Students Scammed Almost $1 Million Of Apple By Using Fake iPhones

Two Chinese students from Oregon, US, scammed the tech company Apple out of nearly $1 million by using their own fake iPhones. This may be among the cases caused by students that have attracted the most attention in recent years. Of course, the culprits were finally caught by authorities.

As shown in reports, the two foreign students including Yangyangg Zhou and Quan Jiang received deliveries of fake iPhones produced in China. The look of these counterfeit handsets was allegedly absolutely similar to that of the real versions from Apple. Even the company can’t easily differentiate between the fake one and the real one if it just glances at them.

The overseas students sent their fake iPhones to Apple and requested the company to compensate them for the incident. At least, in some short moments, what they did was enough to fool everyone.

According to the authorities, Apple received more than 2,000 fake smartphones from these scammers, which were reportedly defective. Some of their claims were refused by the company; however, the Chinese students still got more than 1,400 real iPhones as compensation for the “defective” handsets. As estimated, Apple spent about $900,000 for the total number of iPhones mentioned above.

Each of the fake iPhones was estimated at about $30. In the end, Apple, as well as customs officials, realized the scam. One more notable thing, when making a raid on Zhou’s house, the authorities found out more than 300 Chinese knockoffs. At present, both of these students are facing a deserved punishment.

Among the charges they have to face, there are wire fraud, fake customs declarations, and trafficking knockoffs. However, the attorney defending Zhou said the Chinese student didn’t know anything about the scam, and the criminal, in reality, was Quan Jiang. This excuse clearly lacked the persuasion, but we will have to consider all possible factors in this incident.