A journalist writes that his new MacBook Air, worth about €950, was stolen directly from his apartment in early 2024. He reported the theft to the police; the MacBook remained lost. But in December 2024, he received an email that first gave him hope before bitterly disappointing him.
This was the situation: A journalist from JeuxVideo writes on December 26 that his apartment was broken into in early 2024, and the thieves stole his freshly purchased MacBook Air M3. It costs approximately €950, which is quite a loss.
He struggled with the police, the insurance, and Apple, trying everything to get the device back, but ultimately he bit the bullet, wrote off the MacBook, and got a new one.
But in December 2024, he received an email that gave him hope. A “Anna from the UK” contacted him, saying she had bought a used MacBook but realized it was apparently stolen. She was given this number to reach out to him. Now she wanted to return the MacBook to him. However, the police would not handle the return but referred her to the nearest Apple Store. She was on her way there to return the MacBook to him.
Journalist is suspicious, but the email seems legitimate
This is how it went on: The journalist was suspicious because a month earlier someone had already tried to scam him regarding his MacBook. At that time, the message had been easily recognizable as a scam. However, Anna’s email seemed credible.
Anna tried to call him several times, but every time he tried to answer the call, it was not possible. Ultimately, she wrote to him that she had now arrived at the Apple Store and sent him a photo of the store as proof.
However, this made the journalist suspicious after all. Because he hadn’t even asked for a photo.
It seemed strange to him that Anna was so eager to appear “real.” So, alongside the conversation with Anna, he contacted Apple UK to find out whether what Anna said was true:
All her statements seemed credible, and she didn’t ask me any questions at all. [..] She said she would pass on my phone number so that Apple Care could contact me to return the MacBook.
Email turns out to be a scam, trying to phish him with a link
This was the catch: When the journalist contacted Apple, he found out that the Apple Store Anna photographed and where she supposedly is now could not be located. She said she was in Manchester, but the only store there did not look like the one in the photo.
Now the journalist received an email stating that his “MacBook Air M3” had been found. If he was the owner, he should reply “YES.”
Before he could even respond to the email, a second message arrived: To confirm that he was the owner of the iPhone, he should provide his full address after confirming his identity via a link.
The journalist says that at the moment he was suddenly asked about an iPhone instead of the MacBook, it became clear to him that this email from Anna was just another attempt to scam him, evidently to obtain his password.
Journalist says scams have become more sophisticated
This is what the journalist says: The journalist now believes that the late contact was only to get into his MacBook by trying to steal his Apple ID.
The thieves apparently have his MacBook but cannot use it – thus it remains worthless.
He says that after dealing with the scam again, he must warn that the methods of scammers have become more sophisticated by now. One must approach such messages that give hope always with a pessimistic and skeptical attitude. If something seems too good to be true, then it probably is false: Fraudsters stole €5,000 from a person because he disabled an important setting on his phone
The title image is a symbolic image. It comes from Pexels on Pixabay
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