We can only assume that this is karma for all those “Louis Vuitton” bags…
Customers at an Apple Store in the Chinese city of Kunming berated staff and demanded refunds on Friday after the shop was revealed to be an elaborate fake, sparking a media and Internet frenzy.
Long a target of counterfeiters and unauthorised resellers, Apple was alerted to the near flawless fake shop by an American blogger living in the southwestern city, more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from the nearest genuine Apple stores in Beijing and Shanghai.
“When I heard the news I rushed here immediately to get the receipt, I am so upset,” a customer surnamed Wang told Reuters, near tears. “With a store this big, it looks so believable who would have thought it was fake?”
Wang, a petite, 23-year-old office worker who would not give her first name, spent 14,000 yuan ($2,170) last month buying Macbook Pro 13-inch and a 3G iPhone from the Kunming store. She wasn’t issued a receipt at the time, with staff telling her to come back later.
“Where’s my receipt, you promised me my receipt last month!” Wang shouted at employees, before being whisked away to an upstairs room.
Staff were also angry at the unwanted attention after more than 1,000 media outlets picked up the story and pictures of the store from the BirdAbroad blog.
“The media is painting us to be a fake store but we don’t sell fakes, all our products are real, you can check it yourself,” said one employee, who didn’t want to give his name.
“There is no Chinese law that says I can’t decorate my shop the way I want to decorate it.”
Although several people were upset at the fugazi Apple store, not everyone shared that sentiment.
“As long as their products are real its okay — after all, you enter a store not to look at anything except their products,” said Hu Junkai, 18. “If the products you buy are real why do you care whether the store is a copy?”
While it appears true that the products sold are legitimate Apple products, there’s no way in hell that we’d spend 2 racks on computers and iphones and not get a damn receipt!
Would you be mad if you bought a genuine product from a “fake” store??
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