Beware! Your Slick Phone May Be Phoney

Mushrooming ‘Assembly Hubs’ In Delhi Are Importing Spurious Parts To Create Fake High-End Smartphones.

- Chayyanika Nigam

AMREESH Singh was jubilant when he came across a website that was offering iPhone 8 Plus on “a huge” discount. He quickly placed an order and the phone was duly delivered to his house.

“In a few weeks, some applications started lagging and needed multiple reboots. I realised, something was wrong. I visited an Apple store only to learn that it was fake. I was shocked. I approached the police. My money has gone down the drain,” said the Patel Nagar resident.

Akash Laddha had a similar experience. He purchased a Moto G5s from an online shopping portal but within a month the phone started conking off. “I went to a nearby service centre. They told me that the phone’s display screen, speakers and charger were all fake,” he said.

The two are not alone. Rackets are secretly importing spurious spare parts like processors and cameras from China, Taiwan, Dubai and elsewhere to create exact replicas of high-end smartphones in Delhi’s mushrooming ‘assembly hubs’.

Those with specialisation in mobile phone repairing help in software upload. Boxes of relevant top brands are arranged for packaging. Consignments are then also sent to online shopping portals.

The hotspots are Gaffar Market, Karol Bagh, Lajpat Nagar, Palika Bazaar and Nehru Place, revealed a Mail Today investigation based on information from police officers handling fake phone cases.

This reporter also posed as a potential customer at several shops in these markets and they were ready to sell duplicate mobile phones.

Cheating is detected only when phones reach service centres. And they are reaching there, thick and fast. Complaints from cheated customers are spiralling and some rattled phone firms are also writing to cops who are planning a crackdown.