Apple Store employee Ruben Profit scammed his way into about US$1 million in Apple gift cards and now is facing the wrath of New York's legal system and his employer. Police reports say he used fraudulent Visa and American Express gift, debit and pre-paid cards to buy the Apple gift cards at the Elmhurst Mall store in 2014.
Stealing $1 million in Apple gift cards doesn't end well
Mr. Profit started working for Apple in December 2013, according to NBC News in New York. He used the re-coded Visa and American Express cards to buy $997,000 worth of Apple gift cards between August and October.
When Apple began seeing fraudulent transaction charge-backs for its gift cards an investigation was launched, leading to Mr. Profit's arrest. He had 51 fraudulent Visa and Amex gift cards, plus Apple gift cards worth $2,000 in his possession.
Mr. Profit told authorities another party paid him $200 for $2,000 worth of gift cards, which means he wasn't working alone and he certainly wasn't the mastermind. Authorities will likely try to use Mr. Profit to get at his co-conspirator.
Authorities are holding Mr. Profit on $20,000 bail and he could spend 15 years in prison of convicted.
The takeaways Mr. Profit hopefully picked up are that if a crime seems perfect there's something you overlooked, and that scamming your own employer out of $1 million is a really bad idea.
[Some image elements courtesy Shutterstock]