Sprint Embezzlement Scheme?

[Raging Idiot]

Last week I brought my broken 6700 in for repair/exchange at the store at
"3145 Peachtree Rd NE, Ste 199,Atlanta,GA 30305"
The lady searched for a long long time in random boxes and then came up with another 6700 which she gleefully handed to me, without first testing to see if it works.
Well, 5 minutes later I'm stuck in traffic on the way back to work and noticed the phone wasn't getting any signal and the camera light doesn't function.
Next day I went back and spent an hour in the store just for them to confirm this and they ordered a new phone.
When the new phone came in, another 6700, they couldn't get it to program correctly so they have ordered me yet another 6700.
Actually, the manager of the store told one of the store clerks to ask the person they were calling to request an upgrade to a Mogul. When she was on the phone (and looking me eye to eye) she never requested the upgrade.
Made me question motives...

I can't help but to wonder if there is an embezzlement scheme going on here. In which case it works like this:
Sprint rep receives Mogul as replacement, but replaces customers phone with a 6700 they bought off of eBay (or refurbished themselves).
Sprint rep then sells Mogul and pockets the profit.

Is this possible? I know with hacking that just about anything identifiable on the phone can be changed.
Is there a number I can call to see if any of the units that were assigned to me were actually suppose to be anything other than what I got? I was told there was no way of knowing, which seems to make this ripe for embezzlements.

[gguruusa]

You could only find it by cross referencing inventory reports against activations. Also, I think warranty replacements are tracked...so eventaully someone would catch on if you did it often enough.

It'd probably show up in a fraud search because the store's inventory would consistently show as being activated elsewhere in the country instead of locally.

[Raging Idiot]

Yes, and as long as Sprint isn't losing money from it, and customers aren't complaining (because what would we say, and how many even think about this), then there will be no cross referencing of documents and much more unlikely any prosecutions.

So we're looking at about a $200 profit per switch with nearly zero chance of getting caught, and zero chance of prosecution.
The standard retail Sprint rep could do this about 8 times a month and effectively double their salary.

[The Doctor]

I have been to the store in question many times. I have never been in for phone service, just to get new phones and accessories. Those front of the store, (sales) employees seem nice. I don't know if that's happening or not, but I do know there are plenty of people selling NEW PDAs on Craig’s list in the area. (In Marietta, usually.)
You know Moguls and Touches for $300, Blackberries, Palms etc...
Just go to Craig list and check under electronics.
What you propose would explain it.

[gguruusa]

Originally Posted by Raging Idiot

Yes, and as long as Sprint isn't losing money from it, and customers aren't complaining (because what would we say, and how many even think about this), then there will be no cross referencing of documents and much more unlikely any prosecutions.

So we're looking at about a $200 profit per switch with nearly zero chance of getting caught, and zero chance of prosecution.
The standard retail Sprint rep could do this about 8 times a month and effectively double their salary.

the salesperson got $200 of someones money! That's why warranty stuff is usually audited. I doubt you could do it 8 times a month though - you'd have to have 8 broken 6700's in stock, 8 newly broken 6700's being brought in, and 8 6800's being exchanged by the same salesperson.

You're right about no chance of prosecution...it's easier and cheaper to review their paperwork or just fire them.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, the way this works is a little different than you're imagining... What actually happens is the store orders the 6800 as a replacement, but it's really just increased inventory at this point. Once the ESN swap occurs, that's when the inventory is decremented and the store gets a monetary credit for the swapped phone. If the ESN is the inventory ID, you couldn't swap a different phone.

Regardless, at the end of the month, when the store does it's inventory audit, missing stock is bound to trigger a few red flags.

[nbohmer]

I actually went into a Sprint store back in March to buy a phone without re-uping my contract. It was the end of the day and pretty much no one was in the store.

Well after talking to the rep and told him I was just going to pay cash for the phone he told his buddy to come over there. Long story short I got a treo 700p for half the retail price.

What he did was he noted my account saying that I was going to cancel my plan and they gave me a "damaged" treo to get me on contract. He pocketed the cash and I left there with a phone cheaper than expected.

[Raging Idiot]

This is a bit involved so I'm going to look at this line by line....
People are more apt to take things when there is no one asking about it and no one prosecuting it. A salesperson will continue taking $200 of "someones money" as long as that holds true.

You can buy 6700's in bulk online. And who's to know if the Rep just fixes any of the returned 6700's awaiting repair and gives it back to a customer (whom thinks it was officially refurbished) and thus leaves open the opportunity for the Rep to acquire a 6800 to resell.
The number I used in this instance was "8", which was somewhat random, but used to show the amount of money in relation to salary. It could just as well be "1" or "100" per month.

They only need one 6700 to replace one 6800. Simply put:
I give them my 6700, they call it in under warranty or insurance or whatever, and they get back a 6800, and they give me their 6700.
I've heard here many times that it's random on what they get in regards to replacements in such matters. I imagine that this randomness would effectively offset some of the fraud so that it didn't seem as big a problem as it likely is. Instead of someone being able to embezzle 100% of the time they might only be able to do it 50% of the time...and if the store is looked at as a whole then the amount of embezzlement would diminish even further by proportion.

I'm skeptical on whether they have to add/subtract every refurbished/warrantied/insuranceclaim from their inventory, and if so it would seem probable there are ways around this.

I'm sure someone from Sprint could throw in some nonsense to obfuscate the issue in an attempt to thwart an investigation or public outcry, but this given scenario absolutely stands to reason that it is rather likely occurring indeed.

[gguruusa]

They definitely track every device received and exchanged. That's the point of all the paperwork. Fundamentally, the problem boils down to whether you can activate a device that isn't the device received - and that all depends on how they track their inventory. You'd have to supply the lesser device (cause otherwise inventory is just plain missing). Given that they have 1000s of stores where fraud gets committed daily, I'd be suprised if they don't have this particular avenue locked up. But, I've seen bigger oversights. (Honestly, any halfway decent audit should catch this failure to reconcile, and they've been in this business long enough to see most every scam)

Why would Sprint try to thwart an investigation? they're the victim.

[ajones7279]

Now that u've said that, It makes me think. I bought my mogul of ebay for about $230, including shipping, a while back. When I got it, it looked as if it had been sent directly from Sprint. It came in the white box with the packaging slip and everything they send replacement phones with.

[ajones7279]

And I dont think it was a replacement the seller ordered from sprint for herself because she was selling about 20 of them at the time