Returns
Chinese scammers rip off the Apple policies China panned
April 15, 2013: 7:58 AM ETSwapping fake iPhone parts for real ones under the return rules Chinese TV laid into
Fake iPhone. Photo: Hongkiat.com
FORTUNE -- Talk about an ironic twist. Even as Apple (AAPL) was being lambasted daily in Chinese state-run media for what was being portrayed as unfair iPhone return policies, the company was investigating a ring of Chinese scammers taking advantage of those same policies to rip the company off.
According to a report Monday in The Register, five employees at an electronics store selling Apple goods were arrested in Wenzhou, China, after they submitted 121 fake iPhone 4S "BAND parts" (it's not clear if these are modem assemblies or motherboards or what) to Apple, claiming they were defective and needed replacing. Apparently the scammers would buy a back cover, battery, and other components, re-assemble the device and sell it as a new iPhone.
"It took Apple over a month to spot the scam," The Register's Phil Muncaster reports, "after which the owner of the store in question was informed and an investigation begun. On April 1 police finally cuffed a shop engineer and her boyfriend as the ringleaders."
As it turns out, the arrest took place the same day Tim Cook issued an apology to Apple's Chinese customers and changed the company's return policy, guaranteeing that any iPhone 4 and 4S brought in for repair under warranty in China would be replaced with new (not refurbished) parts.
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How to return your iPad
Not feeling the magic? You can take it back if you move quickly, but it will cost you
Buzzmachine's Jeff Jarvis, one of the Web's most prolific scribblers and author of What Would Google Do?, has decided to return his iPad. He says he knows two other people who are planning to do the same.
[UPDATE: Jarvis has ostentatiously posted a YouTube video of his iPad reboxing in which he gives his MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Apr 7, 2010 12:38 PM ET
