A Guest at the Walt Disney World Resort lost her Apple Watch while visiting EPCOT. The wearable technology snafu has already cost her more than $40,000.
EPCOT is often referred to as the “park to skip” if you only have three days to spend at the Walt Disney World Resort. But the Disney theme park is home to the engineering marvel Spaceship Earth, a brand-new take on the previous “Future World,” and soon, the brand-new Guardians of the Galaxy: COSMIC REWIND coaster. Thanks to all of these offerings and more, EPCOT could easily become the one Disney theme park NOT to miss.
But a Guest and her husband who visited EPCOT last month are probably wishing they’d never stepped foot inside the theme park.
According to a report from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office as reported by SebastianDaily, the Guest was visiting EPCOT on April 13. She and her husband were enjoying the Seas with Nemo & Friends attraction when her Apple Watch fell off her wrist and fell through the grated floor under the ride.
According to reports, the Apple Watch was a Hermes watch, similar to the one seen here, valued at more than $1,300 on Apple’s website.
Just below the grated floor, the Apple Watch lay on a pathway where the Guest could see it. Immediately, her husband jumped from the moving ride vehicle to attempt to retrieve it. As this was a direct violation of safety rules aboard a ride at Disney World, Cast Members promptly halted the ride’s operation and told the couple they were not to disembark the ride vehicle while it was in motion.
The Guest asked the Cast Members how she could retrieve her Apple Watch, and the couple was told that they would retrieve the device and return it to the couple’s room at Disney’s Contemporary Resort.
But when the Guest and her husband returned to their Resort Hotel, they asked a Cast Member at Disney Guest Relations whether the Apple Watch had been returned, but they were told that no watch had been delivered to the Resort.
As frustrating as that was for the Guest and her husband, it was probably the best part of the whole ordeal, as more bad news was delivered to her next. The Guest had linked her American Express card to her Apple Wallet, and almost immediately, she began to receive fraud alerts from the credit card.
Her card had an unlimited spending limit on it, and it looked like someone else was having a great time in the parks on her card. Fraud alerts continued to warn her that fraudulent charges were being made on her American Express card. In all, the charges totaled tens of thousands of dollars.
According to the report from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, the Guest told Disney Guest Relations that she had received “several fraud alerts throughout the day on her Amex card. According to the victim, there were approximately $40,000 in fraudulent charges on her card.”
The Guest says she froze her credit card and proceeded to file a report of grand theft with the Sheriff’s office, as she intended to prosecute whoever had made the charges.
At this time, because the investigation is ongoing, no details are known publicly about the fraudulent charges incurred on the credit card.
