UK man orders iPhone 15 Pro Max from Apple website, receives Android lookalike instead

Apple delivers fake iPhone 15 Pro Max

• According to the customer, he ordered an iPhone 15 Pro Max from the Apple UK website. The delivery tracking was also legit as checked by him. But upon receiving the package, the customer suspected something fishy.
• After he opened the box, he started noticing one thing after another that was different about the iPhone 15 Pro Max delivered to him.
• It started with a screen protector on the iPhone, then the screen that was lighting up in the wrong areas. The setup process was also very weak, and it was after the iPhone booted up that he noticed the device was fake.
• “I managed to skip all the setup screens and get into the phone. It has facebook, youtube and tiktok installed already, the OS is glitchy and horrible, the camera is like a slideshow and crashes if you try to use any UI element on screen,” the buyer wrote on Reddit.

Getting a fake unit is concerning but what was even more alarming was the fact that it came as the exact one ordered. This was the iPhone 15 Pro Max in Natural Titanium. The device had all the Apple apps as well, and you could login with your Apple ID too.

But in this case, the buyer was smart enough to recognise that the device was fake and didn’t login any personal details. But not everyone might catch the difference, and end up logging in with their Apple account. This could give access to attackers who might be trying to scam customers through fake devices. 

It’s quite surprising that this mistake was directly from Apple but some people in the comments suggest the device was swapped during transit. A complaint has been registered with Apple, and the device will most likely be replaced. But it’s still important to caution people about the possibility of such scams even when you return directly from Apple.