Don't buy your iPad in a McDonald's car park

A young woman in South Carolina has had her dream of buying a brand-new shiny iPad in the car park of a McDonald's crushed by two swindlers, who left her with a wooden dud. The 22-year-old saw nothing suspicious in being approached by two men in the aforementioned car park nor in being offered an iPad for $300. Claiming they …

[Anonymous Coward]

Well

She should have twigged

[JudeKay]

Re: Well

I like your style, caller

[Thomas 4]

Silly girl

Probably feels a bit of a plank now.

[JudeKay]

Re: Leave it out...

Unbeleafable! Take a bough dude

[Dave 64]

obvious question

is this crime being investigated by Special Branch?

[Anonymous Coward]

obvious question

@Dave 64

obvious question #

Posted Wednesday 31st August 2011 13:03 GMT

Coat

is this crime being investigated by Special Branch?

No, the crime is being investigated by the woodentops

[Lee Dowling]

Groan

Groan

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Dear

Sadly things didn't blossom into the deliciously golden opportunity that she thought she was getting from the gentlemens' trunk, when arriving home and opening her discovery box it was then to her horror that she had been the victim of the granny smith con trick.

Watson, it leafs one green with rage.

[NomNomNom]

u are a

that was treely clever. i could read that owl day long (owl - a tree based bird). i treely hope u get uprooted (ie upvoted). this message wood (will) now be trunkated (getit?)

[ravenviz]

re:

C'mon, that's a downvote! :-P

[Anonymous Coward]

She did...

...when she tried to login.

[Oliver Mayes]

Photo of the offending iWood

http://gawker.com/5835890/woman-buys-a-block-of-wood-with-an-apple-logo-thinking-its-an-ipad

[Stone-eye]

Is she sure it's a fake?

I mean it doesn't play flash and it has angry birds (Well one South Carolinan angry bird).

[BrownishMonstr]

I agree with the author

She should just suck up the loss for stupidity.

[Olafthemighty]

I'm impressed

That they went to so much trouble to make it look nothing like an actual iPad!

[Eponymous Cowherd]

I bet she felt.....

a bit of a plank

[Piro]

Well, at least they tried

B+ for effort. They painted wood and put an Apple logo on it.

Beats a box of rocks!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don´t need no stinking title

I thought it was the logo you payed for in the first place anyway.

[LaeMing]

Possibly

the perps are relying on that defence if they are caught, hence the extra effort.

[John Lilburne]

Could have been worse ...

... it might have worked, sort of.

[wayne 8]

How far has Apple fallen without Steve Jobs

Things will only get worse.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not far

from the tree?

[John 90]

Legal requirement

You are licensed to run the software on one Apple-labelled device.

[Trygve Henriksen]

A match made in woodworking heaven?

A wooden iPad for a complete blockhead...

[Joe User]

It's Apple's latest prototype

Of the iPlank.

[Arrrggghh-otron]

And if she is pretty...

...iWood

[Giles Jones]

iPlank

Can't do much with the wood. At least those buying laptops and getting potatoes instead means they could at least cook the potatoes.

Always open the box before you walk away and hand over the readies.

[Rich 30]

well..

i personally WOOD have checked in the box. Clearly this woman is as thick as two bargain ipads?

[Mark McNeill]

Value for money

It had an Apple logo on it, what more did she want anyway?

[Steven Davison]

Coat, Door, I know!

I hope she logged it with the correct authorities..

[Mondo the Magnificent]

Doh?!?

The scenario is excellent; South Carolina, McDonalds and a bargain..

A little like showing a herd of lemmings a cliff... there will be casualties...

[Anonymous Coward]

She must be barking for not checking it.

If she'd opened it up she'd have known straight away that it wooden work.

[dssf]

Not the * she was expecting...

NOT the woodie she was expecting. Got wedged out of $300.

[Yag]

Is it at least Apple tree wood?

