A former NBA basketball player was arrested for suspicion of an attempt to scam the Apple Store, stealing Apple products through misuse of the EasyPay app.
It turns out the Apple Store is not so easy to scam after all. Authorities nabbed the suspected perpetrator yesterday, Sept. 19, investigating after employees reported the thefts in August. By the time they caught him, the crime had ballooned to a felony level: over the months he allegedly stole $14,000 worth of products.
EasyPay is an app where customers can scan products themselves in the Apple Store on their cell phone or mobile devices. Rex Everett Chapman, a former Phoenix Suns basketball player, decided to abuse the system and walk out of the store with free loot. He would pretend to be scanning a product with EasyPay, then walk out of the store without having paid for it. Apple reported that Chapman stole seven of its products over several months, totaling $14,000.
After walking out with stolen goods, Chapman allegedly took the items to a pawn shop and sold them.
The former basketball player has not yet been tried or convicted. However, any retail theft over $300 could be prosecuted as a felony. Chapman was arrested for nine counts of organized retail theft and five counts of trafficking in stolen property, all at the felony level. He is currently being held in custody in Arizona while he awaits trial.
Apple has used EasyPay in its stores since 2011. When it was first introduced, tech reviewers were wary that the program could be used by people to shoplift. Shoplifters-to-be should take a note from this Chapman case. Even if you don't think you will be caught, Apple stores are monitored. Apple even has technology (though the company has not said whether this system is used in its own retail stores), called an iBeacon, that can use your iPhone to track you with Bluetooth.
Shoplifters who think that stealing from the Apple Store is easy should know that Apple is very litigious about retail theft, and a crime can very quickly reach felony level given how expensive Apple's products are. No matter how easy shoppers think it is to walk out of a store with stolen merchandise, the odds are high that Apple will eventually catch the thief, and put said thief away in jail. For example, in 2008, the store made its first publicized arrest of Apple employees after two employees stole over $130,000 worth of iPhones. The perpetrators faced up to 15 years of jail time.
