Feature

Apple Fires Hundreds of Staff

Networks & Network Services
Apple employees were the lucky recipients of a free handset when the iPhone was launched earlier this year. However, when some of them took advantage of the latest $100 rebate, Apple gave them the boot.
 
As you can imagine, there's not too many perks to being an employee at Apple, but all full-timers and part-timers with more than 12 months service under their belts at the time of the iPhone launch  received a shiny new Apple super phone for keeps. Nice of Apple.

A few months later and Steve Jobs annoyed quite a few of his core Apple (pardon the pun) fanboys by discontinuing the 4gb model and dropping the price on the 8gb version by $200.

Outraged, early adopters of the 8gb were up in arms, and as an apology Apple gave them $100 credit to spend on iTunes as they pleased.

Lights went on behind some Apple employee's eyes, and as many as 800 members of staff let greed get the better of them as they cashed in on the $100 rebate, even though it quite clearly stated in the terms & conditions that they were not eligible:

This credit is extended to end-customers who own a qualifying iPhone purchased from Apple or AT&T prior to August 22, 2007.

Some iPhones will not qualify for a credit. They are: ... (4) iPhones that Apple provided to employees, either for personal use or for departmental use,"


Understandably Apple weren't happy at being stung for $80,000 by their own employees who'd already got a free iPhone, and everyone who claimed the rebate soon received their pink slips in the post.