Over 90% of ‘Genuine’ Apple Accessories on Amazon Are Fake, Lawsuit Says

Over 90 percent of Apple power accessories on Amazon might be fake, according to a lawsuit obtained by Patently Apple.

Cupertino filed the lawsuit Monday against Amazon vendor Mobile Star, accusing the company of selling counterfeit mobile power accessories under the Apple brand. In the lawsuit, Apple claims that they bought “well over 100 iPhone devices, Apple power products, and Lightning cables,” the majority of which were purchased from Mobile Star. And in their testing, they discovered that around 90 percent of all of the power accessories were fake, according to Business Insider.

The Amazon listings for the power adapters and cables claimed that the products were genuine, and Mobile Star even branded them with Apple trademarks to make the accessories seem authentic, in a “scheme to deceive customers,” according to the lawsuit. In response, Cupertino has requested for the court to place an injunction against the sale of the counterfeited goods. Additionally, Apple has demanded that Mobile Star turn over all of the products and pay Apple damages, according to Fortune. The e-commerce giant has since revoked Mobile Star’s selling rights.

The purchases were made over the last nine months, and — importantly — were purchased directly from Amazon, and not from a third-party vendor hosted on the e-commerce site, Motherboard reported. But in addition to infringing on Apple patents and trademarks, Mobile Star may also be putting their customers at risk, Cupertino argued.

Many of the Amazon listings, that Apple used as figures in the lawsuit, suggest that Mobile Star’s fake power accessories were defective and possibly dangerous. The counterfeited goods were reportedly built with “inferior” and missing parts, and have not gone through the same rigorous testing that genuine Apple products do. This puts the accessories at risk of catching fire or sending electric shocks to users, Business Insider reported.

As an example, one Amazon customer posted a review and attached image of a burnt charger allegedly sold by Mobile Star. “After just a few hours of use on the very first day, the charger literally caught on fire,” the Amazon customer wrote.

Apple is asking for $2 million for each trademark infringement, and up to $150,000 per copyright violation, AppleInsider reported.