Apple Employees May Have Falsely Represented Police Officers
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 2nd Sep 2011 21:47 UTC
Apple So, I kind of mocked this story yesterday, but today an interesting twist has emerged which puts the story in an entirely different light. This week, CNet reported a story about how Apple is working with the San Francisco Police Department to retrieve a lost iPhone 5 prototype. The police and Apple apparently traced the phone to someone's house, and showed up on his doorstep, threatening him and his family. The only problem - the SFPD has no record of any house search or of the case in general - raising the question whether Apple employees falsely impersonated the SFPD, which happens to be a serious crime in California. Update: While I was busy sleeping, the story changed a little bit, but it's still far too shady. After conferring with Apple, the SFPD now states four police officers were involved, and that only the two Apple employees entered Calderon's house. However, Calderon had no idea these two were private non-police people, since he claims they did not identify themselves as Apple employees. Had he known, he would not have let them search his house. So, update or no, Apple employees still impersonated police officers, and issued threats to intimidate Calderon into letting them search his house - without a warrant. I don't understand how people can just accept this sort of behaviour. Don't you have rights in the US? Update II: Perfect summary.
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Comment by ballmerlikesgoogle
by ballmerlikesgoogle on Fri 2nd Sep 2011 22:19 UTC
ballmerlikesgoogle
Member since:
2009-10-23

If this is true, someone at Apple obviously needs to be canned.

Why are Apple employees leaving their so called secretive IPhone "prototypes" in bars? To see if they will work in a bar? Are they testing the drink apps?

Why are Apple employees moonlighting as "police officers?" Are they pulling people over on the road to verify their IPhones hasn't been "jailbroken?" If they need to serve a search warrant on someones home to look for a missing IPhone, do they remember to remove the Apple logo letterhead from the documentation?

Boy....

Android has them rattled.....

Reply Score: 5

kristoph Member since:
2006-01-01

It's not true. The SFPD did come to the house.

How does this have anything to do with Android? Apple was like this before Android and it will be like this after Android.

Reply Parent Score: 1

glarepate Member since:
2006-01-04

The SFPD did come to the house.


Wow, that's scary if they really did go to the house and are now denying it!

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/09/lost_iphone_5_apple.php

---
UPDATE, 11:42 A.M.: Lt. Troy Dangerfield of the SFPD called to clarify his above statements: The police will only investigate if Calderón chooses to speak with them directly and share information about the people who came to his house. (So far, the SFPD has not spoken to Calderón, but only learned of his story through SF Weekly.) "If the person is reporting that people misrepresented themselves as San Francisco police officers, that's something we will need to investigate," Dangerfield says. "We take people representing themselves as police officers very seriously."
---

Do you think it's because of the offer of $300 for the return of the phone?

(Same source as above)

---
"They made it seem like they were on the phone with the owner of the phone, and they said, 'The person's not pressing charges, they just want it back, and they'll give you $300,'" he recalled.

As the visitors left, one of them -- a man named "Tony" -- gave Calderón his phone number and asked him to call if he had further information about the lost phone. Calderón shared the man's phone number with SF Weekly.

The phone was answered by Anthony Colon, who confirmed to us he is an employee of Apple but declined to comment further. According to a public profile on the website LinkedIn, Colon, a former San Jose Police sergeant, is employed as a "senior investigator" at Apple.

Dangerfield said police plan to look into Calderón's allegations.

"There's something amiss here. If we searched someone's house, there would be a police report," Dangerfield said.

Apple's media-relations department did not return calls for comment.

Since the SFPD disavowed any knowledge of the search for the phone, some tech reporters have speculated that the story of the lost phone was a hoax or publicity stunt engineered by Apple. CNET based its report on a single anonymous source "familiar with the investigation."
---

Why do you think they had a retired cop with them who says that he works for Apple? Should we get Patrick Jane and the CBI to investigate this since it overlaps the jurisdictions of Cupertino, SF and San Jose? I'll bet he'll crack this case and we can all watch it on iTunes for only $0.99! Wouldn't that be great!!

Reply Parent Score: 3

RE[2]: My bad!
by glarepate on Sat 3rd Sep 2011 04:54 in reply to "RE: Comment by ballmerlikesgoogle"
glarepate Member since:
2006-01-04

I see that there is new news now:

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/09/iphone_5_apple_police.p...

And I also see that they didn't update the earlier article, which might have saved me from being such an ass if they had.

Or not ... <(^B)<

But I'd at least like to think I wouldn't have been such an ass if corrected coverage had been linked to the original article.

Reply Parent Score: 2

jboss1995 Member since:
2007-05-02

I think you work for apple. I think you are the employ that lost his phone and I think your the one who Falsely Represented themselves as a Police Officers. That or your just an Apple fan boy. Probably that later.

Reply Parent Score: 1