N/T

[Anonymous Coward]

Without an Apple angle

I have a friend who, while traveling in China, was offered cheap harddisks on the street (as he was entering a taxi, actually). The units looked good, so being a homegrown hardware hacker with plenty of laptops in varying degrees of decay in his home lab he bought a few. He was quite amused when he got home and discovered that they were empty, apart from the power connector and a cheap fan, the noise from which could be mistaken for a powered harddisk. :-)

[Bunker_Monkey]

lol

Only in America.

[Loyal Commenter]

It's a new take on an old scam

Plenty of folk have been caught out with the old 'potatoes in the laptop case' scam in this country too, so much as I hate to do it, I'll have to ask you to lay off our transatlantic cousins until you can find something else to mock them for. Not that it should be too hard...

http://www.care2.com/causes/pastor-compares-atheists-to-terrorists-sex-offenders-suggests-national-registry.html

[JeepBoy]

It's older than that...

The expression "Never buy a pig in a poke" shows a variant of this scam was practiced in "Merry Olde England" (where's the Gothic font El Reg?) back in the Middle Ages.

The stupid dupe bought what he thought was a piglet at McD's Market Stall... hands over the groats... Then the switcheroo... and he gets a cat in a poke (small sack) to take home.

Some scams never get old! :)

[Anonymous Coward]

No

There are Apple idiots the world over... Most of them have yet to TWIG that they are part of a global con.

[bertie bassett]

speakers

Just a 2011 update to the 'psst..wanna buy some speakers' con that's been running for a long long time.

sucker and their money

[PhilipN]

You can run but you can't hide ..

..when Apple goes after them for breach of copyright.

[NoneSuch]

@PhilipN - Actually, there is no infraction...

The wood had square corners, not rounded ones...

[T.a.f.T.]

Logo

But is has Apple's logo on it! So that would really be a Trade mark violation which is usually much easier to make stick.

[John Bailey]

Yep

Especially if you use the right grade sand paper to give the paint a good keyed surface.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "You can run but you can't hide .."

"..when Apple goes after them for beech of copyright."

There FTFY.

[Anonymous Coward]

not necessarily a trademark breach ...

... since it is not an electronic device.

They could even claim that it is just an indication of which kind of wood had been used.

[deains]

In other news

Apple begins patent lawsuit against two South Carolina men for the manufacture and distribution of replica iPads.

[Mark Chapman]

Influenced by Dilbert perhaps?

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2010-09-21/

[Phil Standen]

Hang on.....

Have Apple phoned to ask for their prototype back?

[Miek]

Dumb iGirl

This is a 'classic' scam, it was on The Real Hustle in the UK as the laptop scam. If you want to know how it works; re-read the article.

[Gil Grissum]

Without checking inside the box??

This definitely answers the question- "How stupid can someone be". An iPad for $180? An iPad for anything less than the retail price is a fishy proposition.

[dogged]

retail price

Anyone prepared to pay anything for iPad is an idiot so the fraudsters know their market.

[Swiss]

erm...

An iPad for any money is a fishy proposition...

[dssf]

Well, she didn't look INside the box because she was

Thinking OUTSIDE the box. Obviously, she heard the call to "Think Different..." LOL

[Bucket]

wooden ipads

One of the Profs at Uni here (Aberdeen) carries around a A4 chalkboard with "ipad" and the apple logo drawn in pen on the back.

Says is because it's cheaper and easier to use than the real thing.

<--- Prof graphic as when he started they still academic gowns

[Paul 185]

Proof..

..that the Apple never falls far from the tree.

[Anonymous Coward]

But why?

I don't understand why they went to the bother of painting a plank to vaguely look like an ipad.

Did they think she might just hold off on telling the police because she might think the battery is flat?

[LaeMing]

In seriousness?

Taking the Mick. Apparently even the crooks couldn't resist making fun of people who would fall for their scam.

[Mcbain]

Near Field Communication in next gen iPad?

I think the salesmen tree dead her well, they obviously saw her coming.

She'll never get board.

100% recycleable.

Don't mention Firesale.

[Ambertail]

Be fair

I think we should leaf the poor girl alone. She's probably been chlorophylly mocked already. I suspect it'll probably be in vein anyway.

