Apple fired a store helper accused of sending himself a woman's intimate photo while fixing her phone

• Apple fired a employee at a California store over accusations he sent himself an "extremely personal" photo from a customer's phone.
• Gloria Fuentes took her phone to the Apple store in Valley Plaza, Bakersfield, to get it fixed on November 5. After a lengthy check, she said she was told it was beyond repair.
• When Fuentes got home, she said she saw a photo she "took for my boyfriend" had been sent to an unknown number. She confronted the Apple staffer later that day.
• Apple said: "The employee acted far outside the strict privacy guidelines to which we hold all Apple employees. He is no longer associated with our company."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. 

Apple fired a employee from a store in California after a customer accused him of sending himself an "extremely personal" photo from her iPhone while he tried to repair it.

Gloria Fuentes wrote on Facebook on November 5 that she went to the Apple store in Valley Plaza, Bakersfield, the previous day to get her screen fixed.

Fuentes said the employee took her phone away and asked for her password several times. He later told her he couldn't fix it, and that she needed to go through her network provider.

When Fuentes checked her messages after she got home, she said she noticed a photo had been sent to an unknown number.

"I open it and instantly wanted to cry!!! This guy went through my gallery and sent himself one of my EXTREMELY PERSONAL pictures that I took for my boyfriend," she wrote

"THIS PICTURE WAS FROM ALMOST A YEAR AGO SO HE HAD TO HAVE SCROLLED UP FOR A WHILE TO GET TO THAT PICTURE being that I have over 5,000 pics in my phone!"

"I could not express how disgusted I felt and how long I cried after I saw this!!," she said.

Fuentes went back to the store to confront the employee later that day, who she says admitted it was "his number" but claimed he "doesn't know how that pic got sent."

In a statement to The Washington Post, the company said it had fired the man in question.

"Apple immediately launched an internal investigation and determined that the employee acted far outside the strict privacy guidelines to which we hold all Apple employees," it said.

"He is no longer associated with our company."

Fuentes said she would be "pressing legal charges against him." Fuentes did not respond to a message from Business Insider asking for more information.