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Apple Store Strangeness

I was checking my email last weekend when I ran across an order confirmation from the Apple Store. "Ooooh, this is good!" I thought. I assumed this was my first spam using the Apple Store as bait. As I looked over it, I noticed how professional everything looked, and for a brief moment, I thought it was a Phishing expedition. The truth was starting to look more sinister though. It looked, and smelled like a genuine Apple Store Email, which could only mean that someone had broken into my Apple Store Account. DUN DUN DUN!

Except that my apple store account isn’t linked to that email account…

Wtf?

After my initial amusement and panic, I decided to settle down and get a good look at the email. The billing address wasn’t mine, and it matched the shipping address. I had never heard of Laura, but I was a bit relieved. Billing and shipping addresses generally don’t match on scams. It seemed as though there was a simple sort of computer glitch. My next course of action came to mind almost immediately. Should I cancel her order, or not... On one hand, I was very irritated and someone had to pay! On the other hand, this was probably some college woman who just wanted a cute little laptop and an iPod. I’m also a pretty nice guy, so I can’t just cancel an order if they just happened to cross email addresses. What to do, what to do...

They say that God never closes a door without opening a window, and I saw my window. I saw Laura’s phone number in the email. I decided to do an area code search, and I found that the area code matched the billing address. That was the final nail in the coffin for the fraud idea. I gave Laura a call and told her what had happened. It turned out that she ordered her stuff from the San Diego Apple Store. If you ever decide to purchase or order anything from the retail Apple Store, they can email your receipt to you instead of printing one out. Laura said she was at the Apple Store that morning to order her Macbook and iPod Nano. She gave them an email address that sounded nothing like mine, aside from having 'S' as the first letter. She thanked me for being an honest person and I ended our conversation.

My next call was to Apple to sort out this situation. I don’t think the customer rep fully understood my situation. He initially thought that someone had broken into my account. After informing him that I had no Apple Store account at that address, and that she had made the order via the retail Apple Store, he got a better handle on things. This was a first for him and a first for me. I told him that I’d be happy if they didn’t send me any more of her emails. He agreed to take care of it.

I hope Laura is enjoying her iPod nano. I received an email 3 days ago telling me that it had shipped.

posted by SumThing @ 6:58 PM