Fake Russian iPhones are an Empty Promise

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If you’re looking to pick up an iPhone cheap, you may want to avoid any opportunities that arise for you in Russia. It seems there’s an increasingly popular scam there where people want to quickly unload their iPhone with a nearly discharged battery in order to quickly raise funds for a train or plane ticket. They show you the phone with an Apple logo that lights up momentarily when the power button is pressed and say, “just charge it and you have an iPhone!”

Not surprisingly, the insides look something like what you see in the gallery below, complete with a steel plate to give the fake phone some heft, and batteries to produce the lit-up logo. At least the fake Rolex watches tell time, don’t they?

Fake Russian iPhone Fake Russian iPhone - not much inside
Fake Russian iPhone - steel plate for heft Fake Russian iPhone - logo lights up

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8 responses to “Fake Russian iPhones are an Empty Promise”

  1. Jorge says:

    Have you verified this? I’ve seen these pictures before and it’s highly suspect that this is a “popular” scam. To me, it looks like link bait from the guy that built the thing and took the pictures…

  2. Jazzy says:

    This is so strange to me.

  3. applelog says:

    I am Russian and I can say, that Russian just cannot do this. There is no way Russians can make an empty iPhone case… there is just no way. I would suspect Chinese at the first place.

  4. Yuri says:

    I like! Cheap. impress your friends, not having to use. At library in Ulan-Bator, using to meet pretty girls. Works more than not. Not have to make crooked and sell, only to meet.

    Yuri