UK resident theEdmard shared on Reddit this week his disappointment when the iPhone 15 Pro Max he’d ordered directly from Apple turned out to be a cheap Android-based knockoff. Instead of opening the box to find the latest and greatest iPhone, he found an iOS 17-skinned Android device.
On Saturday I took delivery of this package – the order was done directly through Apple’s UK website and the tracking was all legit. I got confirmation emails from apple and tracking details through DPD, everything as you would expect.
Once my package arrived, as you can see in my Imgur Gallery, I immediately knew it wasn’t right. I opened the box and the first thing I notice is the screen protector, first thoughts were, had I been sent a return? The next thing I notice when I turn it on, the screen isnt right, it lights up the black area in a way that is clearly not OLED and the bottom has a ‘Chin’ which suggests this is not correct for the phone. Once I turned it on I was greeted with a very poor setup process and I immediately clocked that it was an Android device in a skin. It may have convinced my Grandad but I could tell very quickly (especially when I saw actual android toasts popping up in some cases) 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.
theEdmard says he checked the the tracking number on the package he received and it matched up with the tracking information on Apple’s website.
theEdmard also found that the device had several third-party apps pre-installed on the device, including Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. That was another tipoff that he’d been scammed, as real iPhones don’t have any third-party apps pre-installed.
Apparently, the iPhone 15 Pro Max was swapped out for the Android handset sometime between leaving the Apple warehouse and his doorstep. theEdmard told 9to5Mac that he contacted the delivery company (Dynamic Parcel Distribution) where he spoke to an employee who told him it wasn’t anyone that worked for them.
“They assure me that the box was sealed properly, and so it was never opened or tampered with, so couldn’t [have] been them,” theEdmard said.
theEdmard said he’s opened a support ticket with Apple, and while the situation hasn’t yet been resolved to his satisfaction, the iPhone maker has been “very accommodating so far.”