Think they would only let him buy max $2,500. Relative of BigW lady?
Guy at Woolworths Checkout in Front of Us Trying to Casually Buy $5,000 of iTunes Credit. Seems Legit
captaincabinets on 28/06/2016 - 19:35
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Usually the corporate sales are done online at a discounted rate.
Good point…
Discounted yes, but almost any major retailer with a promotion running is cheaper for itunes cards
FYI there is a limit of $500 per transaction for cards, so he musta been there for a while!
Most likely it isn't money laundering. Most likely a victim of a scam.
people have explained the money laundering angle. Why would a victim be doing this?
They are contacted by someone with some sort of financial scheme or prostitution. My friend was taken for $1500 on a prostitution scam. Once they have your redemption code for the card (sometimes Itunes cards, often other types of cards), they disappear.
Stolen paywave card. Easy money to be had.
PayWave is maximum $100, or they'd have to enter PIN.
Just purchase individually
surely there are better and easier ways to launder money? I reckon stolen/cloned card.
If it was a stolen credit card won't they just trace the card back to the shop?
If he was money laundering wouldn't this just raise suspicion?
Or is it that hard to catch some one?
Yes, but like a few days later.. You would think the perpetrator is gone by then.. AMIRITE?
He could be selling them on the internet, or even just the codes. Some countries do not sell Apple products, iTunes cards or allow the use of the App Store/iTunes, but those same countries have large numbers of people with iPhones/iPads/Macs which they bought from other countries.
If you change your country to Australia in iTunes or the App Store, then get a hold of Aussie iTunes cards, you can then add music or paid apps (most likely the apps) to your iPhone/iPad/Mac, otherwise you cannot.
This person can charge a premium amount for these cards because the people in the other countries will happily pay extra to be able to buy an App for their iPhone/iPad or Mac.
This guy could make a quick $1000+ doing that. e.g. if he happened to buy 250x $20 iTunes cards ($5000), but he sold them on for $25 each, he would make $1250 profit.
Exchange rate may factor in slightly with the weak Aussie dollar making the cards a little cheaper here using this method.
Most of the ones I see and hear about are for buying the "code" from the cards over the internet. So you send him $25, he emails back the code, buyer uses it in iTunes and buys their app. No postage cost, quick for the buyer.
But who knows what he's really doing…
I would've went to officeworks for the discounts as a true ozbargainer for 20% off. Could've saved a grand (yes there is a limit but he could go hopping to different stores). Hehe.
Nevertheless, this really does sound very dodgy.
Maybe he's developed an iOS game and he's buying it to get it into the charts? Perhaps he's purchasing 500,000 copies before the impending price hike?
Probably just reselling to China. There was huge demand for AU and NZ cards since the exchange rate was favourable vs App Store pricing. Not sure if it still is now since Apple's adjusted the App Store prices.
You are the only one given the right answer.
Just resell nothing like money Laundering.Is that what you do?
Like the link below in the NZ Herald.
I heard of someone buying iTunes cards at a discount, then going to an Apple Store thinking they can by product with them!
Maybe he's a huge apple fanboi !
Nothing to see here – just paying his ATO debt………………
https://www.ato.gov.au/Media-centre/Media-releases/Don-t-get…
https://au.news.yahoo.com/vic/a/31556330/grandmother-conned-…
People these day would fall for anything wouldnt they
Reselling to China as the quality of the cards in China might be harmful to consume unlike those produced in Australia which are deemed of great quality
lol…..
Maybe he is buying baby formula in the app store to send to Asia.
Are you serious?
As serious as D Trump
Dont laugh, Trump will win the election.
I noticed today that my local BigW has signs plastered all around the gift card section warning people about the 'ATO' gift card scam. Never seen anything like this before. There must be a lot of people getting suckered by the scammers.
He may be purchasing on behalf of a school/institution, where they distribute these iTunes cards. Who knows …
I know few Store that specialise in Macs and Apple Products go to retailers such as Woolworth/Big W/ Coles and few others when ever they have a promotion. One guy told me that his company makes each employee to go and buy itunes cards to a total of 25K during each promotional period. He said the profit in selling them in their retail and online store is a lot bigger than what Apple offers him already. I think he said Apple sales it to them with very small discount like 3% or something similar. Also I know few Schools also go and buys them as others have suggest it when their is a promotion. The School that I have worked at makes a profit of around 12K a year from buying them during promotional period and selling it to the parents at full price.
Would def believe this. Think of it as a small takeaway buying cases of coke during special season
The 33-year-old, an immigrant for ten years, was forced to pay to give codes of 16 iTunes vouchers worth $500 each.
She was told that her husband's life was at risk and told to pay another $18,000.
That's when Chiragi Patel sensed something fishy and approached the police.Yeah, up until the death threat it all seemed perfectly legit.
Unfortunately for her they didn't ask for 17 vouchers, otherwise she would have caught on straight away!
If he was a willingly involved in a scam or money laundering, then he is likely not the only person involved and was probably instructed to keep the money moving. These operations becomes time critical, particularly if the funds are still in their early stages and are still recognised as "dirty money". It takes time and people power for the authorities and banks to trace the funds from the origin so keeping it in rotation in the real world not only buys them more time (as it makes it harder to trace) but also increases their odds of it being successful heist.
