Boy finds "mystery" meat instead of iPod on Xmas

At least the guy who found batteries inside a hard drive box from Staples got something useful as his mystery prize; when a 14-year-old Hawaiian boy opened up the video iPod that his mother had bought him for Christmas, he was treated not to one of Steve's little treasures but to an unopened package of "mystery" meat instead. The boy's mother, Rachel Cambra, had purchased the supposedly-factory sealed 'pod at Wal-Mart, whose spokesman said that it will be replaced once they receive their next shipment. Understandably, the young man was angry and hurt upon this shocking discovery, so we suggest that he do his American duty and sue the hell out of Apple, Wal-Mart, and maybe Hormel just to be safe.

[Via iLounge]

[ipodman715 @ Dec 29th 2005 6:34PM]

lol, yeah I heard about this!

[treo007 @ Dec 29th 2005 6:36PM]

Awesome...wish I could have been there to see the look on the spoiled brat's face.



Just kidding. Besides, I thought Hawaaiians loved Spam?

[nial @ Dec 29th 2005 6:41PM]

Not to be cynical, but it really is hard to prove that this happened before the iPod was purchased. It's a funny story either way, but I'm inclined to believe these people are playing the system. Good for them, if it hurts wal-mart, I guess.

[rodents @ Dec 29th 2005 6:45PM]

http://wakeupwalmart.com



the workers are treated so bad they steal from their own store.

[rodents @ Dec 29th 2005 6:46PM]

stupid freaking comment system messed that link up... http://wakeupwalmart.com

[Mike Jones @ Dec 29th 2005 6:52PM]

Ahh, those crazy Wal-mart cultists are up their old shenanigans again!

[Cloudyprison @ Dec 29th 2005 6:53PM]

Had this happen at my place of employ before. A digital camera was returned with a bar of soap and a can of V8 tomato juice instead of the camera. *sniff*



Sad Times...

[Sean @ Dec 29th 2005 7:16PM]

What a wonderful site you linked to rodents, in fact the following opening to their whole reason for existing online just made me puke:



"First and foremost, Wal-Mart has a responsibility to all Americans to set the standard for customers, workers and communities, and to help build a better America."



Right, companies have a responsibility to build a better America. Funny but my economics classes taught me that a company's responsibility is to turn a profit, not to start a business to help build a better America (unless you're talking about a home builder :p)



Walmart isn't the only company that has internal theft and with over 1.4 million employees do you really think all 1.4 million are good apples? This case just reenforces the need for every retail outlet to check each and every return before issuing a refund or trade for a similar product.



I had a similar experience once with a DVD purchased from BestBuy where the DVD was re-shrink wrapped with a blank CD-R inside. Luckily I was able to convince the manager to allow me to get a new copy once I showed him the difference in the shrink-wrap of the same DVDs remaining on his shelves.

[delerious @ Dec 29th 2005 7:24PM]

A few of my friends are buggy pushers, they like their job. Pretty easy work.

[jnasato @ Dec 29th 2005 7:32PM]

I live in Hawaii, and I ate a Spam musubi (spam, rice, seaweed) for breakfast. Spam is everywhere!



One time I bought a can of Spam, and it had a fricking iPod in it! I was PISSED.

[james @ Dec 29th 2005 8:11PM]

a similar thing happend to me at best buy. the box looked factory sealed but when i opened it there speakers inside from a different manufacturer than what i had bought, and only 4.1 instead of 5.1. it took 5 visits to best buy for them to finaly exchange it. their entire defense was that they dont have clear tape in their stores, they all say best buy on the tape they use. therefore it couldnt be their fault and we had to take it up with the manufacturer.

[Special_K @ Dec 29th 2005 8:28PM]

#10< The american pacific islands are FULL of Spam! The atols in the south pacific and the marianas islands have one meat; spam. Courtesy of the U.S. Army, who provide the locals food in exchange for the use of their traditional homes for testing nuclear bombs in the 50s.

[Matt @ Dec 29th 2005 8:35PM]

I'm not sure the ipod box is big enough for a can of spam...

[clearskin @ Dec 29th 2005 8:46PM]

Man, that's funny as hell, but I know I would be really pissed if it was me. Kinda sad that some people are so good at hiding their acts of theft.

[King Bigos @ Dec 29th 2005 9:07PM]

BAHAHHAHAHHAH OWNED!!!!!!!

[JRW @ Dec 29th 2005 9:23PM]

I once bought an inkjet refill at OfficeMax only to find it had been opened and resealed with a packet of semolina. I was almost too embarassed to take it back - fortunately they believed me and exchanged it.

[Larry Vaughn @ Dec 29th 2005 9:43PM]

About this time last year a similar thing happened to me.



I bought a Canon EOS 20D from Circuit City. I was shipped a tiny point and shoot camera bag instead, but billed for the camera. The label from Circuit City said the contents of the box was in fact the camera, but the shipping weight was also listed, which was the weight of the cardboard box and the camera bag.



