Dutch unlocked iPhone site takes €700,000 then goes offline
A Dutch online reseller who promised customers simlock-free iPhones has apparently gone missing, leaving coworkers bemused and hundreds of consumers a total of €700,000 in the hole. The owner of the website iPhonehelpdesk.nl has allegedly emptied his offices in Amsterdam and disappeared without a word to his colleagues. Like …
Hence the reason I buy direct! What kind of money back can those people get? Anyone know? Sounds like a big fat nothing.
Mine's the one without the iPhone.
Yet again the Jesus Phone shows how gullible the "Trend" followers are. Desperate to be on the latest tech bandwagon.
Remember this. If it looks too good to be true then it probably is.
Mines the one emptying your wallet :-)
If it seems too good to be true...
Paris 'cos she'd probably be dumb enough to fall for this.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!
Where's webster when you need him??
Sorry, but if you're dumb enough to buy a Jebus phone in the first place, you're dumb... but to actually deal with some random site deliberately trying to sell a dodgily 'hacked' item, you deserve to be parted with your beer tokens post haste!!
Jobs.... laughing all the way to the bank.
No Doubt now living it up on the Russian Riviera...
nice one Boris ;p
Paris... cos even she knows how to take precautions and to party hard ;p
It's iPhone users who are desperate enough to try a site like this who give the rest of us a bad name. Now THAT is someone who is a slave to all things Apple.
I'm not. I bought an iPhone for 4 reasons:
1. I could afford one.
2. It does everything I need brilliantly.
3. Cos it's quite obviously better than the phones owned by all these iPhone haters, otherwise they wouldn't be bitching so much. ;)
4. I am an O2 customer anyway, and couldn't give a monkey's chuff if the phone is locked or not.
I wouldn't rely on quite obviously dodgy websites like that though. I feel sorry for all those affected by this scam, but I do think that they should have stopped and thought about possible implications before they purchased.
"if you're dumb enough to buy a Jebus phone in the first place, you're dumb..."
I develop games and apps for the iPhone - Colony & Squares (FREE) are currently on the App Store, and a third game is on its way. I've made enough money from them to pay for the iPhone and the 18-month contract. I have cash to spare, and we're only a month into the sales.
Does that make me dumb?
"According to his coworkers, Van Zanten ...... possibly simply panicked"
No he didn't - if he's Dutch then he'll simply be driven solely by cash and knew exactly what he was doing.
Money is the only thing the natives here in NL give a damn about (well that and bad service, unfriendliness, acting like 3 year olds, a Do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do mentality, etc etc).
mmmm..... unlocked iPhones, these people knew that this wasn't right, not exactly illegal but dodgy nontheless. Why then, when they get stung, do they complain?
Same as the greedy little people on the recieving end of the "pass you off as next of kin" 419ers, they know it's not right but greed gets them every time.
Got to agree with AC @ 11:41, Hell slap it into them.
Expect hundreds of spam e-mails a day now with too good to be true iPhone offers, now that the Nigerians know that potential iPhone customers are stupid enough to send money to anyone in order to get their hands on the most overpriced phone ever made
On behalf of the Dutch that act nothing like you just described, i apologize for the horrible way you've obviously been treated all your life. That said, I'm sure that with a less than bitter attitude people will start treating you a whole lot better though. Give it a try, it could be just you that people are reacting to. To say that "the natives here in NL" are acting in a general way is kind of ignorant, if not a little childish.
Like people have said above :-
A) If there dumb enough to buy a jebus phone
B) they knew it was for a certain network only but they still paid up front for something they knew wasn't out there
Then they got everything they deserved and before everyone jumps on me for saying the jebus phone is better than PH, if your stoopid enough to spend more on a glorified phone than a computer then you deserve to be PHed.
might always show up 1day that unlocks the firmware
http://www.jailbreakme.com/
hehe, come on, we know you're a Dutchie, just trying to put people off from coming to your super-lovely super-chilled country.
