Greg's Corner

With new iPhones comes old scams

It can hardly be argued that no company has a more loyal userbase than that of Apple. While the days of camping out in front of Apple stores may be a thing of the past, that doesn’t stop the devoted Apple fans from wanting to get their hands on Apple’s latest device as soon as possible and as cheaply as possible. This week, Apple unveiled a new line of iPhones in the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X, and whenever Apple unveils a new iPhone you can count on the scammers to try to take advantage of those who are trying to obtain one.

The scams that involve iPhones aren’t new scams, just twists on the same old scams. Mostly it will be people trying to get you to wire money to someone through Western Union or Moneygram in order to get the phone. As always, we recommend never wiring money to someone you don’t know personally, otherwise the scammers run off with your money and there will be no iPhone in your future.

Some red flags to be aware of are things that indicate the ad poster may be from overseas. They can be little things as posting the + symbol before a phone number, or specifying prices in USD. Another good indicator the poster may be from overseas is if they list their WhatsApp number, as WhatsApp is not as popular in the US as it is overseas. Also look out for severely lowered prices for new iPhones with an accompanying story that says something like “A relative bought me this phone but I already had one”.

If you’re an Apple fan, it may be better to just be patient and stick out the wait until Apple’s supply of iPhones levels off, or even skipping a generation until the prices become more affordable.