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 shrinkwrapped and looked new. How can you fake that?
The two women arranged to meet at Sunnybank McDonald’s where the transaction took place. The woman paid $1500 and was handed two iPhone boxes that looked new but she did not check inside.
When the buyer returned home she opened the phone boxes to find apples in them – real apples, not the iPhone variety.
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!
