Man buys iPhone 6S, gets pancake in a box
Technically Incorrect: A Chinese man reportedly thought he was getting a bargain. Instead, we all got a cautionary tale about buying expensive gadgets.
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.
"Syrup, where's the nearest iHop?"
As my intimate reading of Donald Trump's greatest work, "The Art of the Deal," revealed, there is rarely such a thing as a great deal.
This is something that a Chinese man reportedly discovered to his chagrin.
He ordered an iPhone 6S online for the fine price of 1500 yuan (around $230). This is 70 percent less than he might have had to pay in a store.
Still, as the Shanghaiist reported last week, he ended up with egg on his face. Or, rather, in his box.
For when he opened it, he found nothing more than a pancake.
Had he been possessed of a sense of humor, he might have, as one of my colleagues suggested, muttered: "Syrup, where's the nearest iHop?"
I suspect, though, that he felt (om)let down.
You might find this story fanciful. Surely someone made it up. Perhaps.
However, this isn't the first account of someone falling for a scam that promises cheap Apple devices. The Shaghaiist reported earlier this month that a woman also ordered an iPhone online. She got a phone. The only slight kink was that it came from Pear not Apple.
These scams are easier to perpetrate because they happen online. For example, the man who paid $450 for a MacBook on eBay and got, well, only a picture of it.
But what about the long history of Apple scams that happened face-to-face?
There was the woman who paid $180 for an iPad made of wood. The transaction took place in a McDonald's parking lot.
What about the woman who paid $250 for a laptop? It was made of paper. This deal occurred in a gas station parking lot.
Even reputable stores aren't immune from miscreant behavior. Who could forget the woman who bought an iPad at Walmart and only got a box full of notepads?
Gadgets are expensive, especially those Apple makes. If you're buying one that seems cheap, please be sure of what you're buying and whom you're buying it from.
Even when you're buying in a store, make sure you open the box before you leave.
If you discover that you've got less than you bargained for, you'll feel like crepe.