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."
iPhoney: Fake Apple Store Exposed In China - Yahoo! News
China closes fake Apple stores
Chinese officials have found five fake Apple stores in a south-western city and ordered two of them to suspend business while they are investigated, a local government website said.
Officials could not do anything about the other three stores - which prominently displayed Apple signs and logos - because they did not find any fake Apple products for sale, according to a report by a local newspaper posted on the Kunming city government's website.
The investigation follows a blog post last week by an American woman who lives in Kunming, in Yunnan province, who stumbled across three shops masquerading as bona fide Apple stores in the city. She took photos and posted them on her BirdAbroad blog.
She said they were modelled on the company's iconic stores right down to the winding staircase and the staff wearing the customary blue T-shirts.
After the blog appeared on Wednesday, the Kunming Trade and Industry Bureau inspected more than 300 electronics stores in Kunming and found the five fake Apple stores, the city government's website said.
The maker of the iPhone and other hit gadgets has four company stores in China - two in Beijing and two in Shanghai - and various official resellers.
The proliferation of the fake stores underlines the slow progress that China's government is making in countering a culture of rampant piracy and widespread production of bogus goods that is a major irritant in relations with trading partners.
China closes fake Apple stores - Yahoo! News
