How did Apple not notice that they were shipping 1,493 iPhones to the same address the reason the iPhones did not turn on is that they were fake the serial number of the returned iPhones had never...
The fraud case began to unravel in April 2017 after the US customs agents seized at least five shipments from Hong Kong that they suspected to contain counterfeit Apple products, court documents show.
How did Apple not notice that
they were shipping 1,493 iPhones to the same address
the reason the iPhones did not turn on is that they were fake
the serial number of the returned iPhones had never been purchased
Sometimes huge companies don't actually pay much attention to everything that's going on. Here's another recent story about a guy from Lithuania that managed to scam $122 million from Facebook and...
Sometimes huge companies don't actually pay much attention to everything that's going on.
I get that these are rounding errors to large companies. But quality control should be Apples bread and butter. That Lithuanian had a sophisticated scam. He faked invoices, contracts and letters....
I get that these are rounding errors to large companies. But quality control should be Apples bread and butter.
That Lithuanian had a sophisticated scam. He faked invoices, contracts and letters. It's not easy to determine a fake contract from a real one, or to verify signatures of busy executives. Yet eventually an auditing system caught him out. Which is what the auditing systems are designed to do.
In this case, Apple appeared to have no clue about the fraud, until an eagle eyed customs officer started to investigate.
I can't believe Apple doesn't have a system to log the serial number of returned iPhones in order to determine if there is a manufacturing defect associated with a specific supplier. Surely the fake iPhones would have had equally fake serial numbers.
They also never once cracked the fake iPhone open to determine what the underlying cause was?
Or they did, but no one cared?
Edit: I worked on returns material authorization (RMA) systems decades ago, and this was a common scam back then. Each RMA required a valid serial number plus a valid shipping address. Tech companies such as HP would drop ship replacement parts with a return fedex. If you didn't return a defective part, your address got black balled. No more proactive shipments for you. They tracked the complete bills of materials that comprised each serial number, and could pin point who manufactured the defective part and if it met the agreed upon tolerances and specifications.
Maybe this kind of fraud is so common that Apple doesn't bother to stop it anymore. Their priority is fulfilling valid warranties more so than checking for (or stopping) fraudulent warranties.
Maybe this kind of fraud is so common that Apple doesn't bother to stop it anymore. Their priority is fulfilling valid warranties more so than checking for (or stopping) fraudulent warranties.
Automation and a long line of people who expected said automation to work without oversight, I'm willing to bet. That's how it's always been when shit like this happens at places I've worked.
Automation and a long line of people who expected said automation to work without oversight, I'm willing to bet. That's how it's always been when shit like this happens at places I've worked.
Most manufacturing companies I have worked with have reports to identify outliers in the return processes, as well as some sort of diagnostics process to identify and resolve common manufacturing...
Most manufacturing companies I have worked with have reports to identify outliers in the return processes, as well as some sort of diagnostics process to identify and resolve common manufacturing defects.
How did Apple not notice that
Sometimes huge companies don't actually pay much attention to everything that's going on.
Here's another recent story about a guy from Lithuania that managed to scam $122 million from Facebook and Google by just... sending them fake invoices that they paid: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/lithuanian-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-100-million-from-google-facebook/
I get that these are rounding errors to large companies. But quality control should be Apples bread and butter.
That Lithuanian had a sophisticated scam. He faked invoices, contracts and letters. It's not easy to determine a fake contract from a real one, or to verify signatures of busy executives. Yet eventually an auditing system caught him out. Which is what the auditing systems are designed to do.
In this case, Apple appeared to have no clue about the fraud, until an eagle eyed customs officer started to investigate.
I can't believe Apple doesn't have a system to log the serial number of returned iPhones in order to determine if there is a manufacturing defect associated with a specific supplier. Surely the fake iPhones would have had equally fake serial numbers.
They also never once cracked the fake iPhone open to determine what the underlying cause was?
Or they did, but no one cared?
Edit: I worked on returns material authorization (RMA) systems decades ago, and this was a common scam back then. Each RMA required a valid serial number plus a valid shipping address. Tech companies such as HP would drop ship replacement parts with a return fedex. If you didn't return a defective part, your address got black balled. No more proactive shipments for you. They tracked the complete bills of materials that comprised each serial number, and could pin point who manufactured the defective part and if it met the agreed upon tolerances and specifications.
Maybe this kind of fraud is so common that Apple doesn't bother to stop it anymore. Their priority is fulfilling valid warranties more so than checking for (or stopping) fraudulent warranties.
Automation and a long line of people who expected said automation to work without oversight, I'm willing to bet. That's how it's always been when shit like this happens at places I've worked.
Most manufacturing companies I have worked with have reports to identify outliers in the return processes, as well as some sort of diagnostics process to identify and resolve common manufacturing defects.
Clearly that's something that Apple would have benefited from spending more money on