Apple has a special team tracking down fake accessories on social media

Apple is known for making its own accessories – from AirPods and the Apple Pencil to Lightning cables and iPhone chargers. These are quite expensive but there are also really cheap alternatives sold on social media like Facebook and Instagram and made by relatively unknown Chinese manufacturers. The difference in price between the originals and the fake accessories has opened a large market niche. Now Apple is trying to stop the selling of fake accessories online by employing a whole team to track down and limit these sales.

It has been reported by Bloomberg that a person working in the cybersecurity sector had a life-threatening incident with such a counterfeit unit -- an iPhone charger sold on Instagram. Andrea Stroppa borrowed the counterfeit charger from a friend and it exploded while charging. Such are the dangers of buying counterfeit Apple accessories, and Apple is trying to work against vendors selling those on Instagram and Facebook.

The attractive prices of the counterfeit units have made their sellers millions of dollars worldwide, and social media has not yet found a way to stop them. In a research paper by Ghost Data Team, Bloomberg found that 163 sellers of fake Apple accessories were dealing on Instagram during the last month (via 9to5Mac). The most sold units were replicas of the AirPods Pro and the MagSafe charger. The prices were $25 and $5.50 respectively -- compared to $249 and $39 for the originals.

In the same research it’s been reported that one seller had a gross of $140,000 for a single day. It’s being discussed that not all buyers of these fake products know that they are actually replicas and fully understand the consequences of buying such a product. An employee of Apple spoke to Bloomberg and stated that Apple is concerned about the risks these devices pose to the users. Apple confirmed that the company has a dedicated team to fight against such sales: