Piracy in China has been moved up a notch according to an Associated Press story that reports some budding entrepreneurs in the city of Kunming have opened fake Apple stores.An American who lives in Kunming in southern Yunnan province said today that she and her husband stumbled on three shops masquerading as bona fide Apple stores in the city a few days ago.
She took photos and posted them on her blog that show staff in blue T-shirts with the Apple logo chatting to customers in a white-walled shop with minimalist decor and signs advertising the iPad 2.
These three stores are not among the authorized resellers listed on Apple Inc.'s website.
The 27-year-old blogger, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the set-up of the stores was so convincing that the employees themselves seemed to believe they worked for Apple.
"It looked like an Apple store. It had the classic Apple store winding staircase and weird upstairs sitting area. The employees were even wearing those blue T-shirts with the chunky Apple name tags around their necks," she wrote on her blog.
"But some things were just not right: the stairs were poorly made. The walls hadn't been painted properly. Apple never writes 'Apple Store' on its signs — it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit."
A worker at the fake Apple store on Zhengyi Road in Kunming, where most of the photos were taken told The Associated Press that they are an "Apple store" before hanging up.
And we thought the best they could do was fake great Louis Vuitton bags. I learn something new every day.
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