Reader Mitchel Jones noticed something seriously wrong with the iPod display at his local Walmart. Is there another new iPod Nano? Has Apple finally abandoned its iconic wheel? The answer, as deduced by Mitchel himself, is much more depressing: retail fraud.

It wouldn't make sense for Walmart to be in any kind of dealings with a company like Friendship Star International Limited, whose knockoff media players look much like the one above, and it's even more unlikely that they'd permit such blatant copyright and trademark infringement in their stores. What has most likely happened here is that some enterprising young individual purchased an iPod, replaced it with a much cheaper knockoff and returned it to the store for a full refund.
Our tipster tried to explain this to the staff at the store, but didn't have much luck. It'll resolve itself when the unfortunate teenage girl who buys the "iPod" brings it back after she gets tired of watching the Chinese language bootlegs of Two and a Half Men that came on it. -Thanks, Mitchel!

Send an email to John Herrman, the author of this post, at jherrman@gizmodo.com.