DO NOT judge a book by its cover!

iPhoney: Fake Apple Store Exposed In China

Sky News – Thu, Jul 21, 2011

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iPhoney: Fake Apple Store Exposed In China

It has the trademark winding staircase, seemingly authentic signs and the unmistakable staff badges - but an 'Apple' store in China has been revealed as a fake.

The imitation shop was spotted in the relatively obscure city of Kunming by a female American blogger, who was initially taken in.

But despite even workers at the store believing they were actually working for Steve Jobs , a few tell-tale signs indicated all was not as it seemed.

The 27-year-old woman who exposed the bogus store on her blog, BirdAbroad , described it as a "beautiful rip-off".

She writes: "They looked like Apple products. It looked like an Apple store. It had the classic Apple store winding staircase and weird upstairs sitting area.

"The employees were even wearing those blue t-shirts with the chunky Apple name tags around their necks."

But a brief check on the Apple website showed the company had only opened a handful of official outlets in China - in Beijing and Shanghai.

"Of course, this was a total Apple store rip-off," she said.

"A beautiful rip-off - a brilliant one - the best rip-off store we had ever seen (and we see them every day).

"But some things were just not right; the stairs were poorly made. The walls hadn't been painted properly.

"Apple never writes 'Apple Store' on its signs - it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit.

"Being the curious types that we are, we struck up some conversation with these salespeople who, hand to God, all genuinely think they work for Apple."

As the saying goes, ‘Crime happens when you least expected!’ Nothing is to be taken for granted at this time of age. How do you avoid being duped? The failsafe list is below:

1)    Official website research – Browse onto the official website of your product to search for authorised dealers.

2)    Hotline enquiry – Call the hotline for your authorised dealer. If this is unavailable, email the brand direct.

Bibliography

Reference Cited

iPHONEY: FAKE APPLE STORE EXPOSED IN CHINA (2011) [Online] Yahoo! Available from: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/iphoney-fake-apple-store-exposed-china-232335905.html

[Accessed: 22 JUL 2011]