Sorta related, and involving Apple, so...
Scammers Who Stole $1.5 Million From Apple Sentenced to Combined 13 Years in Jail
First...good.
Second...
Quote:
It was reported in September 2021 that two scammers developed a scheme to use point-of-sale devices stolen from Apple stores to generate fraudulent Apple gift cards between 2015 and 2017.
The scam was enabled through a handheld employee-only point-of-sale device called an "Isaac." Retail employees carry Isaacs around in the store, allowing them to check stock and sell products to customers wherever they are.
One of the scammers simply walked into Apple Stores across the country and waited for opportune moments to steal an Isaac device. They then sat outside the same store, still connected to its Wi-Fi network, and used the logged-in employee account on the Isaac to acquire thousands of dollars worth of digital gift cards.
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That easy, huh? Good grief.
There's always an angle. There are people who wake up every day looking to get over. The idea of just working a regular gig never occurs to them. They'd rather gamble their freedom and pursue this sort of thing, knowing it can't possibly last or go unanswered. There's something in the brain/personality makeup of some that just makes this sort of existence seem "normal"; in the very way that thing is missing (hopefully) in most of us.
Tech is a double-edged sword...for all the joy, goodness and convenience it's brought us over the past 20+ years, there's this whole wide open, "Wild West" aspect to it as well. Our data/information/privacy is probably more in jeopardy (and constantly under attack) than ever before. We live our lives online (banking, bills, socializing, etc.) and, with that, comes that feeling that you're jumping into a swimming pool with some sharks and alligators lurking about as well. They're out there, by the gazillions, waiting to find an easy score.
These clowns above...
they're going to prison. They didn't steal an apple (lower-case "a") or a chicken so they wouldn't starve. They put effort into screwing over others, and probably thinking "what's a big company like Apple going to care...this is chump change to them".
Millions of anything is chump change to no one, I assure you. I can't feel bad for those doing this kind of stuff.
Off-topic (click to toggle):
On a couple of occasions over the past 20 years I've turned down/declined to go in with a "friend of a friend of a friend" on something that I knew was "too good to be true" (and legally questionable, at best). Yeah, I probably could've made some money and had some "nice things" as a result. But I also possess the grounded, increasingly-rare(?) ability to look ahead to the future for more than 17 minutes, and realize "this isn't worth ongoing involuntary butt-fuckings - and God knows what else - in state prison for the foreseeable future", so it's never hard for me to decline/ignore shady, questionable stuff.
I don't wanna disappoint/break my Mom's heart, to be honest. She should see me on Fridays for grocery/errand day and Sundays for lunch/game shows...not visiting rooms, through glass and a nasty phone receiver, once a month.  I genuinely feel sorry for those who've never had someone to hold them to a better standard. |