Chinese man guilty of defrauding Apple by scamming 1,500 replacements for ‘faulty’ fake iPhones
- Counterfeit devices from Hong Kong were submitted to Apple to obtain replacements under warranty, which were then sold in China
- Oregon resident faces prison sentence when he is sentenced in August
Over the span of two years, a Chinese national in Oregon sent devices that looked like iPhones to Apple, saying they wouldn’t turn on and should be replaced under warranty. He didn’t just submit a couple of the devices; he delivered in person or shipped to Apple around 3,000 of them.
Apple responded by sending almost 1,500 replacement iPhones, each with an approximate resale value of US$600.
But the devices that Jiang Quan sent Apple were fake.
Jiang, 30, a former engineering student at a community college in Albany, Oregon, pleaded guilty in federal court on Wednesday to trafficking in counterfeit goods, the US Attorney’s office in Portland announced.
But in the Oregon case, the makers of the thousands of fake phones apparently didn’t even have to bother with having working operating systems.