Profiteers flipping iPhone 6 units to Chinese reportedly to blame for fight at Apple Store

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Comments

  • Reply 61 of 99
    sog35 wrote: »
    Read my post in the other thread.  I NEVER denied there was no scalping by Chinese people. 

    Second I never called anyone a racists.  I said their comments had racist undertones.  I clearly stated that the person who made the comments was not racist but maybe insensitive.

    My whole point was the poster said ALL the Chinese people in line could not speak English, were old, and were participating in a gray market scheme.  Some of them were.  I know that.  But when you conclude that ALL of them were just because they were of Chinese decent that is WRONG.  That is GENERALIZING.  That is concluding that a whole group of people are all the same and all are participating in an illegal activity because they look the same. 

    Full disclosure:  My grandmother was 100% Chinese.  She faced alot of racism and descrimination when she was younger.  Things are better now.  But we need to be careful not to let the ugliness of racism and generalization creep up in the USA again.

    LOL... Maybe you are unaware that Canada actually had a law at one time which explicitly prevented Chinese immigration (the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923). They believed their country was in danger of being overrun: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Immigration_Act,_1923

    That's right. Even in Canada...
  • Reply 62 of 99
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jungmark View Post





    They will always run out of iPhones. You think Apple doesn't want to sell iPhones to everyone? There's only so many iPhones they can make. Suppose they could have start making them earlier. That means they would need to stop making the previous iPhones sooner so then they will have a scarcity of current iPhones by a month or two. How does that help?

    Because Black Friday sales always run smoothly.

     

    That's my point. I'm just saying that Apple is not a victim of an unknown phenomenon here, and that they could correct it if that was a priority, but it's not. Most people are happy to wait, and this is just the way things work.

  • Reply 63 of 99
    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

    Bottom line is this:  Just because someone is of Chinese decent in an Apple line don't jump to conclusions that:




    Uh oh. Looks like you need to give Adobe a call.

  • Reply 64 of 99
    That's my point. I'm just saying that Apple is not a victim of an unknown phenomenon here, and that they could correct it if that was a priority, but it's nice fot. Most people are happy to wait, and this is just the way things work.

    Apple may seem to have a "sure thing" in the iPhone, but even Apple cannot be 100% certain that they will always have a runaway hit. If they had produced 100 million phones, ready for sale on the first day and demand ended up weak, there would be a big problem.
  • Reply 65 of 99
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post





    Apple may seem to have a "sure thing" in the iPhone, but even Apple cannot be 100% certain that they will always have a runaway hit. If they had produced 100 million phones, ready for sale on the first day and demand ended up weak, there would be a big problem.

     

    Yeah, you have to keep pressure on supply.

  • Reply 66 of 99

    This is what is wrong with the society these days.  It seems everyone has different rules/principles.  

     

    We have one society where it is okay to publicly generalize a race/ethnic-origin, but not gender.  

     

    And we have another society deprived of the new tech goodies and nurtures market for the flipper/profiteers. 

     

    Wait a minute, aren't these profiteers flipping via eBay?   or was it a chinese eBay?

     

    I don't remember hearing much racial slurs when Wii, Playstation, Xbox, Skylanders figures, Elmo, & etc. being flipped for profit on eBay.  Even though it was not the proper thing to do, I don't remember this being illegal.

     

    Personally, I think it is not appropriate to publicly generalize a race or ethnic origin as much as for people to flip products for profit illegitimately.

     

    Either way, damage is already done.

  • Reply 68 of 99
    prokip wrote: »

    If people were buying AT&T or Verizon phones for resale in China how were they getting around having to activate them on those carriers?

    Who says they are. You buy it full price and activate it on a new line which you turn around and cancel just hours later. You might lose $50 in the process but what's that compared to selling the phone for as much as $4000 overseas
  • Reply 70 of 99
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

     



    Uh oh. Looks like you need to give Adobe a call.


     

    lmao  

  • Reply 71 of 99
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by prokip View Post

     



    Sorry sing, that won't work.  I could show up weeks ahead of a launch, get my token and then go home, to arrive back just before opening on launch day.  Believe me I have thought about how to solve the problem and it's not easy.




    They wouldn't do it weeks ahead of the launch because they won't do it before the product has been announced. 