I bought 2k before~ work related~
In a similar vein, I saw an Asian father and son duo buy $780 worth of cigarettes from coles yesterday.
I was flummoxed, the counter girl played it cool.
Yep, I'd say it's for their milk bar/small take-away shop - just like the ones in Footscray.
If he was money laundering, why would he do something so risky and put it on card? I would say this guy either has a stolen credit card or the more likely scenario is he buys them on his card and sells them to the Chinese market. Itune cards are at 20% discount… so 20% profit. There are 500 million Chinese internet citizens. That's a market 29x bigger than ours. China has recently cracked down on Apple so these cards are now more valuable.
The guy probably has an app and he is going to spend the gift cards on that app, then reporting the income from the app, all the tax man know is that someone has purchased the app, doesn't know who, what they used to pay or how they got the money.
But fees from apple is like 50%? or google?
thirty percent
So unless you get the itunes cards for 20% or less it IS possible to make money!
hmmm
Lmao ATO demands payment by iTunes gift cards and 60 people paid 180k. God bless Australia
Work at my local Woolies and last time when the 25% off promotion was on, we had 2 Chinese people come and buy over $3000 worth of $100 itunes card only used egift cards to pay for them and used the self-check out, making sure to only buy a few at a time. They wanted to buy more but we told them we had run out
Merged from Customer at Officeworks Buying LOTS of iTunes Giftcards
Hey all!
I've started working at Officeworks this year (after cashing in my long service leave at Hungry Jacks)!
I've noticed there's a customer that will come in every single day and buy 3 x $100 iTunes giftcards for $240.
I'm so curious as to why he's buying so many so often.
I steered the conversations towards asking (very politely) what he does with all of this credit and he said he buys it for his friends that live in the countryside that don't have access to an Officeworks nearby.
I couldn't care less if he's being suss with the credit but I'm so curious about what he's doing with it all.
Anyone have any ideas? I heard something about buying your own app over and over again to make a small profit?
regardless with what he is doing with it, i would suggest talking to the managers about this and they can take it further if need be if it sounds suspicious.
I'm not sure there is anything suspicious going on, he's always adhered to the rules.
I'll definitely bring it up with a manager, just in case.
I presume he's not paying cash. ;)
Perhaps he's using a fraudulent/stolen credit card, perhaps he really likes candy crush. Just mention it to your manager so they are aware.When I was working at Officeworks in 2010, we had a heavy-set Indian man come into the shop wearing a Calvin Klein button up open down to his chest hair who wanted $1,000 in Telstra Mobile Recharges and $1,000 in Optus Mobile Recharges. My manager told him that we couldn't accept a credit card for the transaction (anticipating credit card fraud). Instead of getting the usual treatment of customers yelling at us saying "How dare we accuse them of being untrustworthy" and "Wait until I tell Today Tonight about this one, you blue polo-shirt wearing Nazis!" — he shrugged his shoulders, walked out of the shop and returned with $2,000 in Cash.
I had to sit at that god forsaken EFTPOS machine for hours of my shift printing off $50 recharges for this guy. When I was finally done, we called the guy and he came and picked them up from me. He then offered me $100 cash as a tip, thanking me for spending precious hours of my life pressing a sequence of 8 buttons over and over for the last few hours — but my manager stepped between us and firmly said "No tips, sir. Company policy."
I was recalcitrant.
You're right, he did pay using card. Very interesting about the 2k in credit.
It's astounding how often people come in and pull out massive wads of cash to pay for a $20 set of pens though, awfully risky.
On more than one occasion, I had sold a laptop, software and a printer to people who were more than happy to head to the bank and get $2,000 - $5,000 out in cash. They'd of course ask if there was any better price I could do for cash.
Maybe that's how the manager was asking his part of the tips
is he elderly? Scam artists have been trying to con them (my mum got a call from the 'police' about tax evasion and to go to the bank etc or the police would be there in minutes), apparently they also accept itunes cards as payment lol.
Hah! Interestingly enough, I warned the gentleman about the tax scam and he assured me it wasn't for that.
He was a middle aged possibly Indian man.
Interestingly no one suggests that buyer bought the gift cards for resell.
He might be selling the codes overseas - not sure what our AU iTunes Store has over other countries (Stan subscription perhaps?) but likely it's a reseller.
Can't he just be paying alot of $$ to play a game? There are many packages in games that cost well over $100
He could own a business and be using them for prizes. That's quite common!
Yeah, that's possible.
Years ago I helped my missus buy a shopping cart full of Xboxes, I think about 8 or 10, for prizes at her work.
I watched one of those YouTube videos where this guy trolls the scammer impersonating the IRS (ATO equivalent), he finally got through one of the scammers who revealed that he thought/was told that the government will give the victims 100% of the money they were scammed out of. Thus believe that it's all ok, what they're doing is not bad, it's not stealing, they're not (directly) killing anyone and they're still going to heaven….
Is he sending it to the US for someone who needs it for the IRS? Australian dollar not so great in US at the moment. 😂
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Maybe they are just buying them for corporate gifting? Example Christmas party etc…