Home : September 26 2013 Computer News : The unreal deal: How to ID phony phones, counterfeit CPUs, and other tech traps

The unreal deal: How to ID phony phones, counterfeit CPUs, and other tech traps

September 26, 2013

Counterfeit tech carries significantly higher consequences than a fake Rolex or a hastily copied handbag. Hapless individuals and business owners can find themselves stuck with tens of thousands of dollars of useless fakes pawned off as the real thing. A phony app masquerading as the real deal can infect your business’s devices with malware, opening the door for even more damage. And at the very worst, counterfeit products have been implicated in serious injuries and even deaths, such as when poorly made fake power adapters electrocuted several iPhone users. As counterfeits grow increasingly sophisticated—and increasingly brazen—it’s harder for even sharp-eyed buyers to differentiate an authentic product from a fake. Here’s how to tell a legitimate product from a phony one, in five of today’s most susceptible market segments. Smartphones and tablets Counterfeits tend to follow the market, and lately they’ve been going mobile: Smartphones and tablets are becoming hot properties for fraudsters. Not surprisingly, iPads are increasingly common targets for counterfeiting. Street-vendor items, especially overseas, are almost always fakes, and eBay items that are priced to move are frequently scams. Even retailers are prone to acquiring and selling fake gear, often unknowingly: A scammer simply purchases an item from the retailer, unwraps it, replaces it with a fake, and then returns the imitation item to the store for a refund. Even if the retailer inspects the gear to avoid the old brick-in-a-box scam, the store remains none the wiser since the fake, on cursory inspection, looks legit. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2049105/the-unreal-deal-how-to-id-phony-phones-counterfeit-cpus-and-other-tech-traps.html#tk.rss_howto