Detroit woman fights off man trying to steal iPhone

Bethany Shorb catches iPhone thief in the act

DETROIT – A Detroit artist managed to do what few theft victims can when she snapped a picture of the bad guy and saved herself hundreds of dollars.

The cellphone hacker tried to get to the delivery guy first, but he failed.

Bethany Shorb just opened Well Done Goods near Cyberoptix in Eastern Market last month. Shorb works above her newly opened store front on Gratiot Avenue.

She dreamed of working for years anonymously in her studio, and somebody thought it would be great to target her Sprint account.

The store is one of those seemingly effortless cool spots that has some not-so-typical Detroit-centric fare.

Shorb is a sculptor who came to Detroit in 1999, when nothing was cool and there were no artisan coffee shops. Her studio has been in Eastern Market all these years. Her loft adjoins her studio. The storefront is her dream come true.

"We just opened up a month ago," Shorb said.

She was traveling on the West Coast when she started to receive alerts from Sprint in her inbox.

"I started around 10 o'clock (to receive) all these alerts," Shorb said.

The alerts came from Sprint, the company she has her business and personal phone service through. Someone had reset her passwords and email.

"I was (like), 'Oh, this is not good,'" Shorb said.

Shorb tried calling Sprint, but it was a three-hour wait time for customer service.

Shorb got back to Detroit two days later and was in her upstairs private studio, when the UPS driver arrived with the day's deliveries. A minute behind the UPS driver was a man who thought he would intercept the driver and get the $800 iPhone he'd fraudulently ordered by hacking her account.

He followed the driver through Shorb's store, out back and up two flights of stairs through two locked doors and into her studio and home.

"Under three minutes, (a) total stranger, random guy, walks into my place," Shorb said.

He wanted the brand new iPhone that had been fraudulently ordered and charged to Shorb's Sprint account.

"I got his face, and I've got him covering (himself, saying), 'Don't photograph me,'" Shorb said. "(A) couple of expletives were exchanged."

Shorb held onto the phone, and when the guy wouldn't leave, all 110 pounds of her shoved him out the door, and she called 911.

Police arrived at her store but told her there was nothing they could do because it was a civil matter. Multiple calls to DPD later, police are investigating what happened.

Anyone who recognizes the man in the picture is asked to call police.

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About the Authors:

Derick is the Lead Digital Editor for ClickOnDetroit and has been with Local 4 News since April 2013. Derick specializes in breaking news, crime and local sports.