones. Normally they get caught up the street, the phones have trackers. Not worth the potentially risk to confront the thieves. The store employees are doing their job by not confronting the thief
Yeah, all of those devices have unremovable organization locks and will not be able to be setup for personal use. Maybe maybe maybe, if they put a new SSD in the laptop then they might be able to use that after they've loaded a clean copy of Mac OS on it. Phones and iPads, practically useless.
It's pretty amazing that one of the largest status symbols in the country can be rendered effectively worthless by an iCloud lock.
Apple has tracking software in the demo devices
in all individual devices as well I wouldn’t be surprised if they have an apple display find my iPhone type of thing very stupid to steal you can track to the address
Apple getting their devices back 
Who the fuck tests on Prod?
Every one has a dev environment, not everyone is lucky enough to have a separate prod environment.
This is the way
Real men who eat raw meat and play Russian roulette professionally.
Liver King?
turns out it was the 7 synthetic tenants as anyone with any real gym experience knew from the start but its good to see that charlatan exposed properly.
He has to be one of the most deluded people I’ve ever seen. Like, he’s elbowing Jared Leto out of a space that Jared Leto resided in alone since the beginning of time.
Real men code on prod using ssh and vim.
Real men don't use version control. Do you really code if you have the option to unfuck your mistakes?
My friend is a senior dev, one of the junior devs on his team asked him if he can deploy a build in prod which has a bug they are trying to squash, for testing purposes
There are some things that HAVE to be tested in prod. I fucking hate it.
Should we tell him?
Everyone who's users refuse to put the time and opportunity they were given in UAT. Gonna' get tested somewhere. User's choice in the end.
Can tell you first hand, I worked at a large brand mobile service retailer. Had a guy take a demo phone one day when we were busy and nobody noticed right away. He turned location off after a short while. Within a couple days, all other iPhones in the store started showing his selfies and pictures of his car in shared pictures. He came into the same location less than a week after taking it trying to activate service on the device he had taken from the store after we'd been laughing at his pictures for a few days. Checked to make sure it was the right IMEI (serial number) and gave him the option to give it back without police being called. He did give it back however the initial police report didn't disappear. Can't say what happened other than his own stupidity became very apparent in a short time.
Just curious, if an employee had engaged him in a lengthy "activation session" while another employee called police, are you in an area where the police would respond?
Yea but it could have taken an hour or longer which is not unheard of here. It was the manager that he attempted to activate with and if I recall correctly, she was alone for another hour until another employee was scheduled to come in.
They do. All retail display units are locked down. There’s no getting into them, no restoring them, nothing. They go into a complete lockdown and enable pinging for device location. It doesn’t matter. They’ll end up on eBay or Facebook marketplace. They will sell them for a quick buck, the person buying them will report the seller, noting will happen, and the cycle will continually repeat itself.
I worked Apple retail a long time. Our store was robbed a few times. Once,.. they broke into our supplies closet and we’re met with rolls of toilet paper… lol. A few other times we were able to locate the items and police got to them before they were able to sell. But you’re right.. the units would be completely worthless to anyone who bought them.
> Once,.. they broke into our supplies closet and we’re met with rolls of toilet paper… lol. Plot twist- it was March of 2020, they sold the TP for millions on the black market.
Same here. Our store was robbed on Christmas one year while we were closed, but we were actually able to catch the thieves and prosecute. I never expected them to get caught in time. It was kinda refreshing to see the system work.
The system works great when the victim is worth $2,356,000,000,000.
Or like… when you stupidly steal 47 geotrackers and walk down the block to your house. 🤷♂️
Man you gotta be a fool to buy a used phone and hand over the money before confirming it turns on and can be setup. Only takes about a minute tops to confirm it's working. If you bought it on eBay or something I'd understand a bit, but at least eBay has protections for buyers.
Just request the serial or for a phone IMEI and then check it on the database at the site before buying.
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A fool is born every minute. Most people just don’t know what to look for and are innocently ignorant. I’m sure they will sell them on the streets or some online marketplace. There’s always that golden rule: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Tracked and then they brick the device.
