Authorities caught a 30-year-old Orlando man giving an unauthorized tour of Hollywood Studios this summer with a Disney iPad that let him skip the ride lines, according to a new Orange County Sheriff’s report.
A Disney fraud investigator was on alert that someone outside the company may have gotten control of a device for Disney employees only. Over the past few days, his team had noticed unapproved overrides on a Disney app used to make reservations, the sheriff’s report said.
“The app is used to facilitate entry into the front of the lines without having to stand in line to wait on the ride. The application is a private app for qualifying guests and is only installed on WDW company-owned devices,” the sheriff’s report said. “The app is not available to the public for use.”
On June 4, the Disney investigator saw the man leading a tour and bypassing the lines at an attraction in Hollywood Studios. The report doesn’t disclose which ride the man attempted to access.
The Disney investigator ordered Disney employees to cancel the reservation before the man climbed on board. The investigator wanted to see if the man would make reservations again, so he followed the man as he left the park and went to his car.
Upon confronting the man, the investigator asked him if he had a Disney device to make the reservations. The man admitted he did, and handed over the iPad, the sheriff’s report said. By then, an Orange County Sheriff’s deputy was on the scene.
The man refused to answer more questions, but he insisted he did not know the iPad was stolen. The report isn’t clear where the man had gotten the device from, stating someone from “a company” had given it to him.
Meanwhile, the Disney investigator confirmed the $400 iPad belonged to Disney and had been taken without the company’s permission. However, the investigator couldn’t tell the sheriff’s office which department the iPad belonged to or how the device had been unaccounted for. Disney had not reported the iPad stolen.
The man was trespassed from Disney property. WDWNT isn’t naming the man because he hasn’t been charged with a crime, according to online Orange Circuit Court records. The man did not immediately return a message Monday afternoon.
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Genie++
They probably make the employees pay for the line skipping now, since Disney is all the way down to 10 billion in profits now. Better tighten that belt!
And letting friends or other cast members through the line is now considered stealing from the company.
#Last remaining FastPass
🎶 There goes my herooooo 🎶
Ha ha ha…. Disney worker prob gave it to him for a couple hundred…
You need to log in to do anything on those iPads, so I’m a bit confused how he pulled that off.
See above…. Inside job
What’s the big deal. If Disney’s IT department was worth their salt. They would just wipe the iPad. 1st world problem solved.
If you have thousands of devices and one gets in the wrong hands. Wiping isn’t always going to be the correct solve. I think they may have wanted to make sure they didn’t have access to additional devices. The fact that this guy wasn’t arrested tells me that they are going for a bigger fish.
This is the kind of thing that happens when you raise your rates to unobtainable levels. People start to use criminal thinking and unethical methods to get around the high prices or start trying to game the system. Fights on the boats, CMs sneaking people on property, stolen iPads and tour like access for people not on a tour, it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.
Stealing $900 from a CVS in San Francisco is ok (without any police interaction or arrest), but don’t you ever try to cheat Mickey Chepak from him bonus via Genie +.
I read this as Disney employee lost IPad and was too embarrassed to admit it. Someone found it and took advantage of it.