Nine out of ten chargers and cables sold on Amazon are fake. Or at least according to Apple they are.
In a report on Patently Apple, Apple is said to be suing a company called Mobile Star LLC, which supplies Amazon with counterfeit products, which Amazon then goes on to sell, despite the products having not passed safety tests.
The important thing to note here is that these aren’t third-party suppliers – it’s products that are ‘fulfilled by Amazon.”
Apple has said that as its Mobile Star supplying Apple, they’re illegally using its trademarks and consumers were being given false confidence that the items were genuine. The claim comes after Apple spent time buying and testing cables and chargers sold as genuine.
The lawsuit reads:
“Over the last nine months, Apple, as part of its ongoing brand protection efforts, has purchased well over 100 iPhone devices, Apple power products, and Lightning cables sold as genuine by sellers on Amazon.com and delivered through Amazon’s “Fulfillment by Amazon” program. Apple’s internal examination and testing for these products revealed almost 90% of these products are counterfeit”
Apple is currently seeking an injunction against Mobile Star selling the products, destruction of the items, and $2m per product type in damages.
It’s easy to see how such a counterfeit industry can rise up – while cables aren’t the most expensive accessory, they’re still easily lost and consumers often don’t want to pay out a lot of money for something so easily misplaced. On the other hand, Apple’s MagSafe 2 chargers for their latest line of MacBooks will set a customer back $79.
However, as Apple also notes in the suit:
“Counterfeit power products, such as those supplied by Mobile Star, pose an immediate threat to consumer safety because, unlike genuine Apple products, they are not subjected to industry-standard consumer safety testing and are poorly constructed with inferior or missing components, flawed design, and inadequate electrical insulation. These counterfeits have the potential to overheat, catch fire, and deliver a deadly electric shock to consumers while in normal use.”