I tried to resolve the problem at the local circuit city store to no avail after several visits. I then tried the help line mnay times(India) and got no satisfaction. Eventually I googled for the CEO of Circuit City and found his phone number. I casually asked for him and got an assistant, which helped me.



Someone obviously put the camera bag in the box and shipped it.



Circuit City never told me what happened, and months later I was still getting useless correspondence from people who I contacted at Circuit City.



This is a good reason to pay with a credit card, not a debit card. You can always refuse to pay when they send you the wrong product.

[supersocialist @ Dec 29th 2005 10:30PM]

I guess this thing's going around: fark.com just posted this (http://www.local6.com/news/5710517/detail.html#ipod) ... 14 year old girl in Honolulu, same story. So is this a bogus story spreading telephone-style or did it happen to more than one person?

[Austin @ Dec 29th 2005 11:03PM]

I call bullshit on this one. I work at circuit city and some idiot tried to return an ipod box with a bar of soap in it. How could you think that would work?

[Nate MC @ Dec 29th 2005 11:14PM]

I knew a guy that used to work at circuit city that did something similar. He'd buy stuff from stores take it out replace it with something of similar weight and less value then shrinkwrap it back up and get his money back.

[MaC01 @ Dec 30th 2005 1:16AM]

all i can say is...... FAKE! how the hell does a can of spam fit in a iPod box? and did the person who took the iPod have a reel of serurity seels? hmmm, makes you think

[Tim @ Dec 30th 2005 1:16AM]

I had a similar experience with Circuit City a few years back. Bought a DVD player, got home, opened it only to find a bundle of Newspaper in it's place. Thankfully I didn't have to get in too much of a hassle at the store, as the bottom of the box had been opened, then retaped over the original seal.

[MaC01 @ Dec 30th 2005 1:19AM]

oops, i ment security, not serurity

[Elvin from NY @ Dec 30th 2005 4:39AM]

This reminds me of the West Side Highway scam about fifteen years ago. They would take empty vcr or betamax(yes I'm old LOL) boxes, put in brick and tissue to fill the box, shrink wrap the box and sell them to drivers on the West Side Highway. Most drivers would never check until it was too late.

[Grimm @ Dec 30th 2005 6:15AM]

This is the reason why if you return something new and unopened at Fry's they will tear open the shrink wrap and open the box to verify the item being returned is the actual item.

[TheWakeUpCall @ Dec 30th 2005 9:01AM]

Err, wtf?

[jack @ Dec 30th 2005 9:02AM]

Since the guy got a spam he did not ask for, I guess it is safe to say he got spammed... he probably should get a spam blocker!

I am sorry, ban me now!!!!!

[Paul @ Dec 30th 2005 9:45AM]

Gizmodo has been following this story for a couple days. It's true, as an "insider" says this has happend a couple other times before at the same store:



http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/portable-media/imeat-heartburn-for-ipod-fans-145416.php



no one ever said it was actually a can of spam, but just wrapped meat.



huh huh... meat...

[Woody24 @ Dec 30th 2005 10:01AM]

Wal Mart must be doing it. A co-worker bought brand new ink cartridges from hewlet packard, only to find a penny inside. She took it back, and after some major convincing, they allowed her to return it, and buy a new one. Only she insisted that she open it right there before she bought it. They found 9 more just like it.

[WilCon @ Dec 30th 2005 10:42AM]

Something similar happened to my friend when she bought her iPod... she got it at walmart and walked out to her car and was so excited she HAD to open it.. well she did and found a bunch of rocks, paper, and a dead spider.

[sparticus @ Dec 30th 2005 11:45AM]

This has happened in retail stores before. Someone buys an iPod, takes it home, replaces it with a similar item and reshrink-wraps it. The holiday buying season is so busy and filled with seasonal cashiers that it is easy for one of them to take it back. When items are returned closed box, they're often just put back on the shelf. How would anyone know?



This kind of publicity, while funny, is silly because I've seen it actually anger people who don't know any better. Us who work in retail have to then deal with customers who are afraid of getting SPAM instead of an iPod... *sigh*

[blah @ Dec 30th 2005 11:53AM]

to #19



I also work at CC, and we have had many occasions where soap is returned in a hard drive box, or a CD writer is in a new DVD burner box, etc etc.... it happens about once a week at our store. :S

[Tim @ Dec 30th 2005 1:11PM]

Who knew a thing of meat in an iPod box could incite so much political debate?

[sixtoe @ Dec 30th 2005 1:16PM]

I recently bought a bag of Nacho Cheesier Doritos, but when I got them home, I was dissapointed to find that they were just Nacho Cheese.



Seriously, I think I might just start packing up my old electronics boxes with leftovers from my fridge and alert the media theat I've been scammed by the retailers.

[Robert Stewart @ Dec 30th 2005 11:43PM]

did he get to keep the spam? christmas dinner :D

[adrian @ Dec 31st 2005 3:06AM]

To #19:



This is real. Here's the link to the local station:

http://www.khon2.com/khon/display.cfm?storyID=10068&sid=1152



And for the icing on the cake, here's a pic:

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/4700/imeat10ph.jpg