iPod Mechanic Pays Big

By 18 years old Michael Dell was already making lots of money by selling computers, Mark Zuckerberg has already built a growing Facebook before 23 years old, Bill Gates started making tons of money in his teens; all of them making a mark legally.

Nicholas Woodhams at the age of 23 is running away with lots of cash but he has done so illegally and now he has to pay $648,568 in damages to Apple, $8,066.85 to the US Postal Service, and has to return ill-gotten wealth which includes a house in Michigan, an Audi S4, Ariel Atom 2, Honda motorcycle all amounting to around $ 1.4 million dollars because of mail fraud and money laundering charges. On top of these, he has to serve 13 months in prison, a big setback for a young lad.

Nicholas Woodhams is the man behind iPodMechanic which exploits Apple’s advance replacement system for the iPod which was then resold as new through his website. Also, he was able to exploit Apple’s iPod warranty service program where you can get the company to make repairs even after the warrant has expired.

In the advance replacement system, you can request for an iPod shuffle replacement by entering a credit card number that is valid for replacements. Apple sends the iPod shuffle right away and waits for your busted iPod, if it doesn’t receive the iPod in a given period, it then charges your credit card. What Nicholas did was to use credit cards with valid replacements but did not have the balance to be charged upon either it was overdue it’s limit. Nicholas got over $75,000 dollars of iPod shuffles and resold them as new iPods through iPodMechanic.

In the warranty scheme, Nicholas replaced the casing of the iPod shuffle that did not have warranty with a case that still has warranty. They sent it to Apple for repairs and again sold them as new.

Apple was so mad at it that they filed a suit on June and Nicholas seeing he didn’t have a way out, pleaded guilty early July and now has to suffer the consequences of his actions. I think this guy is a genius placed and used illegally. He may have thought to earn a few bucks here and there when he finally realized he can make millions out of this scheme. At 23, he isn’t skilled enough to keep his operations in check and be able to get out of it quickly.

I just hope he realize his mistake while in prison and use his intelligence in the right way.

Image from Apple.