This is most industries in general. If you’ve ever worked retail and paid any attention you’ll notice there are more cameras on staff than customers. Shrinkage from shoplifters is expected and built into the system/budget. It’s harder to catch and prosecute and often enough too dangerous to stop in the moment. They also know staff is going to steal but internal thieves are often brazen and think they know how to cheat the system. Lots of places have fake camera domes to draw the attention of internal thieves to one area while having hidden cameras elsewhere.

Source: worked LP and Security for many years.

Thank you for your sympathy, I appreciate it. I can’t help but feel like this is somehow my fault, it’s my first phone buying experience and my first time having my own line (I was on a family plan previously).

I think it was definitely stolen in a warehouse at some point in processing and shipping. I don’t think it was stolen at the original Verizon warehouse, because they use brown tape, and the store associate told me that clear tape on the box indicates it was tampered with. The shipping box had clear tape, so I’m thinking maybe at some point in some UPS processing center, it was opened and stolen, then sealed back up.