A man going by the alias of Mike Teevee in Kalamazoo Michagan, scammed Apple out of 9,000+ iPod Shuffles between March of 2006 and October of 2007. The man’s real name is Nicholas Arthur Woodhams. He was sued by Apple over this debacle in June of 2008, and prosecutors are just now getting around to […]
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Apple Scammed for 9,000 iPod Shuffles

Mar 23rd 2009 by

A man going by the alias of Mike Teevee in Kalamazoo Michagan, scammed Apple out of 9,000+ iPod Shuffles between March of 2006 and October of 2007.

The man’s real name is Nicholas Arthur Woodhams. He was sued by Apple over this debacle in June of 2008, and prosecutors are just now getting around to pressing federal charges of fraud and money laundering against him.

How did the scheme work? Woodhams figures out the sequencing of valid, serial numbers of iPod shuffles that were under warranty, claim they were defective, and have Apple send him replacement products. Then those would be sold for $49.

There was one glich standing in Woohams way, Apple’s return policy. Apple requires that defective units be returned within a certain period of time. To get around this he used prepaid VISA gift cards and a UPS store mailbox. So, instead of having Apple charge him for the replacement iPods, these VISA cards would reject that charge.

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