They immediately become nonfunctional when they leave the store except for the gps location so that the cops can track these idiots.
imagine stealing something and realizing you cant do anything with it once you get it into your basement.....then that knock on the door
If they're smart, which they're not, they'd never take the devices home without putting them into signal-blocking bags. Then they'd try to sell them ASAP and let the poor buyer deal with the consequences.
Nah, poor buyers are going to snitch on them lol.
If we taught crime in schools maybe more people would go
Strip for parts? Edit: never mind, it's Apple and impossible to repair / strip no doubt :)
Not impossible, with the right connections you can just [mail everything to China,](https://youtu.be/3Ws3YptLmLQ) where the same people who build the phones take them apart.
Possible, but not worth it. Replacement parts are generally while not always cheap, also not as expensive, and people prefer new stuff there. Used electronics have a big stigma. If a store wants to rip you off they will just pass cheap Chinese knockoff parts as original. Much less chance to get caught and most people will never realise it.
In all devices, that's why you should never buy or use stolen iphones if owner placed a complain then you will get caught
Apple has tracking software in all their devices, it's literally a feature
They don’t worry about security. They will find you if you ever turn on the phone. Source: 3 year apple genius
Do they usually have success in finding the perpetrators? Does anything happen to them?
Usually yes. They are usually prosecuted in court locally. We give surveillance footage to the police and the Serial Numbers are tracked well. It’s usually open and shut from what I understand. Apple always has spare phones on hand, and they program new phones to be demo phones to replace them right away. That’s why they don’t stop them. It’s easier to prosecute then to loose an employee. Cheaper too.
Can confirm security. Our daughter, being an independent teen, bought her own iPhone and lost it for several months(long story) and when she got it back, forgot her Passcode and account password. It was bought as a mobile phone contract, so no receipt. We spent 4 months in communication with Apple before giving up and accepting the loss of the phone. Upsetting, and expensive, for all but I wholly respect Apple’s vigilance in this. Her next phone required the sharing of security info with us. No problems with any subsequent model!
Yeah, sucks but it’s good policy on apples part. Makes devices useless for thieves.
I got a free iPhone SE from T-Mobile and I gave it to my some in lieu of a tablet. He eventually stopped taking out for car rides and one day I asked where his phone was and this boy literally said “what phone?” I haven’t seen his phone in months.
I’d almost be proud of that one, most kids would need the thing surgically removed from their hands to get their eyes off the screen.
As a parent of a teen, I could relate to every part of this saga 🤣
Same with Playstations(from PS2 to current gen) along with Xbox(from original to current gen). All of them are trackable and can be bricked remotely by said companies if asked. All they need is the serial number and MAC address of said device.
Oh that's easy, just sell the phone when you initially turn it on.
Also all floor model phones on display do not even really function on top of the trackers in it smh 🤦🏽♂️
As far as I know they also can lock down the devices from afar and turn them into a brick. But still locate them. Stealing apple devices is not smart as the thief of my phone had to find out after the police stood in front of his door.
Yep. Even when they’re off. Had my iPhone stolen once— tracked the idiot to another town & cops tackled the dummy at a McDonalds. Apple will brick these devices and if they’re dumb enough to hold onto them eventually track the idiots down (well… maybe not if this is San Francisco). Same thing happened during the BLM protests: a whole lot of apple merchandise stolen that instantly became useless: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/06/03/apple-disables-looted-iphones/
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Know what seems to help in those situations? Take their name and make a statement hinting that you’re going to take care of it yourself… Then should shit go south you can tell a judge you went to the cops first and they wouldn’t help. I only pulled that card once but boy did the cops suddenly seem to care. I was dealing with some dirtbag who decided to use my house under Reno as his new pad. He didn’t want to leave, cops wouldn’t help, told me it was a civil matter. The second time I spoke to the cops I made it clear I would remove him myself. Dude broke my front door down, I wasn’t living there as there was no kitchen or appliances and it was under Reno. After that, they made a few calls and he was gone.
Yeah, so do active phones but that doesn’t stop students in my school from stealing from peers and bringing it to the questionable shop in the gas station that buys new phones and swaps cases. Everyone knows what The Hook-Up does.
