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Apple Trade-In (GiveBack) is a scam (via Brightstar)

Apple run a Trade-In scheme (previously called Apple GiveBack) which lets you trade in your old device for a credit against a new device. There are lots of trade-in companies in the UK and some offer cash, gift cards, etc but Apple’s own scheme offers you a credit/discount against a new Apple device and they seemed to offer good trade-in prices too.

However, the scheme seems to be underwritten and handled by Brightstar and I had two separate trade-ins dramtically reduced in value when they received the devices.

My iPhone 6 was reduced from £140 to £60. No reason given.

My iPhone 7 was reduced from £225 to £160 saying it was locked to a network when it was bought SIM Free direct from Apple.

In both instances they just assumed I’d accept the lower value and issued gift cards for the lower prices. I anticipated something like this might happen so I made sure I documented, photographed and took videos of each device before shipping them. When challenged they instantly rolled over and blamed a “system error” for the reduced valuation and generated a separate gift card for the difference but I wonder how many people don’t have this evidence and just accept the lower value unecessarily.

If you receive an email from Brightstar stating “While inspecting your <device> we noted the following….This changes your trade-in value from £XXX to £YY” do not simply accept it and assume they are correct. You should ALWAYS CHALLENGE the inspection, especially when no reason is given. You should also ensure you take lots of photographs and a video that show the device operating perfectly before you ship it off to Apple GiveBack. I reached out to Apple for comments on this and sent them the emails to let them know Brightstar are trying to rip off their loyal customer base. I’ve yet to receive a response from Apple but thought it best to warn others who might be thinking of using Apple’s Trade-in program to think twice.

Email from Brightstar saying trade in reduced from £140 to £60 with just a blank section where the explanation should be.
iPhone 6 quoted value dropped from £140 to £60 with no reasons given.
iPhone 7 trade in value reduced from £225 to £160, apparently because the device is “locked” even though it’s a SIM free unit bought direct from Apple and logged out of iCloud and reset to factory.
Eventually Brighstar honor the two original quoted values.
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Missed call scam from +225 Côte d’Ivoire / Ivory Coast

Around 8pm on Friday I received a missed call from an international number that identified as +225…Côte d’Ivoire. I ignored this and a few minutes later it rang again. I kept ignoring it then another number from Côte d’Ivoire have me 8No missed calls back to back. I tried to ignore one of these calls via my watch and it accidentally called it back for 12 seconds. Then the calls continued to come in, only every ringing one or twice before hanging up. Never enough time to try and answer the call. Continue reading “Missed call scam from +225 Côte d’Ivoire / Ivory Coast”

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Fraud Alert: Argos Credit Card Refund SMS text message

Quick post to publish details of a fairly convincing fraudulent SMS text message received stating “Your Argos credit card has a refund of £270 from an overpayment”. This is followed by a link that when previewed almost looks legitimate and takes you to a spoofed Argos Login page to try and scam your username and password. What’s most convincing about this scam is that the SMS appears to come from “Argos” no number used and appears below a list of older genuine SMS from Argos for previous purchases. This in itself might be sufficient to convince most people to click the link and enter their details in the hope of a refund.

Things to look out for to know it’s a scam

  • Do you have an Argos Credit Card? In fact does one even exists? If not then straight away you know it’s a scam.
  • Are you expecting a refund from Argos? If not then you know it’s a scam. Don’t hold out hope that Argos is refunding you and you’ve got free money.
  • Look at the URL carefully. It doesn’t end Argos.co.uk it has a hyphen and then has -existing-customers etc on the end.

Don’t even click the link, you’d be surprised how much information they can gather from your browser just from cookies on their scam site.

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BMW Download Manager – Map Update Errors USB

If you purchase the latest version of GPS navigation maps from BMW you don’t receive a disc/DVD or over the air updates, you have to download a whopping 32GB of data to put onto a USB drive to carry out the update.

That’s all ok as BMW offer a nifty BMW Download Manager that handles the download to make sure such a large file download doesn’t get interrupted. However, they cap the download speed, so what should have taken <1 hour on my 100mbps leased line took 18 hours. I left if going and when it was all done and downloaded it presented me with the following:

So I put in a 32GB thumb drive and it says there’s not enough free space because 32GB is actually only 31.25GB (1024bits in a byte and all that fun stuff) which meant the 31.38GB it said it needed is actually too much to fit on a 32GB USB drive so you need a 64GB drive. No problem, I have 64GB drives around too…

This is where the fun happens, you cannot format a 64GB USB drive as FAT32 you can only format it as exFAT or NTFS but the BMW Download manager rejects exFAT and NTFS file formats and requests FAT32 but you simply can’t have a FAT32 formatted drive larger than 32GB!

I even tried Fat32Formater 3rd party app to try and force the format of 64GB to FAT32 but the BMW Download App still rejected it.

I tried forcing a format to FAT32 using Command Prompt but that returns an error “The Volume is too big for FAT32”

So I’m currently out of ideas. I’ve managed to buy a BMW Navigation Map update but it has to have a FAT32 formatted USB drive larger than 32GB which appears to be impossible.

I will contact BMW support and see what their solution is and update here to help anybody else stuck in the same situation.