Man beaten, robbed of $95,000 worth of iPhones outside Apple Store
A man carrying his purchase of 300 iPhones was robbed and assaulted near the Apple Store on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, losing $95,000 worth of merchandise.
Robbery outside an Apple Store
According to the New York Police Department, the attack occurred early Monday morning. The 27-year-old victim was targeted shortly after leaving the Apple Store with his goods.
Around 1:45 AM, a store employee put the 300 iPhone 13 boxes into three large bags, that were handed over to the man. Shortly after returning to his car, another vehicle pulled up and two men demanded the bags.
The victim fought back, but was punched in the face. The attackers managed to steal one of the iPhone-filled bags before driving away.
The bag contained 125 iPhones worth approximately $95,000, according to police. As to why he had so many iPhones in his possession, the victim regularly makes large purchases from Apple to resell through his small business, and that was part of his order.
The man wasn't gravely injured and refused medical attention at the scene.
Apple's store on Fifth Avenue is open 24 hours a day and can facilitate purchases at odd hours. It is likely that the early-morning activity was to avoid shifting such a high value of order in view of the general public, which would make the man more of a target for theft.
The investigation is ongoing, and the NYPD has yet to release a description of the suspects or their vehicle, according to Audacy on Tuesday.
Read on AppleInsider
Robbery outside an Apple Store
According to the New York Police Department, the attack occurred early Monday morning. The 27-year-old victim was targeted shortly after leaving the Apple Store with his goods.
Around 1:45 AM, a store employee put the 300 iPhone 13 boxes into three large bags, that were handed over to the man. Shortly after returning to his car, another vehicle pulled up and two men demanded the bags.
The victim fought back, but was punched in the face. The attackers managed to steal one of the iPhone-filled bags before driving away.
The bag contained 125 iPhones worth approximately $95,000, according to police. As to why he had so many iPhones in his possession, the victim regularly makes large purchases from Apple to resell through his small business, and that was part of his order.
The man wasn't gravely injured and refused medical attention at the scene.
Apple's store on Fifth Avenue is open 24 hours a day and can facilitate purchases at odd hours. It is likely that the early-morning activity was to avoid shifting such a high value of order in view of the general public, which would make the man more of a target for theft.
The investigation is ongoing, and the NYPD has yet to release a description of the suspects or their vehicle, according to Audacy on Tuesday.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
I thought Apple didn't have many phones anyway with the meltdown happening in CHHHIIIINNNA....
We are 100% not allowed to sell to somebody if we know they are going to resell the devices at a profit.
The person could be a consultant charging for configuration services for their clients. That would be acceptable. Many of the local consultants separate those sides of the business and have us invoice directly to the end user.
Sorry, but this story doesn't pass the smell test. I live in Manhattan, not very far from this store, and no one who regularly makes purchases this large from NYC Apple locations would handle purchases this way. It's just dumb. Heck, I wouldn't be walking to my car with AirPods in an Apple bag at 2AM.
As for "lawless" NYC: that gets repeated so often in right-leaning media, you might even think it's true. It's not. Crime is up, no doubt--but it's up from historic lows, pre-Covid. If you look at NYC crime data going back many decades, we're still at the lower end of the data, historically--not remotely close to how it's portrayed. That said, the upward trend in some crime categories should be addressed now, before it gets worse.
So NYC remains the safest large city in America. And folks from other places should compare their crime rates before tossing their rocks from within a glass house.
My first response to the story is “why would he just not have them shipped?”
It makes no sense to assume that kind of risk.
I remember a story from decades ago: a retail store manager always took a bagged lunch in a brown paper bag and took the bag home with him every night. He was clearly being observed, because one night after locking up he was severely bashed and the bag taken: the criminals had assumed he was carrying the daily takings.
The facts of the situation don't factor into the decision-making process of the criminals, it's all down to their perception. Hard to be too harsh on the victim.
New stories post regularly about the criminals involved. https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2022/07/29/eight-indicted-money-laundering-ring
Most of these buyers request no name no email printed receipts for their own records so that the purchases are untraceable to anybody.
These resellers all know each other, competing daily in stores to clean out the stores’ of most popular iPhone products for their customers on any given day. They see each other’s faces and “team” members and figure out who are the ones with the biggest credit cards, gift cards, and even Apple Pay on their iPhones. Known big buyers can be seen and easily followed upon leaving the store with such large caches of iPhones and then mugged and robbed of the known high value of what they are known to be carrying.
The internal nomenclature reference to these customers has evolved over the years. Variously they are “hobbyists”, “our volume friends”, “bonus bumpers”, etc. At one point I had it explained to me that if they refused to sell to a known reseller, they would be accused of discrimination because the largest percentage are of specific ethnic descents. Most recently, they are officially “non end-user” customers and, while still generally limited to two iPhones per transaction, they are recently no longer required to return to the back of the line of customers waiting to buy. They are now “officially” allowed to purchase until the store inventory is gone. What are the legitimate end users to do? This activity is a significant contribution to the lack of availability to true Apple customers.
This policy was copied and pasted from the Apple website just now:
“Consumers Only
The Apple Store sells and ships products to end-user customers only, and we reserve the right to refuse or cancel your order if we suspect you are purchasing products for resale.”
It is clear in each retail store that Apple is violating its own stated policy.
New Hampshire has also long been a favorite of the resellers because there is no sales tax.
I could go in but suffice it to say, Apple speaks out of both sides of its “policy”.