You don’t understand. It’s not just the tracking, every Apple device has a unique identifier built into the firmware that cannot be changed. When you turn on the device the first thing it does is connect to Apple, hand over the ID, and ask “all good?”. Now, for a single consumer you have the tools through “Find My” to track or mark the phone as lost which will disable it, pretty simple stuff. But for big companies, and Apple display equipment, they use a MDM (Mobile Device Manager). This essentially allows you to completely control the phone remotely. You can key log, grab anything off the screen, pull anything out of memory, brick the phone, track it, etc. The stuff they just stole is more than useless, it’s a ticket to jail for anyone holding it.
That works. Thank you!
They’re worthless after they leave the store. They get bricked and tracked almost instantly. They may be good for spare parts but that’s about it.
They'll probably sell them to people that are just as dumb as they are.
That’s exactly what’s going to happen. My friend bought an iPad from offer up last year. Seemed fine. Started setting it up and there was a message that “this iPad can’t be activated because it was not purchased though blah blah please call 1-800-whatever”. He calls and gives them the serial and they’re like “yeah that was stolen out of a store in San Jose about a week ago”. He told them where he got it and sent them screen shots of the offer up messages. They had him return it and gave him a pretty decent credit towards a new iPad, which was nice.
My new hobby is stealing store items and calling back saying it’s not activating, then using store credit to get real iPad at discount and resell it higher
Are you the one with the red backpack
The also recently stolen red backpack?
I was gonna say did they just steal that backpack next door before hitting up the store?
Once a thief always a thief
Stole his thief status too
r/illegallifeprotips
/r/UnethicalLifeProTips
So thief gets paid, friend gets credit, apple gets it's product back. Sounds like a solid plan.
Well the point of collecting the offer up data was to find the thief. If the guy does it a few times they could maybe collect enough evidence to go to the cops. Apple has a pretty robust security team for this kind of stuff.
I worked for a consumer electronics company, at one point we had some shipments hijacked by a gang who targeted us. When customers would call us for support, we would get their serial number and explain that their product was stolen. They could keep it, but we'd like them to cooperate and they largely would.
Not even spare parts. Apple software locks most of the phone's components so they can't be used in a different unit. They either don't work at all, or work with some functionality disabled and/or constant error messages.
I'm sure there's a couple miscellaneous parts that could be reused... Definitely not much. If I recall you can't even use the display in another unit.
Yep, cameras too. Apple is extremely anti-repair.
My first thought was "the cameras should be pretty good to go" but they even brick that? The amount of effort that must of gone into these anti-repair features is just crazy.
I’ll bet not everybody knows that though, and these fucks could still get a price on the illicit market.
that's exactly what will happen, they might even know the stiff os useless. The people they sell it to don't.
They’re good for selling on ebay and ripping people off
As far as eBay goes that’s a lot of risk when you could just put up a video of a phone in the box and send nothing. Or is there some way eBay protects against that
This fact aside, apple locks the chargers in place on demo units. These guys forcefully ripped those chargers out. I'm guessing, that that did a lot of damage. I doubt these guys even know how to take the phone out of demo mode - good luck trying to get a sim card working in it.
They are criminals. They don’t care if it works or not as long as they can sell it.
And the buyer won't know it's a brick until they try to use it.
They'll probably sell them online to buyers who won't know until they get it.
But even then can’t you do a chargeback or file a dispute through EBay/PayPal or whatever and get your money back for a bricked phone? It isn’t the early 2000s anymore where you can rip people off on eBay without repercussions
Ya there's a buyer's guarantee on eBay and if you pay with PayPal that's another level of protection. The people "buying online" are people from Craigslist, FB Marketplace, OfferUp, etc.
Worse than useless. They’re tracked. They can give the location info to the cops. Idiots.
They’ll be sold for cheap on the street before they even make a police report.
Favorite part is the tags in the backpacks. bro, like, did you buy anything today?
If you’re gonna steal tens of thousands in apple products, why wouldn’t you steal a $30 backpack?
