Posted on 02/05/2016 7:42:26 PM PST by Swordmaker
Nope, just talk normally. I'd find some private place though. . . It's a new definition of "talk to the hand" because that's where the voice comes from.
How so? 12 million is phenomenal. Some over heated anal-cysts were claiming some huge numbers, but those meant nothing. The Apple Watch sold twelve million units in 7 months, the best selling product introduction of all time, the Apple iPad, sold 14 million units in 8 months, having one more month of sales before the end of the calendar year and going on sale essentially a month earlier than the Apple Watch. The iPad was not dependent on another devices existence for sales like the Apple Watch, and the iPad was sold from day one at all Apple retail stores. The Watch actually sold more units in its first full quarter of availability, breaking the iPad's world record for best new product intro for units sold!
Apple Watches sold more units in each following quarter, than the previous quarter.
How is it a disaster?
A very good assessment of high end watches....thanks. I have not worn a watch in years. Even when I was flying in the Air Force, I only wore them on low levels, airdrop, or aerial refueling missions. I can appreciate great engineering, but these high end watches (basically) do one thing: tell time. I read the diary of an English aristocrat who lived in the 1600s, and witnessed the Fire of London. His pocket watch was a marvel for the day....it was his most prized possession.
Well, duh, of course the card company was called first thing. They aren’t the problem. Apple is so big they wouldn’t cooperate with my little local police dept. and give the name and address of the thief. So, yeah, I blame the merchant. The thief was working out of the Hewlett Packard California office and stole the credit card info when we ordered a computer. Along with Apple, HP is also banned in this house. The thief could have been fined and sentenced to 2 years if there had been some cooperation. Believe me or not, that’s your opinion, but you weren’t here and didn’t have the hassle. I don’t need the hassle from Apple and I certainly don’t need the hassle from know it alls who haven’t a clue.
That was tongue firmly in cheek, Sword. I guess it wasn’t that obvious that it was wry humor. The stats made a complete fool of all the naysaying idiots that constantly infest your posts. Thanks for slashing Up Yours to ribbons, too.
Take a deep breath, B. If you had fully explained what happened in your first post, it would have helped a lot. The most amazing thing in your tale is that a local PD has the time to investigate a bogus credit card charge. You must live in a very low crime town.
Did you do your math like you’re supposed to, Mr. “CEO”? Because apparently you don’t have a clue what you are saying. At $200 profit per watch, the maximum gains from 12 million sold is $2.4B. The program cost approximately $5B for R&D, tooling, etc. The first year alone means a total LOSS of $2.6B. 2 months will sell about 200,000 units total, especially in Q1.
When you create a new product as a MATURE company, it better damned well make a profit, or at least break even. Apple knows this. That’s why they set a target of 20,000,000, then proceeded to OBVUSCATE the numbers to hide their loss. They’re 8M short, a loss, loss, LOSS. Not painting a pretty picture for Apple’s new “flagship” turd.
Regardless of segment success, companies aren’t in the business of being segment leaders in LOSSY segments. Smart watches are going nowhere. Otherwise competitors would be flocking to it. I’m sorry, Mr. Swordmaker, if you feel this to be a success, it’s a good indicator why you aren’t a “CEO” at all, or an out-of-work one at best.
Well, excuse me, bgill, but. I DO have a clue. Someone is blowing smoke up your ass. In May I am flying to Hawaii with my girlfriend to attend the wedding of a mutual friend who WORKS in Apple's Credit Card Fraud department. She tells me that Apple is extremely aggressive about following up on any credit card fraud. It is in their interest to do so. . . and it was one of the ways they were able to get the banks to cooperate in accepting Apple Pay. Apple has a hell of a higher cost than did you for such fraud, and a lot bigger incentive to follow up with law enforcement. They DO cooperate with the police every time they are contacted on such frauds. They have dedicated specialists like her who do nothing except follow up on credit card fraud. It's her job to assist and find, and prosecute credit card fraudsters. Apple has over 1 billion credit cards on file and they DO pro-actively manage those cards to protect their customers.
I suspect the lack of cooperation was located elsewhere than Apple. I'd suspect the lack of cooperation was inter-departmental, or more likely just lack of interest in following through. If you were out of California, then the FBI has to get involved and the banking system as well. If the fraud is small, then they just drop it, looking for bigger fish to fry. Your mentioning of a two year sentence implies it was small fry, rather than an organized ring, so I'd be willing to bet it wasn't worth the FBI's attention, or if you are in California, the local police where the HP office was located and the report from your police department just got filed away and forgotten. If your police department even checked, they might have been given an excuse of "Oh, we didn't get any cooperation from Apple," as a convenient toss off to make the problem go away.
There's another problem with your claim:
In what way were you even involved in that investigation?
