Under Currents: O Canada!

Enterprising scam artists came up with an interesting trick last month. We’ve all heard of the expression ‘feet of clay’ although few of us are probably aware it comes from the Bible, specifically the Book Of Daniel when he interprets a dream by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

The king had dreamed of an idol with a head of fine gold, arms and breast of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron and "feet part of iron and part of clay" (thanks Wikipedia). Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar the feet of iron and clay meant the kingdom would be partly strong and partly broken. Nowadays we use the expression to refer to the weakness or character flaw of someone, usually someone prominent.

Anyway, some sneaky and cheeky con artists at large in Canada introduced their own variant on the idea last month, updating it for the digital age in the process. As reported by CTV News, the scammers apparently bought as many as 10 iPad 2s from Best Buy and Future Shop in Vancouver and then returned them. But as with all cons they had pulled a switch, taking the iPads out of their boxes and replacing them with bags of modelling clay before returning them.

Unfortunately, instead of checking the contents, Best Buy and Future Shop returned the boxes to their shelves, unchecked, and sold them again to unwitting customers. According to the CTV News website, one unfortunate was Mark Sandhu who bought an iPad 2 for his wife for Christmas. When she unwrapped the ‘present’ on Christmas day, Sandhu’s wife was not best pleased.

"I look at him and I’m kind of in shock," she recalled, wondering if it was some kind of joke. At this point I should probably make it clear that, judging by her reaction, anyone considering playing a practical joke on their nearest and dearest by giving them an iPad 2 box with anything in it except an iPad 2 would probably be wise to reconsider their plans.

Taking stock

Luckily for Sandhu’s marriage, it wasn’t a joke. After some initial problems with Future Shop who Sandhu said weren’t immediately convinced by the story – the manager "made me feel like I’m trying to scam them out of $700" – he got a refund and a new iPad 2. Reading this news, some enterprising chancer in the Vancouver area might try to get an extra iPad 2 by putting some modelling clay into their iPad 2 box and taking it back to Best Buy or Future Shop and claiming that’s the way it came. I hope both stores have systems that keep a record of iPad 2s that have been returned to check against to prevent this eventuality but you never know.

On the subject of systems, the clay iPad 2 saga certainly served to highlight the weaknesses in Best Buy’s and Future Shop’s returns policies. I’m sure I can’t be alone in wondering why retailers would just take a product back, sight unseen. Surely most people would have at least looked in the box before handing any cash back to the customer.

The good news from this story, if there is any, is that Best Buy and Future Shop are likely to be much more vigilant about equipment returned by customers and more inclined to check the contents of the boxes before they return them to the shelves. So there’s going to be what looks like a welcome focus on their returns policies in future. And it just goes to show that even in these days of increased automation and technological advances in the retail environment, you still can’t be too careful. Even the best systems have a weakness that can be exploited, a bit of clay mixed in with the iron.

On the subject of clay, it’s probably fair to say there are quite a few ‘tablets made of clay’ out there in the market right now. But judging by the sales figures, the iPad 2 definitely isn’t one of them. Ironically, if it was, the con artists wouldn’t have bothered with their scam in the first place.

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