Company intends to fulfill thief's request

Without some intervention from Apple or the police, a replacement iPhone will go to a thief and not the original owner, a robbery victim claims. Identifying herself only as Alisa, the victim notes that her iPhone was stolen over two weeks ago in a Brooklyn subway. No progress had been made until recently, when the thief asked for a replacement phone through AppleCare. A notification e-mail was sent to Alisa's address.

After confirming that the phone was hers, Alisa says she was able to attain an address and phone number for the place the service request was coming from. No action against the thief has been taken however, and both Apple and AT&T representatives are said to have stated that they must fulfill the thief's warranty claim, regardless of whether the phone clearly belongs to someone else. In spite of an Apple representative's suggestion that police intervention might change things, an hour-long call made by an officer is said to have produced no results.

Alisa has since bought a BlackBerry, and taken the step of filing a formal police report on the robbery in an attempt to get Apple to reverse its policy. The thief is also incidentally observed to have been using the iPhone unlocked, as the number associated with the AppleCare request is not with AT&T.

by MacNN Staff