Even if you’re not buying iPads in gas stations (either in Texas or Florida, or anywhere else for that matter), customers are finding out there are duds popping up in the places you’d least expect. A man in Miami says he recently bought an iPad from Walmart ended up with a $480 piece of plastic that does absolutely nothing and is in fact, not an iPad.

The man tells CBS Miami that when he left the Walmart with his father-in-law after the purchase was complete, he was completely unaware of the brick awaiting him in the Apple box.

“There were no red flags,” he said. “It was completely wrapped with this wrapper from Walmart with your sku number that matches the receipt.”

When his mother-in-law opened the present on her birthday, everything was wrong. It was supposed to be white and it wasn’t, first of all, and it was supposed to be an iPad, and it wasn’t.

Instead of just a picture frame or a mirror like in the other cases, this one featured a charging port without a charging strip, non-working buttons and it doesn’t turn on. To charge your non-working iPad, it even came complete with what appeared to be a fishing sinker wrapped in white tape.

At first he couldn’t get Walmart to help him out, but CBS talked to a media rep who says the iPad had apparently been returned — ostensibly with the fake inside it — and rewrapped to appear factory new. Sounds like the sales associate in charge of authorizing that return might get a stern talking to.

“Walmart takes this very seriously and we apologize profusely to the customer,” she said, adding that Walmart would refund his money or give him a real iPad. One that works. And is an iPad.

While it’s somewhat unsurprising that people who try to pay less for an “iPad” at a gas station might be duped, customers who visit a legit retailer, pay full price and still end up with a brick — well, that just shouldn’t happen. If you can’t trust a major chain licensed to sell electronics, who can you trust for your technological needs?

Miami-Dade Man Buys iPad At Walmart, Gets Fake [CBS Miami]

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