"Sorry, but if you're dumb enough to buy a Jebus phone in the first place, you're dumb... "
Anonymous Coward is Anonnnnnnnnymous.
what a bunch of iTwits. and all for what? a box of sand? (oh, that is from an old western movie starring Yul Brynner. no prizes for guessing which)
why anyone would pay up for a product that does not exist (at the time) is simply irrational beyond measure. good for him, and good for his dupes.
i'll be the guy saving my pity for the guy who still uses a Nokia 3210. iPhone just aint worth it.
Mobistar is forced by law to sell you an unlocked phone. It's not cheap but it is 20-25% cheaper than with a contract in the UK. It's the up-front payment that bites.
...as a Brit living in the NL you can sometimes feel it's a bit like that. The main reason is that the average Dutch person is a lot more straight forward in conversations than us Brits. We have 50 ways of saying "I'm going to stick this knife in your back the moment you turn around" in British (as opposed to English which can sometimes be confused as meaning American), the Dutch would just say, "you turn around, I stick a knife in your back"!
The other change I noticed is, if you live here learn the fugging language, it's not that difficult!
Back to the story... SUCKERSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
serves my fellow countrymen and women right for falling for this obvious trick.
what was that saying again? there's a fool born every second wasn't it?
... its money are easily parted.
/laughs so hard it hurts
"... A) If there dumb enough to buy a jebus phone..."
woohoo - every one's a winner!
another commenter who questions other people's intelligence, while spelling like a retard himself!
clue: the word you're looking for is "they're"
I think people are being too harsh against the buyers in this story.
I often need to purchase things through the internet with my credit card, and I assume a certain level of protection against getting ripped off.
For example, I bought £500 of bamboo from a website. Now all I had to go on were a bunch of pictures that some guy could have ripped off from some other website. Sometimes you need to assume they are telling the truth, rather than calling them up and asking them to bang the phone against the bamboo pots so you can hear that they are real.
Just like I don't have the time or inclination to go out and research bamboo to death before I buy it (they could have made up the bamboo names and photoshopped the pictures for all I know), the same goes for people that fancy an iPhone but don't feel like researching the situation for countless hours.
The businesses that accept credit cards understand that it isn't so easy to set up, there are some security measures in place. Lloyds inspected my business carefully before they allowed me to take credit cards, and when I was younger and wanted to set up a different website business my request to take credit cards was simply refused by all banks due to lack of track record. As you can see from this story, the police know exactly who did this - if it was so easy to rip people off then nobody would know who ran the website, or where the money had gone to.
...can't see the "sponsored by Apple" on the homepage....yet :p
Is there anyone who actually own belgium iPhone? Do they work outside Belgium?
When you try to do dodgy stuff, the chances that the person you're dealing with is himself a dodgy individual increase dramatically. I have precisely zero sympathy for people that do dodgy stuff and get screwed in the end. When you gamble, you eventually lose.
You couldn't pay me to take an AT&T phone, so I understand the desire for a more open alternative, but a hacked iPhone is only marginally better-- still not worth paying for. The iPhone may be cool, but I don't wear my cool on my phone...
" if your stoopid enough to spend more on a glorified phone than a computer then you deserve to be PHed.:
Sounds as though you're so technically advanced that you can differentiate between a glorified phone and a computer.
Sent from my iPod touch (a glorified phone - but without the phone bit).
"Desperate to be on the latest tech bandwagon."
So whats "latest tech" about the iPhone?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it does seem that Limeys can be just as greedy and foolish as Americans.
What a surprise.
Now let the flaming begin.
So Interpol are currently monitoring all the valid iphone connections registered in the netherlands being received on the russian network, can't be that many, his phone is bound to be still locked to the dutch network after all.
As far as I'm aware it's us Brits that are the limeys, not our Dutch friends. I think it came from us eating limes to avoid scurvy, because nobody that grew oranges would sell them to us (I may be off there).
