William Gallagher
A company in the UK's Bournemouth area has been found guilty of selling counterfeit chargers for Apple devices, and now has to pay.
After a raid in October 2018 by the UK's trading standards department, Bournemouth firm CK IT Solutions has now been fined for selling counterfeit Apple chargers. The raid followed a shipment of 220 products to the company being detained at East Midlands Airport over safety concerns.
According to local newspaper the Bournemouth Echo, some 1,446 further items were seized during the raid. The company subsequently admitted to offenses relating to the UK's laws on electrical safety and counterfeit goods.
Reportedly, the company told the court that it had failed to conduct regulatory PAT (portable appliance testing) procedures. It had instead had solely checked that the chargers were functioning, and believed that the parts were genuine.
"The company is a small company working hard and legitimately to have a successful business," concluded Judge Brian Forster, QC. However, he ruled that CK IT Solutions derived a benefit of 100,000 GBP ($138,000) from its activity. The company was ordered to pay that sum, plus further fines and costs, totaling 106,670 GBP ($147,400).
Recently, a teenager in England suffered facial burns after an iPhone charger caught fire. It's not clear whether that was a counterfeit model, but previous reports have claimed that 99% of third-party iPhone chargers are unsafe.
The Bournemouth Echo report was first spotted by iMore.
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Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
4 Comments
Literally walk into any independent mobile phone store in the UK/Ireland and there will be counterfeit apple-branded chargers, earpods and cables.
And screens and anything in the repair parts department. Hence my support of Apple repair policy that restricts the repair of iPhones outside Apple’s authorized repair service
So this outfit claims it didn’t know the accessories were counterfeit? I can probably tell you exactly what happened. They were offered a ‘deal’ on these chargers at a substantial discount, much cheaper than buying them from Apple’s legitimate supplier and they conveniently didn't bother to check things out. The judge got it wrong in my opinion. The company is guilty of intentional fraud.
Remember this article the next time Apple gets sued for an exploding iPhone. I’m guessing something like this is just the tip of the iceberg and that counterfeit Apple accessories are being sold all over the world.
For many years now I only buy Apple devices and Apple accessories directly from Apple, either online or in store. I would never, EVER buy Apple products from Amazon, best Buy, or any other so-called authorized dealer. There’s just too much risk of fraud and I don’t care one bit how much cheaper it is from Amazon or elsewhere.
It's crap like this which is why I'm always put into the position of defending Apple. When these knockoff chargers result in a fire, explosion, burns to someone it's not the company that built these illegal products. The media and iHaters make it all about Apple and it's all over the news.
It comes to zero surprise why Apple is so adamant about getting repairs and gear purchased through legitimate and authorized locations.