4 ms·

There are a couple hypotheses the author hasn't considered. It's possible the buyer stole the phone, yes, but it's also possible that it was a warehouse company

There are a couple hypotheses the author hasn't considered. It's possible the buyer stole the phone, yes, but it's also possible that it was a warehouse company employee, a shipping company employee, or a previous buyer who made a return.

coryfklein 10y ago
It's true, there are other possibilities. I found the given explanation most likely though: iPhones are all sold by 3rd party sellers on Amazon, so the alternatives you suggest likely wouldn't present as several buyers reporting on a single product that has multiple seller locations.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  If they were fulfilled by Amazon, it could be people returning, Amazon not opening the box and then shipping it to the next buyer.
  - joemi 10y ago
    Also Fulfillment-By-Amazon explains that review that mentions "barcode was covered by fake barcode"... All FBA items must cover up any original barcode with Amazon's FNSKU barcode. Either the sellers do it themselves before shipping to Amazon, or they pay a small fee to Amazon to put the barcodes on.
    - ikeboy 10y ago
      You could use commingled inventory and then it doesn't need a label if there's already a barcode.
- joemi 10y ago
  To be fair, a lot of reviewers don't realize when there are multiple seller locations. Hell, some people don't even realize that there are third-party sellers on Amazon at all. If even just one of those sellers is scamming (or just has a bad batch of products) and ships out multiple of these clay boxes, it's not at all surprising that you'd get multiple of these reviews.