I've had such frauds perpetrated on my credit/debit cards if they even bothered to investigate and the police would not even talk to me about the investigation. The reason they gave me? They did not want "vigilante" actions from the public against the perpetrator, nor was the crime against me. The crime was perpetrated against Apple and the card issuing bank.
What I also found was that it was considered a very low priority for local police. The local police in Stockton, CA, told me to call the FBI, because the perpetrators were out of their jurisdiction. The local police could not be less interested.
The only time where I was heavily involved in a credit card fraud case was when when our business had a perpetrator create an entire fictitious business using one of our business's DBA's to use to process credit cards. The crook opened bank accounts in our DBA name on line with Capital 1 bank in New Orleans, even using our address in California. Even though I could prove that we were the legal entity with that address and the legal right to that name, the bank refused to reveal any data to me, the FTC who have the authority on such fraud, or later the police and FBI, about that account without a valid search warrant. I was kept in the loop because eventually I was given authority to access the account by a Federal Court Judge. . . and because we had to put a stop to it on only we had authority to close the various accounts the crook opened.
Over $20,000 of fraudulent credit card charges had been processed though that fake business, and the only way we found out about it was a victim in Massachusetts called us after finding us on the Internet demanding to know why we had charged her credit card for $47.99! Yet not one penny of those charges ever reached the Capital 1 bank, which was interesting in-and-of-itself, and wound up involving even more Federal agencies.
The account was opened on line by an entity in Canade, using a computer in a cell tower near Modesto, CA, so the US State Department got involved, and the Canadian ISP never did allow access to the name of the Canadian criminal.
Before the case concluded the banking authorities also were pulled in because the criminal had figured out a way to intercept the transfers of payments after they left the credit card processing company but before they reached Capital 1 bank, something that was thought to be impossible to do. By the time all was said and done, I had a pile of official reports over two feet high! But that was an exception rather than the rule. Ours was not the only business name and Capital 1 the only bank being used by these crooks. . . but it was me and our business that instigated the investigation. (Or more accurately, probably that woman who called me from Massachusetts, demanding to know why we had charged her card for $47.99. LOL! Had she not called me, we would never have known about the charges at all!) So, bgill, I DO indeed know what I am talking about.
Ordinary credit card fraud investigations that YOU describe is usually never shared with the card holder. The most I've ever heard was the location of the perpetrator when the bank's security people inform me of the originating source location when they check if I had originated the charge when I've called to report the fraud. After that, crickets. They will never involve the customer in the rest of the case because the customer is NOT THE VICTIM! At most, the customer is a witness, and providing any information to the victim can compromise your testimony at trial. So, bgill, how did you learn all of this non-cooperation from Apple and HP?
Frankly, I even question that HP involvement. Credit card scammers are excellent at spoofing the locations of where they do such charges. . . and unless Apple provided the shipment address which implies cooperation, all they have is a URL which is drop dead simple to spoof.
My story has never changed on this but every time you get bend out of shape and go off the deep end. Next time, I’ll be sure to ping you so you won’t miss it.
You claim to have a girlfriend. Two can play that game. I don’t believe you could get a human female. So, a big fat raspberry on you.
You ARE completely off-the-deep-end delusional.
Why, yes, I did do my math correctly. . . and there are no quotations around my previous title, you delusional asshat. As I said, you are entitled to your delusional opinions, but you are not entitled to create your own delusional facts out of whole cloth. That's lying, which you do repeatedly.
Who in hell provided you with these figures, Marxists asshat? Not Apple, I assure you Apple did not, because Apple does not publish such detailed information. That kind of data is considered proprietary company secrets.
I provided links to my sources of where those data originated which is where YOU got the 20 million first year (12 month) estimate of Apple Watch sales, and it did NOT originate from Apple Inc. It was from Horace Dediu at Asymco and then Philip Elmer-DeWitt at Fortune Magazine both qualified sources, and both of whom were repeatedly quoted by multiple other sources, but neither one of them associated with Apple and neither one received their data from Apple.
Who told YOU that it cost Apple $5 BILLION, 75% of Apple's 2014 Research and Development budget, which is where it would have been allocated, to develop the Apple Watch? Again that false information did not come from Apple Inc. I've never seen it promulgated anywhere except from YOU. Apple certainly did NOT expend six thousand million dollars to develop the Apple Watch, an iPhone accessory, which is certainly not an Apple "flagship" product, as you mischaracterize it. You, Marxists, pulled that absurd figure out of your tight delusional asshat.
But, even assuming your figure is correct, Up Yours Marxists, it is ALREADY INCLUDED in the COSTS associated with the expenses deducted from the revenues. That is required by the Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP) that the reports which Apple uses to account for all of its Financial Activities to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In other words, those costs are already accounted for and the profits are the profits. YOU are therefore lying again, because YOU are the one who doesn't have a clue about business, accounting, or pretty much anything about economics.
