iPhone repair scam: Chinese national jailed

Two Chinese-born Maryland repair fraudsters who are said to have illegally stolen more than 6,000 iPhones from Apple will serve 57 and 54 months in prison, respectively. Damage is said to have totaled more than $2.5 million. in a message Of the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia in Washington.

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IMEI and serial number are fake

Two citizens of the People’s Republic, Haotian S. And Pengfei Since that wasn’t possible, they got new equipment back – worth about $3.8 million. All devices came from Hong Kong and were then “exchanged” at various Apple Stores in the United States – as well as the company’s many authorized service centers. To prevent the devices from being identified too quickly, they had faked the serial and IMEI numbers to make them appear genuine.

Both convicts will have to pay monetary compensation – a total of about $1.5 million. After being released, he must also go on “supervised release” for three years, meaning he will continue to be monitored and must report to his probation officer. there is a conspiracy to punish mail fraud And committed mail fraud. The counterfeit devices reached the perpetrators at several UPS mail collection points in the Washington area.

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Repair fraud is potentially a million dollar business

The issue of repair fraud has plagued Apple for years. For example, a similar case occurred in Switzerland in 2020 in which 1,000 iPhones were illegally exchanged. More cases were reported in 2019, involving millions – and even 10,000 devices.

Apple is now trying to combat repair fraud with new serial number procedures and special hardware. Creating a fake iPhone shouldn’t be that easy anymore. How often this still happens is unclear, after all, as mentioned, the Maryland/Washington case also affected the years 2017 to 2019. Apple has also begun to stop replacing devices with new (or refurbished) hardware so frequently and is focusing more on repairing individual components.

(B.Sc.)