     

    Now a system like in China where you go online and sign up for the model you want and then you are randomly issued a reservation which you can either request to pick up in the store on a day within 72 hours of when you got the 'pass' or complete the order and have it already paid and secured, to also pick up in store. And have that system start within hours of the announcement. Yes something like that could be done. it's basically what they did in China after that big riot. But in order for it to stop the resellers it would have to be the only way to get a phone (no simply waiting in line or walking in) and it would have to have checks and balances to make sure that someone wasn't signing up tons of accounts to get past limits

  • Reply 72 of 99
    bitemymac wrote: »
    I don't remember hearing much racial slurs when Wii, Playstation, Xbox, Skylanders figures, Elmo, & etc. being flipped for profit on eBay.  Even though it was not the proper thing to do, I don't remember this being illegal

    Do any of those devices need government approval before being able to be sold?

    What's funny is before the iPhone became insanely popular worldwide it was consumers in the US that were buying unlocked phones from overseas because they weren't available stateside.
  • Reply 73 of 99
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by charlituna View Post

     



    They wouldn't do it weeks ahead of the launch because they won't do it before the product has been announced. 

     

    Now a system like in China where you go online and sign up for the model you want and then you are randomly issued a reservation which you can either request to pick up in the store on a day within 72 hours of when you got the 'pass' or complete the order and have it already paid and secured, to also pick up in store. And have that system start within hours of the announcement. Yes something like that could be done. it's basically what they did in China after that big riot. But in order for it to stop the resellers it would have to be the only way to get a phone (no simply waiting in line or walking in) and it would have to have checks and balances to make sure that someone wasn't signing up tons of accounts to get past limits




    cahrli,  great solution.  I hope Tim Cook is listening!!  Do this everywhere, not just in China !!

  • Reply 74 of 99
    That's my point. I'm just saying that Apple is not a victim of an unknown phenomenon here, and that they could correct it if that was a priority, but it's not. Most people are happy to wait, and this is just the way things work.

    Build excess capacity just for launch? Plus these iPhones use components. Who is to say that they get all the components for all the iPhones they would need at launch? It's a logistical dance.
  • Reply 75 of 99
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jungmark View Post





    It might work. Apple can say you can't get a numbered token until 10 am the previous day. And you need to come back by the time the store opens and line up by the numbers on launch day. But who is to say those line tokens won't be sold.



    They had a system that should have been better than that but either it failed or some stores failed to use it properly. And in either case that needs to be dealt with. 

     

    The system was supposed to work that at some designated point like 2 hours prior to doors opening, staffers were supposed to go out and issue reservations to each person in line. These would be tied to a  name, a phone number and a specific model phone right down to the color. A real time inventory tracking system was supposed to count off all the reserved phones as well as all of the online for in store pickup sales etc to have an accurate count of the store so that line staff could say 'sorry dude but there are no more iPhone 6 plus in gold for ATT' as soon as it happened and no one was waiting for something they wouldn't get. A staff could hang at the rear of the line to catch new arrivals and issue them a pass. If someone got to the front of the line without one they would be sent to the back. If someone wanted to leave the line to go to work or whatever they could but they would come back to the end of the line to wait but at least know that their phone was theirs and no one could buy it. 

     

    But as I said either it failed or the staff didn't use it properly because apparently it allowed folks to return to the line to get passes for more phones than the alleged daily and lifetime limits, it wasn't properly tracking stock numbers or the staff were waiting until folks were basically at the front of the line to bother to check stock. 

  • Reply 76 of 99
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by prokip View Post

     



    cahrli,  great solution.  I hope Tim Cook is listening!!  Do this everywhere, not just in China !!




    Unfortunately if Cook had been listening this kind of a system would have been in place already, and perhaps for a couple of years. As nasty as it sounds I'm glad this fight happened because now perhaps folks will start asking Apple why they haven't done something already

  • Reply 77 of 99
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post





    Do any of those devices need government approval before being able to be sold?



    What's funny is before the iPhone became insanely popular worldwide it was consumers in the US that were buying unlocked phones from overseas because they weren't available stateside.

    double standards at best........

     

    However, not illegal.  It's just a smart phone.  Blame the society where their phone became their best friend and it becomes personal owning such devices.

  • Reply 78 of 99
    bitemymac wrote: »
    double standards at best........

    However, not illegal.  It's just a smart phone.  Blame the society where their phone became their best friend and it becomes personal owning such devices.

    Oh, boo-hoo.
  • Reply 79 of 99
    Originally Posted by bitemymac View Post

    However, not illegal.



    So you’re saying it’s not illegal to sell an iPhone 6 in China right now?

  • Reply 80 of 99

    So you’re saying it’s not illegal to sell an iPhone 6 in China right now?

    Only for Apple. I'll state again, how many unlocked phones were very easy to find stateside a few years ago. None of those phones had FCC approval, but were easily found on the web, and in many legitimate businesses.
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