Chinese scammers turn fake parts into real iPhones

Photo: stophavingaboringlife.com

In an ironic twist on the controversy over Apple’s return policies in China, five employees at a Chinese electronics store have been arrested for a scam in which they claimed to have carried out iPhone repairs, sending components from fake phones back to Apple and using the ‘replacement’ parts to build and sell real iPhones.

Fake iPhones are commonplace in China, and can often look extremely convincing both externally and internally. The scammers took advantage of this to buy cheap fakes, claim to have carried out repairs on real iPhones, send the fake components back to Apple and then use real components earmarked for repairs to build their own iPhones, which they then sold.

(Via The Register.)