If there seems to be one universal law of commerce, it is this: If you purchase an iPhone from a strange man in the back of a Burger King parking lot who you initially contacted through Craigslist, it is a fact that there will be anything except an iPhone in the box he sells you.
This is a law of commerce more nitwits should probably internalize, since yet another poor sucker has fallen for this classic ploy, with one important difference: It was a McDonald’s! Dum dum DUM!
A 21-year-old woman from Brisbane, Australia, was scammed out of $1,500 AUD (or about $1,335 American) when she put an ad up saying she wanted to buy two unlocked iPhones on Australian online classified site Gumtree, which is essentially the Down Under version of Craigslist.
Not long after, another woman called and said she had two iPhones to sell. What a wonderful coincidence! They quickly agreed to meet up at a local McDonald’s to conduct the exchange, and the first woman was so delighted with the two iPhones being sold to her that she apparently didn’t even bother to open the box. After all, they were shrink-wrapped and looked new. How can you fake that?
But fake it someone had. In fact, she was scammed. When she opened up the boxes, she found two apples rolling around inside instead of iPhones. Not Apple computers, or Apple devices. Apples. The fruit.
There’s no real lesson here, frankly. If you’re dumb enough to fall for a “too good to be true” deal, or buy something from someone in a fast food restaurant parking lot without actually looking inside the box, that’s a Darwinian deficiency. Caveat emptor!
Source: Herald Sun
