Federal charges have been made against Nicholas Arthur Woodlands from Michigan who was running a scam against Apple that resulted in him stealing somewhere around 9,000 iPod shuffle music players from the company over a period spanning March 2006 to October 2007.

Apple sued the man in June 2008 and now federal charges are pending against Woodhams. Woodhams was somehow able to correctly guess the valid serial numbers of iPod shuffle units that were under warranty and had Apple send him replacement products.

Apple requires a credit card number before it sends out replacements and to get around that point the man used pre-paid Visa gift cards and a UPS store mailbox. The pre-paid Visa cards would kick charges back when he failed to return the supposedly defective units.

Via Macworld