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A dozen iPhones mob stolen at Boylston Street Apple Store
By adamg on Wed, 11/30/2016 - 3:33pm
Boston and Transit Police are looking for a group of teens who rushed out of the Apple Store with a dozen iPhones this afternoon. The group consisted of both males and females, mostly in hoodies, one black, one red, one green.
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Comments
What will they do with them?
Apple will remotely lock them and report the SIM as stolen. Apart from being used for parts (replacement screens, etc) they don't have much resale value when locked. Perhaps sell them to someone unsuspecting and too stupid to make them unlock the phone before agreeing to the sale?
Pretty big risk to take for not much reward.
I am thinking they didn't put
I am thinking they didn't put much planning into this operation or their actions once they got away. At least there are really no victims here - those stupid phones dont even have headphone jacks!
The Mob Drools
Personally, I feel like these mobs get more stupider and brazen by the year. Just the other day, I witnessed a group of kids bang on the glass at Capital One in Downtown for no apparent reason. If anything, it makes these business owners a lot more racist towards us inner-city folk unfortunately...
"underworld inc" on Nat Geo
Check out the show. A lot of stolen phones make their way down to South America, where the SIM or IMEI is wiped and used like a brand new phone. Not saying these people are working in some kind of organized international crime ring, but it definitely does happen and there is a global resale market for stolen phones.
Awesome series. Thanks for
Awesome series. Thanks for the tip. It is on Netflix and I am now binge watching it with the tweens.
Not to mention all modern
Not to mention all modern phones have GPS tracking.
They can be unlocked for use
They can be unlocked for use on wifi but not turned on as phones. Apple has the technology to locate them, access the data entered on the devices, Apple accounts synced, and etc but they are notoriously unhelpful to the police. It will be ironic and sad if they change his practice because their stores are being hit instead of just individuals robbed in the street.
These mob robberies are a poor copy of sophisticated smash and grab rings. Adults criminals do surveillance and target store security and grab items that can be resold regardless. Remember that whenever you get a great deal on a luxury item on eBay. In the big picture these kids don't get a lot for their effort but as teenagers they don't have much money so it seems like a lot to them.
The real victims...
...are the honest, well-raised, non-larcenous teens wearing hoodies who go into any retail store and get extra surveillance, extra suspicion, and probably extra attitude because of the actions of these punks.
Or even
The honest, poorly raised, non-larcenous teens wearing hoodies.
Maybe I'm old and out of it...
...but if hoodies, worn a certain way, are going to arouse such scrutiny towards the innocent, why bother wearing them? Far be it from me to tell anyone what to wear (I still remember the 60s/early 70s when idiots wanted me to cut my hair and acted like it was a matter of life and death) but hasn't the hoodie thing gotten kind of old anyway? Maybe it's me, but trends seem to drag on much longer than they used to. Yeah, I know hoodies are a utilitarian item of clothing, but there is also no denying they have taken on some kind of totemic significance.
I agree - if it's cold out
I agree - if it's cold out and you're spending time outside, a hoodie is great. But there's no real reason to be wearing one and hiding your face when you're indoors. Just like there's no real reason to be wearing a baseball hat + sunglasses indoors (I wear both outdoors)
They're cheap, they're image, and they're disguise
Teens are very fashion-conscious, and hoodies are acceptable in some circles, and easy to afford.
And if you want to do something criminal, a hoodie pulled partially closed around your face turns your description into "skinny person in dark hoodie, I couldn't really see their face", which could be half the male teenagers in Boston.
Don't forget, the hoodie is
Don't forget, the hoodie is an integral piece of the Boston tuxedo!
Um, cuz the weather here changes every five minutes?
If there's a high of 70 and low of 50, imma wear short sleeves and have a hoodie in my bag to put on and take off as needed.
There's a difference
There's a difference between a hoodie worn as a practical piece of clothing against the weather ad a hoodie worn as a fashion/political statement. Nobody needs to wear a hoodie with hood up indoors (unless it's freezing inside for some reason), but they do. And then people wonder why they are eyed suspiciously.
Escape on the T
You have to give them an A for effort and planning. They escape on the T where every train has teens with iPhones. They will be caught by surveillance footage and will be given a stern talking to by school officials and the juvenile court system.
Did they make off with show floor phones?
Admittedly, I haven't even set foot inside that Apple Store since 2012 when I bought an iPod Classic, but back then, the employee wouldn't even go to the storeroom to fetch my item until I had fully paid for it. Did that practice change in the last four years?
Yep
For lower-value items you can walk in, scan the item's barcode with your phone, pay for it with Apple Pay, and walk out without interacting with an employee. It feels eerie.
