Apple Blacklisted By Chinese Consumer Watchdog

A Chinese consumer rights group has slammed Apple’s after-sales service as unfair and placed it on an “integrity blacklist” after numerous complaints about maintenance and support.

Apple was blacklisted by the China Consumer Association in the southern province of Guangdong, who released a report citing several serious problems with the after-sales customer service that Apple has been providing. In one instance, a customer was given a replacement iPhone 4 to effect a “repair”, yet Apple didn’t extend the warranty. To be honest, this is standard practice in most places since the new device assumes the identity of the old device, so we’re not sure why the group is upset about this.

Incredibly though, Apple has a clause in their repair policy apparently stating that they can use old spare parts to repair its products and requires that customers agree to hand over any defective parts back to Apple. Unsurprisingly, this raises suspicions that Apple is using these knackered parts to fix other customer’s devices. This doesn’t quite make sense to us, since the “repaired” device either wouldn’t work, would work poorly, or fail completely shortly afterwards, prompting complaints and further product returns. Finally, Apple refuses to accept any responsibility for damage to a product made while in transit to the customer, which violates Chinese consumer rights laws (and those of most other civilised countries, too). There’s a saying that all publicity is good publicity. We disagree.