Wanted: Professional queue sitter. Demonstrable experience of maintaining a spot in an orderly line and confronting queue jumpers. Must provide own chair. Will pay $3,400 a week.
This is the world in which we apparently live: queuers outside Apple's flagship New York store are apparently being paid to sit in line for the new iPhone 7, with others looking to sell their spot.
Bloomberg intern Harvard Zhang noted that the final spot in the queue (which was only 13-seats long on 10 September) was selling for $300 (£225).
The coveted 'first in line' spot? Snapped up back on 25 August, a full two weeks before the new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus had even been revealed. Zhang reports that the individual was being paid $3,400 a week to maintain the position for a buyer. Given that a 32GB iPhone 7 will cost you $649, that's one heck of an investment from someone wanting to get their hands on it first.
There are also queues reported outside stores in Berlin and San Francisco, while New Zealand store 'Spark' has arranged for the first 100 customers to pre-order the iPhone 7 to have their physical queue space saved for them by an Alpha 1 robot.
The iPhone 7 will arrive in stores on Friday 16 September, with pre-orders being taken by most major handset operators. We've rounded up the best deals here.
And no, we won't be paying you to save a spot in the queue for us. Sorry.
(Image: Rex)
[Via: Harvard Zhang]
