Man claims receiving 60 iPhone 15 Pro Max 1TB units from Apple after ordering only four
Upgrading to the latest iPhone requires huge amount of work—overtime and holiday shifts included—for the average working Pinoy. But what if instead of receiving just a piece of your hard-earned smartphone, you receive five dozen of them by surprise?
This is what happened to Giovanni Petruzziello, an entrepreneur based in Connecticut, USA who, instead of just getting the four iPhone 15 Pro Max units he ordered at his doorstep, received 60 pieces of them accidentally.
In a TikTok video uploaded earlier this month, the 25-year-old entrepreneur said that he ordered one iPhone 15 Pro Max with 1 TB storage capacity for himself and three of the same model but with 256 GB storage for his staff.
"So I ordered four iPhone 15 Pro Max [units] from Apple directly. And I ordered them on September, September 15," he began.
"I ordered four iPhone 15 Pro Max [units] for the business. One being for me, the other three for my media guys," he continued.
Giovanni recalled placing the order when he received a call from the business manager of the Apple store where he would usually buy products for his business, called LGND SUPPLY CO.
He said the manager asked him if he wanted to preorder an iPhone 15 so he could be "one of the firsts with the phone."I did give him my card over the phone to place the order. So I got charged for the phone," Giovanni recounted.
The entrepreneur said that he received a notification that the smartphones were being delivered to his home address the same day he uploaded his first TikTok video on Nov. 1.
True enough, his own handset, the iPhone 15 Pro Max 1 TB version, was delivered in a small box on his doorstep. But what surprised him was that it came along with three larger boxes that were much bigger than what was required of the three other units he ordered.
The entrepreneur opened one of the boxes and—lo and behold—saw 20 pieces of smaller boxes with the Apple logo on them. "I have no idea what these are, I have not ordered something this many from Apple," he said.
Then he proceeded to pull one of them from the stack and saw that it was a unit of iPhone 15 Pro Max—1 TB version at that. "Last thing I expected it to be was all iPhone 15 Pro Max. Every single one, 1 TB,'" Giovanni remarked.
He then opened the two other boxes which, to his disbelief, contained the same amount of iPhone 15 Pro Max 1 TB units in the first box.
"There's just no chance that I have this many iPhone 15 [units]," he said. "Are these fake or did Apple screw up?"
He noted that he's "having a tough time" because he doesn't know "if this is real."
A total of $3,600 (P200,954) was charged to his credit card, but only for the four iPhone 15 Pro Max units he initially ordered. All the other 59 1 TB units were sent to his doorstep free of charge.
The international selling price of an iPhone 15 Pro Max 1 TB version is $1,599 (P89,257), making the cost of Apple's shipping error around $94,341 (P5.26 million).
@legends_gio Someone reallyyy screwed up 😭 #fyp ♬ original sound - Legends_gio
Giovanni's TikTok video has gone viral, earning 1.6 million likes, 51,700 comments, and 41,200 shares to date.
A day later, he posted another video explaining what he thinks could have happened in the process.
"Yeah it was a complete accident," the entrepreneur answered one of the users who commented on his video.
"I wasn't charged, I got charged for the full amount of the four phones on my card that I gave him over the phone when I ordered," he continued.
"He must have put my address in because the phones, when you order through an Apple rep, ship directly to your address. He must have placed the orders for the general public because they do get stock for these phones—he must have placed the bulk order after he placed mine and copied and pasted my address when he thought he copied and pasted another address," he explained. "I'm going to assume what exactly happened."
The entrepreneur said that he is not planning to sell them, but keep them in his house instead until someone from Apple reaches out.
@legends_gio Replying to @Mxmorycapsule it just makes sense #apple ♬ original sound - Legends_gio
According to U.S. federal law, recipients of unordered merchandise may keep the goods and are not obligated to pay for or return them. Those who receive such merchandise can treat the goods as "unconditional gift" and may use or dispose it as they please.
While Apple has not released any statement on the matter, they may render the phones unusable if it chooses, according to tech portal Gizmochina. Apple can do so in the same way it disabled the iPhone units stolen from their U.S. stories during the Black Lives Matter protests in June 2020.