A group of people who’ve bought new iPhone 4s in China are claiming that they’re actually refurbished iPhones. Their evidence is that the warranties, which typically last a year for new phones, only had warranties as little as 6 months.
This is what happened according to two customers who bought new iPhones at the Xidan Joy City Apple Store in Beijing on July 9th: when they got home, they saw that their warranties only lasted to January and April of the following year. That’s three to six months shorter than it should be. When they tried to return the phones, they were rebuffed by an Apple employee who said, “It’s impossible that we sold refurbished cellphones”.
If this is true, and it’s a serious allegation, it will be damning for Apple. More likely though, it’s a computer error or a one-off mistake by an employee or even a group just rabbling to rouse rather than the smoking gun that’ll lead to more revelations. Or well, that’s what’d I expect from a company as in the spotlight as Apple. We’ll keep tabs on this as it goes along. [Apple Insider]