[b166er]

Actually Gil

An iPad for any less than the retail price, might be worth considering.

Then again...

[LaeMing]

There is always

the refurb.

[Stefing]

"a piece of wood painted black with an Apple logo"

I expect Apple's Army Of Lawyers (TM) to be on the case immediately.

[Albert Lederer]

An now for something obvious

I wish someone would pay me $180.00 to fondly my wood.

[dssf]

Has it been de-burred?

Or, will it give splinters? Nobody wants a stroke of bad luck, hahahaha

[Steve Evans]

Honestly...

How stupid are some people? This con has been pulled for so many years, with so many different items, that there is even an English idiom which came from the practice "Let the cat out of the bag".

(To save looking it up, the cat is supposed to be a pig in a sack).

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also

the origin of "pig in a poke" — poke being a bag.

[Anonymous Coward]

(untitled)

You mean some folk actually pay more than $300 for them ??? I'd have thought $180 was pushing it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Silly Cow...

Can't imagine someone actualy trying to buy "Food" at MacDonalds!

[amanfromearth]

Barking up the wrong tree

Unless you're sycamore jokes..

She knew she was beached when her new iPad wooden log on...

[Ian Zirins]

And it came with a virus....

.....Dutch Elm Disease

[John Bailey]

Nonsense

Apple products don't get viruses. It was obviously a worm.

Poplar misconception.

[Not Fred31]

at McDonalds buying food?

Wow... she thought McDonalds were serving FOOD and she thought a block of wood was an IPAD...

[Pete 43]

Apples don't grow on trees

And it really goes against the grain - I hope she's not "pine-ing"

That's that out of the way now...

Stupid bint.

There

[Paul RND*1000]

She could always

Sell it on eBay as a "limited edition Apple promotional cutting board" or something. Except Apple would sue her.

The moral of the story: if you're going to insist on buying hooky goods in a car park, at least make sure they're what they say they are before you hand over the notes.

[Figgus]

Apple will sue them...

... for copying the look and feel of the iPad 3.

That is all.

[Drummer Boy]

I wonder if it was made from

Applewood?

[Neil 44]

Display quality

... is probably a bit grainy...

[Ironclad]

Apple to sue IKEA.....

.....claim Skarsgaaard chair imitates 'look and feel' of iPlank.

[Willy]

Mine can do that too

More often than not when trying to connect to hotel wi-fi my iPad2 behaves just like a slab of wood.

[Dave 32]

Wood?

I hope it was at least apple wood, and not cheap pine.

Ohoh, the next scam will be painting cherries on a piece of cherry wood shaped like a slot machine. :*)

Dave

[Bucky 2]

No Sympathy

If someone approaches you in a parking lot trying to sell you something, the only reasonable presumption (if you think the object is genuine) is that you're being offered stolen merchandise.

So, the woman thought she was participating in a crime when in fact she was simply the victim of a crime.

No sympathy.

[Joe Montana]

Insult to injury

This is such an old scam, and usually the box will contain something mundane... What makes this all the more insulting however, is that they actually went to the trouble of painting the block of wood.

It's not as if the fact its painted helps the scam in any way, its blatantly obvious as soon as you open the box so why else would they do it other than to have a final laugh at the victim's expense?

[John70]

Missed one

...as thick as two short planks...

[Armando 123]

Huh

Sounds more like a kindle(-ing).

I feel like we should now here John Cleese from the I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again era say "Good evening, here are the tree jokes" with a barrage of puns about how she was "board" but is now

"pining", the "beech", and complaining to her mother's father (known as "pawpaw") and she's seeing "red, bud" and I'll stop now.

Mine's the one with "Paul Bunyan" in the pocket

[steogede]

Brick in a laptop bag

Shirley this is just a twist on the brick on the laptop bag scam - i.e. meet someone in a pub (or other busy place) selling a laptop. Takes the laptop out, shows it working, puts it back in the bag, switches for a phony in a matching bag and hands over the phony.

