Nowadays, Apple is busy suing everyone left right and
center, but, it has found itself at the receiving end in China. The company is
now the target of two lawsuits which claim that it sold refurbished phones as
new in China. The cases have been filed by a consumer rights advocate, after receiving
several reports from consumers about shorter warranty periods for their brand
new iPhones.
In case, you are wondering if these counterfeit phones have
any connection with fake Apple stores busted in China a few days back, then rest
assured that there is no such connection. According to the reports, these phones
were either bought from Apple Stores or from Apple authorized sellers.
The discrepancy was noted by the buyers when they tried to
register their Apple phones and found that the warranty period lasted only six
to nine months instead of standard 12 months. Wang Hai, the activist behind
these lawsuits, said, "It’s cheating to sell refurbished products as new ones. It’ll
be discrimination against Chinese consumers if the case turns out to be true as
refurbished cellphones are also sold in other countries, but at a cheaper
price.” Apple has yet to issue any official statement.
The issue is likely to hurt Apple's credibility in China.
The Cupertino company enjoys coveted position in Chinese market with its sales
increasing 600 percent year over year.
One thought on “Apple Selling Refurbished Phones as New in China?”
Either the shop assistants are repackaging phones or, what’s more likely, is there is an error on the system for the Chinese phones. If you check the serial number of 1 of the phones it was actually manufactured 2 months after the guarantee was supposed to expire.