SAN DIEGO (CBS 8) - It was an unpleasant Christmas surprise for a local couple. Instead of getting the iPod she asked for, a Mission Beach woman ended up with school supplies stuffed into an Apple box.
Jim Nevarde tells CBS News 8 he purchased what he thought was a new iPod at a local Target. Instead, she discovered the box filled with rubber erasers and index cards, and no iPod to be found. Vicki Nevarde says the colorful erasers fit in the box perfectly, but the index cards had to be specially cut to fill the void where the wires were supposed to be.
Jim returned the box to a Target store in the Midway District, where a clerk helped him pick out a new iPod off the shelf. As they walked to the counter to make the exchange, he asked the clerk to check the box. But no iPod was in that box either -- just more erasers and index cards.
"That's when they said 'We have an issue here," Nevarde said.
Customer service called security to report the problem. The store eventually found Jim a box that actually did contain an iPod.
Jim says Target officials told him they suspect a distributor is making the swap somewhere between the Apple factory and the store.
"Now I'm thinking what about Walmart? What about all the other retailers that have iPods? They'd better start checking. It could be, I'm assuming, a nationwide recall on these just to see what's in there," he said.