What you need to know
- A UK company was found to be selling counterfeit Apple MacBook chargers.
- The company has been fined £100,000 after the chargers were found to be unsafe.
The company says it had no idea they weren't legit.
Apple has warned about the safety implications of using fake chargers before but that normally relates to iPhones and iPads. One UK company has been supplying fake MacBook MagSafe chargers with testing proving they were unsafe – resulting in a £100,000 ($140,000) fine.
As reported by the Bournemouth Echo, more than 1,400 items were CK IT Solutions Limited when trading standards officers raided the company's base at Holes Bay Business Park. The move came after a shipment of 220 items had been held at East Midlands Airport in October 2018 over concerns that they might be fake.
Further tests found that despite the company claiming they came from the same factory as Apple's own chargers, the ones it was selling were not only counterfeit products but also posed a safety risk as well.
Syan Ventom, prosecuting, said a small number of the chargers were sent for testing and analysis, with them deemed to be counterfeit and unsafe as they posed a risk of electrical shock.
The chargers in question had an Apple logo on them and were essentially indistinguishable from the real deal.
Mitigating, Richard Tutt, said the company believed it was buying genuine products from a factory that manufactured items for Apple.
Regardless, the company is having to pay around $140,000 as a result of the court hearing.
At a hearing on May 7, Bournemouth Crown Court ruled the company had derived a benefit of £100,000 from its criminal conduct and the business was told to pay a confiscation order for this total sum within three months under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
There are plenty of third-party chargers out there that are very respectable including some of the best USB-C MacBook Pro chargers around. There really is no reason to risk buying counterfeit electrical items in this day and age.
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