O2 Staff Fired for Selling iPhones

Half a dozen O2 employees have been fired after they were caught selling iPhones over the internet.

The employees were apparently making use of a 20% staff discount to buy the iPhones to unlock and sell on eBay. Twenty more members of staff are under investigation after the scam was uncovered last week.

Both O2 and Apple have sold out of the iPhone in the UK as Apple prepares to bring a new version to market, possibly in July. This iPhone shortage has resulted in rising prices for the unlocked black market phones and sellers on eBay are taking advantage.

An industry source explained about the issues to the Mail on Sunday:

It is actually nothing new that staff in mobile phone shops have supplemented income with this abusive perk, what is fresh is that O2 is cracking down on the practice in a sign that mobile firms are no longer prepared to turn a blind eye. The iPhone is an iconic product for O2 and it makes sense to start there, but I predict that we will see this spread across the sector. The days when this kind of scam could be ignored are over.