So, where is your fictitious "loss, loss, LOSS"? Nowhere. If you think Apple can get away with LYING on a 10K or a 10Q, make the criminal accusation and make it stick! There's a $20 MILLION Federal criminal fine and up to 20 years in Federal Prison for Corporate Officers and Managers who falsify official documents submitted to the SEC obfuscating such Financial Data. You are literally accusing the CEO and the CFO and the entire management team of Apple of perpetrating a Federal felony under Sarbanes Oxley and you have absolutely no evidence to back your claims.
During the time Apple was developing the Apple Watch, the company was also working on its actual flagship products, the iPhone 6, 6 plus, and then the iPhone 6S and 6S plus, and making major improvements. They were also working on a not so secret major project, the Apple Car, involving over 3000 new employees. Each of those projects alone could account for a lot more of the research budget than $5 billion, yet you attribute Apple with spending that on an accessory. Absurd.
Where did you get your "2 months will sell about 200,000 units total, especially in Q1" estimate? Again, you pulled that absurd guesstimate out of your nethermost orifice. . . which apparently you also speak from when making prognostications. Apple just sold 12 million in 7 months and now you project only 100,000 per month? WHY? Apple is selling that almost that many Apple Watches every 2 days! What's your rational explanation for the sudden drop from an average 1,714,000 per month to only 5.9% of what had been sold per month before? Can you give any rational reason? Oh, wait, you AREN'T rational. Regardless of segment success, companies aren’t in the business of being segment leaders in LOSSY segments. Smart watches are going nowhere. Otherwise competitors would be flocking to it. I’m sorry, Mr. Swordmaker, if you feel this to be a success, it’s a good indicator why you aren’t a “CEO†at all, or an out-of-work one at best.
Uh. "Lossy segments?" Only in your delusional Universe which you seem to occupy by yourself, Up Yours Marxists. Must be lonely out there. None of the porducts included in what you claim is a "lossy segment" are posting losses. NONE. Apple has not taken a write down in decades. Sorry, you are not only wrong, you are spectacularly wrong.
I am only semi-retired, asshat, not "out-of-work." You are really a piece of work. You demonstrate the bankruptcy of your arguments by attacking me personally because you have no logical argument against my points, only lies.
I still don't believe you. You are having smoke blown up your rear because either your local police didn't follow through or they are having excuses given to them from somewhere else. What I know about how Apple handles these things does not comport with your story, but what I also know about how POLICE respond does not compare with your story. They do NOT involve the customers in creditcard fraud investigations. I've been a businessman too long to believe that YOU blame Apple for this kerfuffle. All businesses want credit card fraud to be stopped and cooperate to do so. We are frustrated with the LACK of action by local authorities and what we see as their handing such issues off to the FBI who do nothing much, of to the FTC, who has no teeth to speak of, or when it's international, nothing at all. They leave it to the banks to self-police and handle it through "loss management."
I know that credit card loss is a big problem for Apple from what our friend says and the stress Apple puts on it, THEY COOPERATE. Apple's staff is available 24/7 for police to help stop it. They would NOT ignore a legitimate police request for information if that request were made through proper channels. If it were not, they cannot help.
Your insult was uncalled for. There is a photo of my girlfriend on this thread in her new 2015 Corvette Stingray. I do not appreciate the implied insult to her.
That's what I have a real problem with bgill's story. Credit Card fraud simply is not the local police's jurisdiction. It just isn't.
Credit/debit card fraud is usually an interstate or even an international crime unless it's a case of someone stealing your actual credit card from you in a burglary, strong-arm robbery, or petty theft, and then using it to buy gasoline at the local filing station, the local police can do nothing to solve the crime.
That is now changing with the new smart cards that have been issued. If the merchant has not upgraded his Point of Sale machine to take smart cards and systems like Apple Pay or Android Pay, the loss falls on the merchant. The banks are now no longer responsible for credit card fraud using using their cards, because the cards are now considered secure. That has been in effect since the first of the new year. The merchants were supposed to switch over to the new POS machines October 1.
The new POS machines are surprisingly scarce over here on the peninsula. They are also a PITA...little on the machine tells you to not swipe, but rather insert your card. The shape and physical configuration of the machines doesn’t inform you of the change. Then, after inserting the card, the transaction seems to take far longer than before.
I guess it’s time to start using Apple Pay whenever / wherever I can.
Yep, I ran into a couple of those this week. They took at least 15 seconds to complete the transaction. . . and one wouldn't give up my card until it was finished. No indication it would take ApplePay or not, so I asked after wards. It would. Next time I'll use my Apple Watch.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.