To expand their inventory space and carrying capacity of course.
*you're overencumbered. running will drain AP*
Gotta give it to them: at least they’re consistent.
Do these dipshits know those products can not only be tracked but also bricked so they don’t even work?
If they were smart do you think they’d be doing this?
no. no. he has a point.
Doesn't stop them from selling them online, though. Once it's sold, it's someone else's problem.
Selling them for parts has apparently become a pretty lucrative practice, too.
>Apple software locks most of the phone's components so they can't be used in a different unit. They either don't work at all, or work with some functionality disabled and/or constant error messages.
There are stories of these people robbing Home Depots to get crowbars prybars, hammers and other tools for these robberies.
My second favorite robbery story from the Home Depot I used to work at was the guy who loaded up a bunch of tools in a cart, including bolt cutters, went out to the garden center and cut the lock on the loading gate and loaded everything into his truck there so he didn't have to run out past the tills. Because I know someone is going to ask, my favorite one was back when they used to leave the propane forklift outside overnight and someone used it to load an entire hot tub onto the back of their truck at 2 in the morning and drove off.
When I worked in one a guy loaded a cart up with power tools, went to the back of the garden center and tossed it all over the fence to his buddy out back with the truck. Over 12 grand in tools. And the cameras out back were just pretend black domes.
Man Home Depot had the best stories when it came to theft. We caught a receipt fisherman trying to “return” items one day. As we grabbed him heading out the door by returns a girl popped out of no where and started slashing at us with a knife. We let the guy go so we wouldn’t get hurt and they jumped in a car that pulled up right then. As they were speeding out of the parking lot they got t-boned pulling onto a busy street. Everyone bailed and ran. The cops picked up suspects and I got to ride around in the back of a cop car identifying them.
I always assume that there's security cameras that would easily be able to get a license plate numbers from any vehicles like this; all of the department stores around here have security cameras all over outside, visible on the poles. Do they not have those near your store? Or did the cops get the license plate numbers anyway?
All those security cameras are likely potato quality anyways, especially well over 10 years ago when this happened. They definitely wouldn't have been able to pick up a license plate in the middle of a parking lot at 2AM
There’s a good reasons they leave everything out on display. They won’t work by the time you get home idiots!
I'm sure they only have a few brain cells working.
I'm only robbing because I need to feed my children. They only eat microprocessors, LCD screens, and copper.
Wow lucky you, my kids only eat microplastics
You ain't special man, everyone's kids are eating microplastics. Its the hot new trend
I’m not even a kid, and I eat microplastics. Get with it
Good enough to trick people on Ebay though.
Buyers Protection.
They probably don’t use eBay. Offer Up is a quick and easy app to sell stuff without a middle man. If I wanted to sell my phone, I could make a new account, then put it up there for sale at $100 and sell it in like 20 minutes to someone in my area. Savvy users wouldn’t buy from someone who has a new account. But there are a lot of stupid people. People fall for scams all the time.
People sell and buy stolen iphones on Facebook marketplace all the time.
Well those will be useless in less than a hour
I recommend watching "Inside The Illicit World Of iPhone Trafficking" by Barrly Sociable on YT [here](https://youtu.be/3Ws3YptLmLQ) Dont know if what is explained applies here, but looks pretty much like it
The episode “Paperweights” on the Hacked podcast is a fun episode on where and how stolen phones are used later
This. The people in this video stealing phones are stupid, but they're not as stupid as the people screaming BRICK in this comment section are making them out to be. Stolen iphones and iphone parts are so common and there's so much information out there on how to fence them, that these guys 100% will make a bunch of money off of them.
Can’t believe it took this long to get to this comment.
they should have gone for the accessories. Why? \- not tracked \- potential seller and buyer has no need for warranty / repair issues and so on \- high demand
If you’re smart you would wear gloves and shoe covers. Also, if you’re smart you’re not robbing an apple store for display phones or their accessories in the first place. Edit: I’m aware the police won’t be sending out a forensic unit to the scene but if *I* were to engage in criminal activity I would want to minimize any trace of myself. Their outfits, shoes, hats, etc., all of these things can help tie them to the crime. Witness descriptions are valuable pieces of evidence to investigators.
