One reason O2 ran out of iPhones so quickly: staff flogged them on Ebay

Apple may have been squeezing the supply of first-gen iPhones to retailers, but perhaps another reason why O2 ran out of stock is because some employees used their staff discounts to buy large stocks of iPhones and then flog them on Ebay.

Half-a-dozen employees from O2 stores in London have been dismissed, while another 20 employees are under investigation.

The practice is quite common, apparently, but the high-profile nature of the iPhone seems to have alerted O2 to the scam.

"It is actually nothing new that staff in mobile phone shops have supplemented income with this abusive perk," said one industry source. "What is fresh is that O2 is cracking down on the practice in a sign that mobile firms are no longer prepared to turn a blind eye. The iPhone is an iconic product for O2 and it makes sense to start there, but I predict that we will see this spread across the sector. The days when this kind of scam could be ignored are over."

(Via This is money)

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