Nice twist putting the apple sticker on it though. Now the story is famous (published on a few geek sites, at least), she should sell it on e-bay. Better idea, I'll download a picture of a hot 24yo, get a chopping board and apple sticker and sell 'it' on e-bay myself.

[Anonymous Coward]

In keeping with the style

You need to print out the picture of the fake iPad and stick that to chopping board. I mean, if you are going to make a fake fake (is a double negative a positive?) you have to do it right.

This might also protect you from Apple as it's not you that has copied their logo.

[Mike Flugennock]

Those guys were scum, but...

I have a hard time having any sympathy for the lady who was rooked. I mean, c'mon, man... an _iPad_ -- for $300? From two strangers in a goddamn' Mickey D's parking lot? Sounds like that gal got beat up with a stupid stick.

Reminds me of the industrial park where I worked at my first design job about thirty years ago; there were these two guys who cruised around the place every day around lunchtime, selling speakers and stereo gear out of a step van. Oh, yeah, man, fersure, it's real Kenwood, it's real Jensen, real Bose, honest, man, really.

[Shane Kent]

Robble, robble...

She can say iGotHad

[Mike Flugennock]

Reminds me of something that happened with Miniscribe...

...about fifteen years or so ago. Storage vendor Miniscribe, in deep trouble financially, was running short on stock and having trouble filling a large backlog of orders; they eventually resorted to putting bricks in boxes which were supposed to contain hard drives and shipping them to customers -- as if they actually believed they wouldn't be caught or called out on it. They filed for Chapter 7 shortly after this episode.

The headline in MacWeek was hilarious, a sort of implied cause and effect: "Miniscribe Ships Bricks, Seeks Protection".

No doubt Miniscribe's execs were "shipping bricks" after that...

[Anonymous John]

It could have been worse.

Think how many victims there would have been if the scammer had claimed to be selling Touchpads.

At least she ended up with a fondleplank ™ ®

[Anonymous Coward]

She couldn't

cedar wood for the trees?

[clarknova]

Lucky to get it...

pre-rooted.

[Arbuthnot Darjeeling]

Apple logo

where can I get one of these eco-friendly wooden ipads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe...

They had run out of HP touchpads... and had heard rumours of a disastrous Fire sale.

Flames... does it need explaining?

[Z80]

Perps still at larch

I hope the copse catch them.

[Mike Flugennock]

re: Perps still at larch...

...the Larch. The... Larch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug8nHaelWtc

[BitBotherer]

MDF News.

Mom and dad had gone to Aspen a Poplar resort for the weekend so being quite a useless Beech and unable to cook she went with her friend Holly to macdonalds and had a Hickory smoked burger and pancakes with Maple syrup afterwards they smoked some Bush sitting under an Oak tree in the carpark and were approached by two guys and in Plane view of everyone in the restaurant sold them Knot an iPad but more an iBoard.

Not one to Pine on her losses she moved to Oaklahoma to stay with her Elder sister where she lost her Cherry and soon Driftwooded into petty crime and was arrested for Larcheny and selling 'ash ..........

[Marcus Aurelius]

Ok here goes.

At least this pad has error logging.

Was the version of iOS on this model a branch or root release?

[Johnny Honk]

The upside...

It has overtaken the HP WebOS Tablet in sales already...

[DanceMan]

South Carolina?

Say no more.

[airwave]

top headline dude.

The Register does it again, outstanding headline !

made my morning, thank you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wood you believe it...

That's all......

[streeeeetch]

Natural selection strikes again!

We need a new kind of Darwin award here

[88mm a.k.a. Minister for Misbehaviour]

That's no iPad

it's Amazonian Kindle(ing)

mine's the Ray Mears Ventile one.

[Frank Bitterlich]

Quote from Gawker:

" I mean, if you swipe the screen and get a splinter, you have to know something's up."

That's the best one so far IMO.

[Anonymous Coward]

How long before..

someone decides to make "copies" of the wooden ipad and sell them on ebay as just that. "Own your own iwoodypad" with the bidding starting at $30 and shipping at $10. And then they could go on to say "As seen on TV"