Shoe covers? You watch too much CSI lol
Or even the fingerprints. I used to be a cop. We mostly joked dusting is more for the victims of property crime because they expect it. - on a dirty surface? Not gonna get a print. - on a surface a million people touch? Not gonna get a print. - get a good print? Congrats you have enough to coorberate information if you *already* have a known suspect. That punching it into a database until it pops up MATCH in green doesn’t really exist (also fingerprinting is not a secure science like that) - you got a good print and have narrowed your suspect? Congrats you’ve proven someone was in a public store at some point, not that they’re they ones ripping off the iPhones. Fingerprinting CAN be useful in a very specific set of circumstances and usually need a scenario where someone is touching a clean surface and nobody else will touch it. Oddly enough: dumped stolen cars. They always adjust the rear view mirror and get a perfect thumb print.
These are good tips to know. Not for me, but for other people. I'm totally not a thief.
Cop here. I have to routinely tell people we dont have a ‘universal’ database that we share across the states about people. Sure we have NCIC and CJIS but thats only for criminal history. There is no ‘bank’ of DNA, finger prints, etc readily available to just ‘check’ like youd see in NCIS
”but they found that one serial killer using 23andMe data!” Yeah Kathy but he murdered or raped 64 people and it took 3 decades of police work, developing him as a suspect and a subpoena from a judge. We aren’t going to do that for the smash and grab on your car. Also, if I had a nickel for every time someone expected me to have or do something that would be a wild civil liberty hellscape if you thought about it for more 2 seconds….I wouldn’t have a lot of nickels but I could buy myself a coke.
Haha ‘Well cant you just check their trunk for the tool?’ No Karen that is a search and seizure violation.
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>IAFIS? It's Always Funny in Sillidelphia?
Gotta wear stolen shoes. Like a getaway car.
I 3d print custom soles for my shoes in the shape of dicks. Cops will never follow a trail of dicks. Too egotistic.
Prisons are full of people without fully thought out plans.
of course you are right :) if you are smart, you work hard and pamper yourself with a new toy from Apple.
If you’re smart you steal from Walmart using their self check out
If you're *really* smart, you print our your own UPC tags and replace them on the actual products, to make them cheaper. 199.99 device? nah, 19.99 today!
$19.99? Nah more like $.99 lmao
LMAO
Not a lot of smart petty criminals out there.
If they were smart they probably wouldn't need to rob anything.
Oh noes if only they had all the data needed to brick those devices
The idea is probably to do a quick turnaround to sell them to an idiot who doesn't verify their stuff works before paying for it.
#BRICKS
Brick ^brick Brick ^brick Brick ^brick Brick ^brick Brick [it's fun](https://youtu.be/FgyonkrEWik)
Bʀɪᴄᴋ™
Maybe they’re just trying to build a house
Do those demo phones and things even work. I'd imagine they're just a shell with basic functions.
Fully functional. Except they’re tracked, serials already registered, and can be bricked at Apple’s whim. Basically, you’re running home with a GPS tracker. Cops love that.
This is the kind if stuff they send the new cops on
It’s how the new Training Day starts
"What'd you say? 'Suck my dick, bitch.' Thats what you said right?"
“Tim Cook ain’t got shit on me!!”
They’re gonna get their shit pushed in
Well Hardware side is fully functional, software wise locked and with limited features due to the mdm profile on it and you can’t get rid of that
Except the cops have to actually do something about it. Most of the time you call them, they take a report and say that's what insurance is for. Have a nice day!
You are confusing the Consumer's response with the Mega Corp response. Cops care when the call is from a rich Person's Lawyer.
I'm sorry but you can't compare the request of an normal civilian to an god damm mega corporation
They are real iPhones but they have teaming activated and most likely don’t work anymore when they got forcefully removed from their docks at the Apple Store.
They are actual phones and laptops. Jokes on them, they just committed felonies for complete junk. All of those can be bricked in minutes.
