Woman orders iPhone 13 Pro Max, gets £1 hand soap instead

“Can you imagine? I was in complete shock and really need the phone.”

What you need to know

A woman in North London has had her iPhone 13 Pro Max stolen in transit.
Khaoula Lafhaily received a package that contained a £1 bottle of hand soap instead.
It seems the package was lifted by a rogue delivery driver.

A North London woman who ordered an iPhone 13 Pro Max from Sky Mobile was left bewildered and upset when she found her phone had been stolen and replaced with a £1 bottle of hand soap.

From Wales Online:

A mum paid £1,500 for a new iPhone 13 max pro on contract – and opened the box to find a £1 hand soap instead.

Khaoula Lafhaily, 32, bought the gadget from Sky Mobile and the company dispatched it via post.

It was supposed to be delivered next day by DPD, but she said the driver contacted her to say he was ‘stuck in traffic’, she claims.

Two days later a man dropped off a package – but when she opened it up there was only a refill bottle of blue hand soap wrapped up inside.

The woman paid £150 upfront and signed a three-year contract to the tune of £1,521 for an iPhone 13 Pro Max, and says that while Sky launched an investigation immediately she hasn’t heard anything since. Lafhaily says she watched a driver arrive at the house, take a photo of the door and then leave, as she often watched out the window for drivers who get the address wrong:

We saw the driver pull up to our house, take a photo from outside the house, then leave.

But the driver told us that he came to the door, knocked and no one was there so he would again return the next day but we were watching at the window – it was a complete lie!

A different delivery driver came on Thursday, my husband went down to collect the parcel at 8.50am, which we opened at around midday because I was asleep – and it was a bottle of hand soap.

The woman said that her phone had “definitely been stolen” and described the situation as “awful”.

While we know that buying any Apple device from a third party or a stranger can be fraught with risk, you’d like to think that buying a phone from a carrier would be a bit more secure. Turns out even the best iPhone carriers and vendors aren’t immune. Here’s hoping Miss Lafhaily gets her iPhone back.