The iPhones in the past were tethered to the display table, but marketing thinks that this detracts from the user experience and so many stores are removing the tethers. some people want to put the phone into their pocket, for example, to see how it feels before making a decision on the model they want to buy.
The Apple Watches still seem to be behind bullet-proof glass displays with hovering guards. Not sure why.
So we have
The description of the sweatshirt but not the actual suspects.
mob
Would it be racist to ask what color the offenders were?
If you have to ask ...
If you have to ask ...
At least one
was black. At least one was red. And at least one was green. (That one must not have been feeling well.)
Maybe he was an alien
an illegal alien.
No space aliens, though
Those are purple with spots.
skin color
Giving the color of the hoodies but not the skin color is.....
2nd time
in as many days. We had just finished replacing 10 phones from that table after a similar (can't say for sure whether it was the exact same) group ransacked us last night. Most likely all juveniles, but we're talking at least $20k in combined retail value and damages to the demo table, so these little shits deserve more than just a slap on the wrist. I would recommend at least 20 hours each of customer service being berated by Genius Bar customers.
P.s. Please back up your data.
Thanks for info, Employee-ish
Can you shed some light on the value of these stolen phones? Can they be jailbroke and used? Can't believe they have to be shipped overseas for black market.
And yeah, berating the Genius bar techs is pretty bush league, esp. when the issue is user's lack of knowledge.
But...
Apple set the bar pretty high calling these guys Geniuses. Some know their shit but others not so much.
Good question
But I don't think there's a straight answer, black market iPhone sales is not a training module I've completed. Even when erased/restored the stolen phones cannot be (easily) activated because they have device specific ID numbers just like any cell phone that can be reported stolen. However, crime pays, and tech savvy criminals are prevalent these days; I'm sure someone with enough know-how can make them functional again.
Don't you have major security in that store
Last time I was in there ( a while ago ) there were two uniformed security guys at the entrance. Couldn't they at least slow down the mob?
Sounds like bad PR
I can't think of anything a guard could do to slow an emboldened youth theft mob, that wouldn't turn into a PR mess for the lily-white Apple store, and also probably lawsuits.
It's truly sad when store security
can't actually protect the store for fear of lawsuits. Just another facet of our "justice" system that needs to be overhauled.
You first, dear
You mean, like the CVS employee who was killed over a shoplifting incident?
VERY dangerous to employees. People like you are the reason that store clerks are murdered at far higher rates than cops.
Its truly sad when people who work for low wages
... are expected to risk their lives to protect merchandise that isn't even worth all that much by people like you.
Did you both miss the "store
Did you both miss the "store security" part of the post? You know, the specially trained (and still low-paid) guys whose job IS to protect the store and the goods?
They are not going to try to physically detain someone
They have a visible presence, and they will try to get video evidence, and trick the suspected thief into not leaving or handing over the merchandise.
If they touch the person or they "kidnap" the person, they risk the store getting lawsuits and possibly getting individual criminal charges.
If they stop a person who is willing to get violent, they could get injured or killed. And then the store will be sued by the guard.
The lawsuit risk is why the guard will be fired if they go outside of a pretty narrow set of things they can do, regardless of what actually happened.
Which is a good situation for teens who think it's cool to be a criminal.
Still a bad bet
Still cheaper for Apple to let them take off, compared to even one guard getting killed.
Stuff just isn't worth risking lives. Years of experience have led to these decisions.
Consider this: these items RETAIL for big money - that's different from what the company will write off.
They're there to mostly deter
They're there to mostly deter. As already mentioned, it will be lawsuit central in this country if those security guards laid their hands on these special burglarizing snowflakes.
That isn't the problem with lawsuits
The problems come when they ASSUME that someone is shoplifting, or is going to shoplift, but are not. Classic case: a woman was forcibly detained and arrested for shoplifting a coat at a downtown department store. This despite the fact that she had had the coat altered to fit her, and the alterations were visible. Why? She "looked" a certain way, therefore she "must" have stolen the coat (she also had evidence of the purchase on her store charge card, but was still physically attacked and handled roughly). She sued and won a lot of money.
Detain an innocent person and you get lawsuits. Physically attack someone when there is no danger of physical harm and you get lawsuits. Convert "profiling" into "precrime" into "crime" and get lawsuits. This isn't about being "sue happy", it is about fair play.
?
20k / (10 + 12) = 909
iPhones are $900 apiece retail, and they aren't on a tether or behind glass? And it took a SECOND grab & go incident for the store to realize that's a bad idea?
Ever been
to an Apple Store? All products are available to look at, touch, use and enjoy. Sellable inventory is well-secured, but we aren't going to ruin the fun for everyone just because of a few bad... apples.
One would hope the Apple
One would hope the Apple store would at least have some pretty awesome HD security cameras and not the normal crap ones.