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A Chinese reseller, posting on the reseller Website EC21.com, is offering to sell the non-existent Apple iPhone 5.
As the launch of the latest AppleiPhone draws near, eager consumers should be cautious when buying devices from unauthorized resellers online, because they might be getting a fake.
Some experts estimate that up to 10 percent of technology products worldwide, or roughly $100 billion worth of technology product sales each year, are for counterfeit or fake products. Many of these products make their way into the U.S. market through online marketplaces, like eBay or Craigslist.
"Counterfeit devices are a very big problem in the secondary market," said Robert Auray, president and CEO GENCO Marketplace, a division of GENCO ATC . His company is a legitimate player in the secondary market. "One of the things we do is to control where the products are sold and to enforce protections for the customers who buy from us."
While Auray's company buys excess inventory from big retailers and manufacturers and then sells those devices to other sellers who may list products on a site like eBay or Amazon, the company says that all of its products are from legitimate suppliers. And it guarantees to its customers that the devices are authentic.
But Auray admitted that the launch of new and hot products, such as Apple's iPhone 4S, tends to attract the sale of counterfeit devices in many marketplaces. In fact, several Chinese online stores, including the business-to-business Website EC21.com, have already been selling the new "iPhone 5." Of course, the big catch is that there is noiPhone 5, since Apple announced the iPhone 4S earlier this week as its latest generation iPhone.
A popular online marketplace in China called Taobao.com, which has some 370 million registered users, was listing the fake iPhone 5 for as low as 200 Yuan or about $31, according to the Agence France Press.
Some of the smartphones offered are called "HiPhone 5" or "iiPhone 5" in an attempt to avoid accusations that they are counterfeit devices. But pictures of the devices show the Apple logo and look exactly like iPhones.
Chinese authorities have already seized fake versions of the iPhone 5, which the news agency Xinhua reported earlier this week.
A brief survey of popular consumer shopping Web sites in the U.S., such as eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon, didn't turn up what looked like illicit iPhone 5 or even iPhone 4S smartphones. But Theresa Mock, vice president of global marketing at Opsec Security, which helps companies protect their brands by scouring the Web for fakes, said counterfeits are likely coming.
The iPhone 4S will be launched in the U.S. and in six other countries next week. And experts are anticipating it to sell very well in all markets. Mock said that counterfeiters typically seed the market early with fake products right before a highly anticipated product launch, such as the one of the iPhone 4S.
Last year, Opsec compiled a report that found in the weeks and days before an official launch of a new smartphone, several suspicious listings for products from six manufacturers, namely Nokia, RIM, Apple, HTC, Samsung, and Motorola on reseller Websites. Opsec said that many of these products were being offered for deep discounts, with one seller offering 1,000 units per week at 65 percent below list price. The listings for devices advertised on the Websites also had features listed that hadn't been announced yet by the manufacturers.
"When it came in the mail, it was obviously a fake," she said. "The packaging didn't look right. The icons on the device and the logo from the company were a little different."
To help ensure you don't buy a fake iPhone 4S or any other kind of device, CNET assembled these questions that you should ask yourself before hitting the "buy" button.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20117021-266/experts-warn-shoppers-of-fake-iphone-4ss-online/#ixzz1a6kDda4k
