How to Detect a Fake Apple Lightning Cable or Apple Power Adapter
Apple recently filed a lawsuit against Mobile Star LLC for selling counterfeit power adapters and charging cables on Amazon and said about 90 percent of official chargers sold on Amazon are fake. This is a huge supply. Here’s how to find out if you have one of them.
First statistics, according to the Apple patent , Apple purchased several power adapters and cables from Amazon and conducted a series of tests with them. Here’s what Apple discovered in the patent:
Over the past nine months, Apple, as part of its ongoing brand protection efforts, has acquired more than 100 iPhones, Apple food and Lightning cables sold as genuine sellers on Amazon.com and shipped through Amazon “Fulfillment by Amazon”. program. Internal review and testing of these Apple products has shown that nearly 90% of these products are counterfeit. Apple is concerned that consumers are being tricked into buying counterfeit products on Amazon.com and elsewhere into the mistaken belief that they are buying genuine Apple products. In addition to Apple’s serious concerns about the safety of its consumers, these products, which are always poorly designed, are unlikely to perform as well as genuine Apple products. As a result, consumers will mistakenly think that Apple products are substandard and lose credibility with the Apple brand, damaging the enormous reputation associated with Apple’s trademarks.
When it comes to electricity, it’s not worth messing around with fakes, as they can either ruin your device, charge it slowly, or in the worst case, start a fire.
In this particular case, the problem is that Mobile Star LLC was an official Amazon seller, which means that when you look at the Amazon page, it looks like you are buying it directly from Amazon and not some random third party seller. For its part, Amazon revoked the right to sell Mobile Star and, according to MacRumors, stopped selling those specific knockoffs . However, you may have gotten it through Mobile Star or other retailers.
Even today, looking at the first search result for ” Apple Power Adapter” reveals many counterfeit claims as recently as last week . We’ve seen how to detect old fake chargers before , but the new smaller adapter and lightning rods are slightly different.
For Lightning cables, the process is detailed enough for Apple to have its own support page . First, Apple recommends using only Apple-certified accessories, which means they have the “Made for iPod / iPhone / iPad” logo on them. Otherwise, the certified third-party cable will have the MFi logo on the packaging .
If you have an official cable, it will say “Designed by Apple in California,” followed by “Assembled in China,” “Assembled in Vietnam,” or “Indústria Brasileira,” followed by a 12-digit serial number. If it does not contain any information, then it is a fake.
Iron itself is worth looking at. Apple’s support page shows several ways to detect a counterfeit by looking at the end of a Lightning cable:
There are also several possible ways to detect a counterfeit on the USB end . The official cable has gold plated contacts, trapezoidal locks and a smooth surface. Counterfeits tend to have rectangular interlocks, silver-plated contacts, and a generally rough surface.
Power adapters are a little more difficult to find. The above shows what the official Type A adapter looks like, and apart from the obvious differences in the case itself, you want to find minor differences in the text itself, including typos. Most often found in the first line “Designed by Apple in California.” Counterfeits often read something like “Designed by Abble in California” or “Designed by China in California.” Otherwise, forgeries are often just poorly designed and you can remove the case or pry out the prongs by hand.
Counterfeits are a bad idea just because they pose a security risk and counterfeits are no different. If you think you have it, it’s best to get a replacement. Amazon’s return policies are generally quite lenient if you bought it there, although you might be better off just heading to the Apple Store for an official (or officially licensed) replacement.