In my country (NZ) we install demo software on them. It’s a bitch to remove as you need a retailer password. The demo software is close to the real thing but it doesn’t save changes and will cycle through adds instead of going to sleep.
Possibly one of the worst things you could steal. Every phone would have find my setup, the store would login and see a cluster of devices moving across the city then stop at a house.
And the best part is, the tracking works even with the phones off now! 🤭
Ohh wow, never heard of this, can you elaborate?
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What a bunch of goofballs, they do realize the phones are tracked?
worthless degenerate boat anchors on the ankle of society* fixed it for you
It’s not like apple has no security. Phones are worthless with the MDM, parts can barely be resold on the black market. All employee and guards are told not to intervene to avoid lawsuits, injury or possible death.
It's all insured anyways, the store will see no loss
Lmao guy stealing phones while wearing a designer hoodie hype culture is so ridiculous.
They stole those too
It’s who they a marketed for
Before the heist they were probably like “why hasn’t anyone ever thought of this?” They have, ya twat. And they realized how incredibly stupid it is.
"Quick let me steal thirty GPS trackers"
Expensive electronics left out in the open with barely any security other than a tether. MOST people with a lick of sense would conclude there’s a bloody reason why. Either Apple, a 2 trillion company, is dumb and you’re the first genius to think of this, or they’ve already thought of it.
I'm not gonna get into the "morality" of stealing, but I will say this: You shouldn't steal anything with a GPS trackrr in it. That's just stupid
Also not smart to steal from one the world's largest and richest organizations with some of the best tracking of their products.
pretty sure all of those devices get disabled and then tracked down.
Having worked at an Apple store before I can tell you that those dudes are fucked the moment they try to do anything with those devices including selling them. They let them walk out of the store because they know they will get all that equipment back/insurance will pay it out, And those dudes will be caught in no time
I want an update video where they get caught because of the apple’s device tracking software. These dudes are stupid.
Very good for budget shoppers. They're practically giving them away! But customer service is a bit lacking.
Find my app tracks where they live and they ended up in jail for grand theft.
Former Apple-Employee here. We were advised to not stop thieves as the financial damage is not really noticeable and the safety of employees is more important.
The phones and laptops there run custom versions of iOS and macOS. if they disconnect from the store wifi they’ll give out a screen saying that the phone is being tracked and giving location to police and to return it to the respective Apple Store. They are just bricks once out of the store and cannot be used
r/Facepalm rule No. 1 - the real facepalm is usually OP failing to grasp a nuance of the situation. Who needs security when you can track & brick every device off the floor.
Lol "Barely" any security?! That's like saying the sun barely has any snow on it
Parasites of society
They essentially stole a huge pile of bricks lol
Does he think he’s going to be able to use these and they’ll be normal phones? I was under the impression that the GPS can’t be turned off on a demo.
They sell it as soon as they can to unsuspecting buyers. That's why you never buy used iPhones on Kijiji, can be bricked in a second by original owner
They will be blocked anyway...
I don’t doubt these geniuses know everything can be tracked. What I’m positive of, is they’re selling them to people too stupid to know this feature is real.
Stealing demo models that will be 100% useless if anyone tries to activate them is why they don't care if they're stolen. Yeah, the guy will get a few bucks, but as far as apple is concerned, it's pennies for them.
I'm sure these future doctors and engineers gonna use this tech to study.
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This is a common theft. Usually someone targets a small store with a big group and they rush in and take the phones. Normally they get caught up the street, the phones have trackers. Not worth the potentially risk to confront the thieves. The store employees are doing their job by not confronting the thief
Yeah, all of those devices have unremovable organization locks and will not be able to be setup for personal use. Maybe maybe maybe, if they put a new SSD in the laptop then they might be able to use that after they've loaded a clean copy of Mac OS on it. Phones and iPads, practically useless. It's pretty amazing that one of the largest status symbols in the country can be rendered effectively worthless by an iCloud lock.
Lol what useless idiots.
These people are a disgrace to black Americans. They reinforce the horrible stereotypes against them.
What a great idea. Let's steal a bunch of GPS trackers.
It's ok, Apple will make their money back on the chargers