A person who ordered an iPhone 15 Pro got a nasty surprise in the mail instead: a pretty convincing Android-based copy of the iPhone.
Ed from Surrey, England, who goes by Edmard on Reddit, claims to have ordered the iPhone directly from Apple’s website, with legitimate tracking all the way and confirmation emails from Apple and DPD.
The packaging is quite close to the original.
Credit: Ed
But after the package arrived, something was wrong. Indeed, the phone looked like the one Ed had ordered – an iPhone 15 Pro in Natural Titanium with 256GB of RAM – and the packaging looked genuine. But upon closer inspection, it became apparent that the device was actually an Android phone running a software shell that mimicked Apple’s iOS user interface.
The user interface is similar to Apple’s iOS. Fine details like text alignment in the Calendar app give it away.
Credit: Ed
Many details revealed the hoax: the phone had a screen protector (Apple’s iPhones never come with a protector), its display had a noticeable “chin” at the bottom (Apple’s recent iPhones have the same bezels everywhere), and several apps, including Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok came pre-installed on the phone, which again is something Apple never does.
Ed, who is COO of cloud software provider AtWrk, says he’s reached out to Apple to see what’s going on, but hasn’t heard back from them yet.
We contacted Ed, who told us he was sure he ordered directly from Apple because his order number matched what Apple had in their database. He allowed us to review the order confirmation page he received in the email, which appears to be genuine. Ed also told us that Apple has been “very accommodating” so far, although the issue has not yet been resolved.
Ed may not be the only person to fall victim to this scam. A recent TikTok describes a very similar problem, with a fake Android arriving in the mail instead of a legitimately ordered Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max.
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Apple ships millions of iPhones every month, and such cases are rare, especially when you order directly from Apple. But this particular scam is dangerous because the Android copy of the iPhone is a pretty convincing feature device that prompts the user to sign in with their iCloud credentials, potentially leading to data theft.
We’ve contacted Apple UK about this issue and will update this article when we hear back.
