Reddit user says he ordered an iPhone 15 Pro Max, but received an Android clone instead

A user on Reddit this week shared a fascinating story about what unexpectedly came in the box when he ordered a new iPhone from Apple. Instead of the iPhone 15 Pro Max that he bought, “theEdmard” claims that he received a knock-off Android device running an iOS 17-style software skin.

According to Ed, who lives in the UK, he placed his iPhone 15 Pro Max order directly through Apple. When he opened the box, however, he quickly realized something wasn’t quite right. The “iPhone” had a screen protector on it, which is not normal for a new iPhone. The screen itself also wasn’t at all what he expected.

“The next thing I notice when I turn it on, the screen isn’t right. It lights up the black area in a way that is clearly not OLED, and the bottom has a ‘chin,’ which suggests this is not correct for the phone,” Ed writes. He also describes the initial setup process as being “very poor.”

At this point, he realized what was happening: it wasn’t an iPhone 15 Pro Max. It was an Android phone disguised to look like an iPhone. Ed says that the tracking number on the box he received even matched up with what Apple’s website shows.

The knock-off iPhone 15 Pro Max came pre-installed with apps including YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok. Real iPhones don’t come with any pre-installed apps other than Apple’s own. “The OS is glitchy and horrible, the camera is like a slideshow and crashes if you try to use any UI element on screen,” Ed writes in his post on Reddit.

Clearly, what happened here is that the iPhone 15 Pro Max that Ed ordered got swapped for a knock-off by someone before the order ultimately arrived at his doorstep. My first thought was that it was someone working for the delivery company (Dynamic Parcel Distribution, in this case). Ed, however, says he spoke to DPD, and they were adamant it wasn’t them.

“They assure me that the box was sealed properly, and so it was never opened or tampered with, so couldn’t [have] been them,” Ed says in regard to DPD.

As Mashable points out, this seemingly isn’t the first time someone has ordered an iPhone 15 and gotten an Android phone instead. A TikTok user posted a video last week claiming that a similar thing happened to them.

Ed says that he has an open support ticket with Apple, but the situation hasn’t been resolved yet. The company has been “very accommodating so far,” he said.

9to5Mac’s Take

This is a fascinating situation…and also scary. In Ed’s case, he was smart enough not to complete the setup process and didn’t provide any of his information. If he had logged in to his Apple ID, entered card information for Apple Pay, or logged into any apps, this would be an entirely different – and much worse – situation.

Most people who read 9to5Mac probably wouldn’t fall for something like this. My guess, however, is that there are a lot of people who wouldn’t think twice about it and enter all of their information as normal.

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