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NY Apple Store employee charged with using fraudulent card details to buy almost $1M worth of Apple gift cards

A former Apple Store employee has been charged with grand larceny and other crimes after allegedly using fraudulent credit and debit card details to purchase an incredible $997,000 worth of Apple gift cards in just three months.

24-year-old Ruben Profit is accused of carrying out the fraudulent purchases while working at the Apple Store in the Queens Center Mall in Elmhurst, the company’s first retail store in Queens. All of the purchases were made between August and October, reports NBC New York … 

Profit reportedly overwrote the data on the magnetic strip of the cards to emulate other cards – it’s not yet known how he obtained the card details to do so.

An investigation launched in October when Apple started getting notifications of charge-backs, which indicate fraudulent transactions, on the Apple gift cards Profit allegedly purchased.

At the time of his arrest, Profit was allegedly in possession of 51 Visa and American Express gift cards with magnetic strips that had been fraudulently re-encoded with credit card information. He also allegedly had seven Apple gift cards worth $2,000 each.

Profit is reported to have told police that he sold the gift cards for 10% of their face value. He is currently being held on bail, and faces a maximum prison sentence of 15 years if convicted.

Another alleged fraudster was last year accused of obtaining over $300k’s worth of Apple kit by deception by working a ridiculously simple con on store employees.

Photo: michaeltruskowski.com

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Comments

  1. Sergey Ponomaryov - 8 years ago

    That last name though…

  2. 311sie - 8 years ago

    Safe to say that Ruben did not “Profit” from this crime. C’mon, someone had to say it!!

  3. rnc - 8 years ago

    Crime doesn’t profit

  4. Cory © (@Nardes) - 8 years ago

    He’s not a Prophet… just here to Profit.

  5. 89p13 - 8 years ago

    Should be Robbin’ Profit.

  6. Charlypollo - 8 years ago

    Sounds like the name for a James Bond villain.

    “Crime doesn’t pay Mr Profit “

  7. recentconvert - 8 years ago

    Terrible. But the sad thing is now all Apple employees (the majority of which are probably totally law abiding) will likely be subject to more checks, scrutiny and surveillance, due to the action of this criminal. A custodial sentence for this crime is correct, but 15 Years? Wow. I wonder how many years those involved in the VW scandal will get? ( I bet none go to jail).

  8. rwanderman - 8 years ago

    You might want to change your title to reflect your first sentence: “A former Apple Store employee…” if in fact that’s the case.

    • Ben Lovejoy - 8 years ago

      He’s a former employee now, for obvious reasons. He was an employee when he carried out the fraud.

  9. thecodee - 8 years ago

    This could’ve made a great promo for Apple Pay since it would’ve made fraud like this impossible.

Author

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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