As for who will foot the bill?
I'm not sure what the payment method was, however I very much hope it was Paypal. And I very much hope Dutch authorities rule that Paypal are liable because they are providing the credit facility. Paypal are under the impression that if someone pays for something through Paypal using my credit card then they have no liability. It'd take a big case for a landmark ruling rather than the multitude of small cases which come from eBay.
It's very unlikely that the guy had a credit card payment facility, but if he did then the credit card companies will have to fork out the cash.
I do have a bit of sympathy for the poor punters, but at the end of the day they knew it wasn't a completely reliable way of getting a Jesus phone, so they shouldn't be too surprised.
is probaly a better earner for apple then selling them sim free from the day of relaase
>Correct me if I'm wrong
You're wrong and I'll go further, you're also ignorant. The article is about Cloggies not Limeys.
I'm intrigued by the frequent appearance of the Netherlands in scams. You get a "lottery win" email - more often than not phone number and address is Dutch. Even the 419s appear to use the Netherlands often as a meeting spot. Anyone an idea why that is? Lack of identity checking?
As for this scam being in the Netherlands, I think the answer to the above might give a clue. Whatever the idea was, "talent" like that will be snapped up by the Russian mafioso double quick, so I give this guy a couple of weeks before he'll be given the choice of collaborating with his new masters or enjoy slightly altered kneecaps or a face mod of his girlfriend.
pick flowers from the reclaimed land for a day job, and its where most hacking attempts on the usa come from
"I develop games and apps for the iPhone..."
Way to get that free advert for your game in there mate - absolute stroke of genius. If the software gig goes south on you, I'm sure there's a future for you in the ads game specialising in product placements.
Yet again the IPhone posers are shown to be nothing more than sheep being led around. If they were stupid enough to pay up front for something like this through an unknown supplier then they deserve to get done like a dogs dinner. Did they not think about how he was actually going to get these phones? He sure as hell would not be getting them from Apple.
Thanks for setting me right. Please understand that I have trouble telling you Euros apart: you all talk funny and smell bad.
So from your message, its the Dutch that are greedy fools. I always did wonder about them tulip-pushers.
@Scott & buddies
Probably you always had to buy second best for all of your pity life, resulting in your -Yaaawwwnnn!- hilarious comments.
People with real jobs have real money and can buy nice toys whenever they feel like. They really don't care what it costs, or what your analysis of the features per penny ratio is.
If you don't like Apple or can't afford it, don't whine but buy your own other brand and be happy with your new toy.
Those suckers that got ripped off tried to be as smart as you: Cheap.
- Mine's the one with the shiny sim-locked iphone
A modern-day example of a flying (by night) Dutchman?
Mine's the one made from sail canvas.
I'm getting a cheap 'made in china' clone (a68.i68,a168,c168+) about 80 pounds I think; its140 USD.
>Thanks for setting me right
You're welcome. Just one other thing.
>Please understand that I have trouble telling you Euros apart: you all talk funny and smell bad.
You're confusing the rest us with the Dutch. If you look at percentage of income spent on personal hygiene you'll see that amongst Europeans the Dutch are way to the bottom of the list. So either they have very cheap soap or they don't wash very often.
Just another couple of days and he'll rise again.
The Dutch are nice people, but if you want to learn the language go to Belgium, as they will talk to you in Dutch whereas in Holland you'll get english most of the time as they speak much better english than your dutch.
WTF did you need £500 worth of bamboo for?
Are you recreating the set of 'Tenko' in your back garden or something?
I think the world deserves an answer.
.. when Americans make racist remarks about "Europeans" (or anyone else for that matter) when they have clearly never left their own country.
Leon, you are correct not all people in NL are money-grabbing, arrogant hypocrits - I'd say only 80% of people in NL are like that.
Notably, 20% of the population of Holland are immigrants!
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